Slice of Life

Man, now that Hayden is walking around I just love sitting back and watching the kids play.  Sometimes they play together, sometimes they don't, but they are always just moving, moving, moving!!

As an activity this week, I traced Kylie's body onto a huge piece of paper that Grandma Tess brought her.  Actually, the paper was too small and Kylie kept moving, so the tracing turned out really weird, but Kylie had a lot of fun coloring it!  (And the tile...)

Kylie has been so cute lately and such a copy cat.  In a good way.  When we go out for walks she demands her sunglasses now (just like me), and has been pushing her baby doll in it's stroller (just like I push Hayden), and has even been saying the same phrases to her baby doll that I say to Hayden (so she has been calling it 'little man', hahaha!).  She just cracks me up!

Then she was really cute and started posing with Hayden so I could get a picture.  Then she realized that her baby doll wasn't in the picture so she got it and Hayden proceeded to eat it.

On Saturday we ran some errands and we stopped by the Halloween store to see if we could find a costume for Hayden.  We didn't - apparently baby boys don't dress up for Halloween because every store I have been to in the past few weeks has nothing for baby boys.  But Kylie was mesmerized by the animatronics they had going on over there of all the scary things.  One was of a girl about her size with her face covered by hair and her eyes lit up.  Kylie watched the girl move her head back and forth and then took a step closer - and it lunged forward!  Kylie screamed and I couldn't stop laughing.  From then on we had to keep a 10 foot radius between us and the scary things.  She wouldn't even let me get close!

This is such a fun season and we are loving the weather down here!   Perfectly breezy in the upper 70's allows us to go outside a lot during the day which both of the kids love!  I am loving spending time with my two little silly kids!

A Visit From Grandma Tess!

I can now officially say that Hayden is walking!!  It is so fun to watch him totter around and follow Kylie as she races in circles around him.  He is so happy that he is walking as well, and insists on doing it everywhere.

On Wednesday for cub scouts we all had fun carving pumpkins as the boys earned their whittle chip card.  Kylie loved it because pumpkin is her new favorite word, and Hayden made everyone laugh at his faces as he tried eating everyone's pumpkin seeds and guts.

Friday we got to spend the day with Grandma Tess and Great-Aunt Tammy as they came through town on their way to California.  Both kids were super excited to play with someone new (as in, besides me...) and we really enjoyed their visit.

After lunch we all went out to Pioneer park and played all over the red rocks.  Kylie still doesn't know the dangers of falling off the edge, so Grandma Tess had fun chasing her around so she didn't get too close.

Hayden kicked his shoes off three times in the first five minutes, so he didn't get a lot of ground time as we had to take them off permanently.  Everyone got turns holding the little squirm ball!

Great-Aunt Tammy had never been to this park, so we took her to the narrows (where only kids can make it all the way up), the cave house, and up on Dixie Rock.  We all had a lot of fun.

Saturday morning our visitors had to leave really early, and our day wasn't as exciting with out them.  Just the boring old errand running - though Kylie was happy because we were able to buy her a new pair of church shoes.  When I took her to buy the shoes she tried on every pair of glittery or pink shoes in her size.  She is such a girl!

Getting Out of the House

Hayden has started walking!!  Well, kinda.  He is taking more steps on his own in between things and is no longer walking towards only people.  So exciting!  He has also started going down the stairs!  I have been trying to teach him that for weeks and then one day he just flipped around and slid down three stairs like it was nothing.  And he has finally figured how to hold his water bottle by himself, which is very nice.  So Hayden has done lots of growing this past week!

Kylie is still talking a lot, and much of it is still Kylie-speak, but I have been making her say sentences to ask for something and I always hear her say little sentences like "I did it!" or "I found it!"  Her favorite word right now is pumpkin (pronounced "punyun") because of all the pumpkins we have around the house for Halloween.

On Friday Brandon had a meeting all day in Cedar City, so I had the car all day!!  I never get the car on weekdays (our other one is still broken down), so we went crazy and had a lot of fun that day.  The morning we spent with Kylie's friend Kennedy.  Then we came home for lunch and then went out for the afternoon and played at the children's museum.  Kylie made some pizza and milked a cow and Hayden just loved following her around.

A favorite room in the museum is always the grocery store.  And Hayden likes the little kid area where he can play.

After the museum the kids could not resist the allure of the water fountains right next door, so they ended up playing in the water for a half hour and getting soaked!  Needless to say, they were both asleep by the time we got back home.

Saturday Brandon and I were going to go on a date, but all of our babysitters were out of town, so we decided to do a family outing instead and went to Staheli Farm.  The weather was just perfect!  First we did the corn maze, which was a little long for the kids, but they had fun picking up corn.

After the corn maze we went to see the farm animals.  Kylie was excited, but Hayden had a titan grip on me every time I got him close to a goat and kept leaning away.  I could tell he was freaked out, but he never made a sound!  I guess he was still very curious at the same time.

Then we got to play all the fun games, which wasn't really for Hayden, but Kylie loved it!

Then we were going to go to the pumpkin patch (Kylie would have loved that!), but it was already getting dark and bedtime was close and we hadn't eaten dinner yet.  I think over all that we had a fun night!

Setting Up Halloween

We have finally gotten some nice cool weather this week now that October has arrived!  We can take walks in the middle of the day without melting, and we can open our windows at night to cool the house down.  In fact, when the kids played in the kiddie pool one evening Brandon had to warm water on the stove for the pool because the kids were so cold but didn't want to get out of the water yet.  They had a cute little cuddle session afterwards all wrapped in blankets.

Since it is cold and Kylie and Hayden both love playing in the water, we have to improvise sometimes.  We filled up the sink and added bubbles and toys and they both played in the water for hours!

Hayden isn't walking yet, but it isn't for lack of trying!  This is my view practically all day as he has me walk him around:

The only time he will really walk is when Brandon and I pass him back and forth between us:

This week we got out all our Halloween decorations.  Both of the kids got super excited and we had a lot of fun dressing up in the witch's hat.

Kylie loved all my Nightmare Before Halloween figurines and had to watch the movie and play with them at the same time.  She actually really likes that movie and watches it once a month!

THEN Kylie found all the old costumes and just HAD to wear her Minnie Mouse costume from two years ago.  It's so small it doesn't eve cover her bottom anymore, but she loved it.

Even Hayden loved wearing the mouse ears!

Something that surprised me is when Kylie made a design with the window clings.  I had no idea she was capable of making a pattern or design yet!! It was so exciting and I loved that she did it completely on her own!