Our week with Bailey

I don’t have much time, but I’m drowning with pictures I want to share so I’ll try and be brief.

Last week (or maybe two weeks ago, who knows anymore) we had the honor of having my niece Bailey for 5 days while my Sis-In-Law and Bro-In-Law were attending a wedding in Mexico. They dropped her off early Thursday morning and we had her until late Monday night. She is 20 months so it kept me on my toes and constantly busy, but she really is such a sweet easy going toddler with great manners. The hardest part in my opinion was dropping off and picking up my kiddos from school with an extra kid in tow, tons of loading and unloading. It honestly was really fun week. The cousins had a blast together and Bailey was so occupied here that she didn’t have a second to think about anything else. We had lots of visitors throughout the weekend from Mimi, Aunt Rose, Aunt Bev, & Uncle Don so we were never short of hands or entertainment. Mimi even came with us (and helped SO much) to the Zoo last Saturday which was an absolute blast! Okay, that about sums up the writing portion, now onto the million pictures I have from the 5 days with our sweet niece.

This pretty much describes her exact feeling about her Cousin Owen.

Here is a brief overview of how life goes with 3 kids ages 5 and under:

Bathtubs are full,

So full that after the first bath together we decided to let Owen bathe on his own and just put the girls in so they had room to move :)

 

Car Rides were REALLY loud and snacks were everywhere,

 

Meal times were messy and full of giggles,

 

Trips to the store required a bigger cart than usual,

 

Broncos Games were full of cheering (maybe more like screaming) from the three cutest Bronco’s Fans EVER,

We even had Mr. Travis, B’s Best Friend, over for dinner and to watch the game!

 

Duck feeding & a trip to the park was a MUST,

 

Playtime around the house was never short of amazing,

 

What would a week be without matching girls?

They really are the cutest. They look like sisters. O’ my word they are going to be so much trouble when they grow up!!!

 

And to end this wonderful post, here was our very fun trip to the zoo with Mimi :)

Mama Zebra nursing her baby. So sweet!

The kids had a BLAST. Thank you again Mimi for all your help, Love you mucho!

 

I’d love to write more but that’s gonna have to be it for now folks. Hope you enjoyed the photo’s. I am truly honored to have had this amazing week with my sweet niece and the precious time it was for the cousins. Can you tell I am one proud Aunt? What a blast, can’t wait for the next time :)

Chatfield Botanical Gardens Pumpkin Patch

Last Tuesday, Autumn’s Preschool hosted their annual family night at the Chatfield Botanical Gardens Pumpkin Patch. We had planned to go with our friend’s the Snide Family, but unfortunately their oldest son got sick and they weren’t able to go. Since we had been planning to go for a few weeks, we decided to still go as a family. Of course that day the high was 37 degrees. Yes, the HIGH! It actually snowed for a couple hours earlier in the day and I had been sick with Strep (my second round, lucky me) a couple days prior. Needless to say, the conditions weren't ideal by any means, but we knew if we didn’t go then, we probably wouldn’t get a chance to go(at least as a family) with our crazy schedule for the remainder of October. So we went. It was cold, okay more like FREEZING….literally! We still managed to have a great, okay scratch that, wonderful time as a family at the Pumpkin Patch. We didn’t get pictures of everything as our hands were ice cubes, so taking our gloves off to get the camera out was not always priority, but there was lots to do there. Jumpers, Pumpkin Picking, Face Painting, Barrel Train Rides, Christian Concert, Food, Kettle Corn, Corn Maze, Hay Rides, and much more. Here are some pictures from our time at the Pumpkin Patch that felt as if we were at a River of Lights with the crazy cold weather.

Hay Ride with my cutie pies!

My Sweet ‘HEART’

This is quite possibly the worst Bat Face Painting I have ever seen, but it was free and Owen was happy so who cares.

Unfortunately due to the freeze, a lot of the Pumpkins got destroyed and were all rotten :(

Yep, they are the cutest things EVER!

This jumpy thing was the favorite for sure!

Autumn was bound and determined to jump on this despite the fact that she kept getting bounced off by the big kids :) She is so funny and one determined little stinker!

“Mom, look at me!!!!”

Corn Maze fun

Hitching the Hayride back.

Brrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Such a fun filled family night!

Owen’s Family Pumpkin Project

Owen’s teacher tries to send home a ‘Family Project’ every month. The purpose is to bring families together, practice teamwork, and most importantly to have fun talking/working as a family. This month the assignment was to decorate an 8x11 pumpkin as a family using materials you find around the house. Once the Pumpkin was decorated, you had to help your child write a short Paragraph about how you decorated your ‘Family Pumpkin’. Here are some pictures of our first family project…

We started by using Burlap and Cardboard as our background. Then Owen & I collected leaves from the backyard to glue on the bottom of our page for our Pumpkin to lay on.

Owen painted the Pumpkin Orange and then Autumn used Q-Tips to add some Polka Dots to the Pumpkin. Then we added black construction paper & purple glitter to make the Jack-O-Lantern Face for our Pumpkin.

Then Owen wrote out the Paragraph describing how we decorated our Pumpkin. He did an AMAZING job writing. His handwriting has got so good this school year and it’s only October!!!!

Our Final Product. We named him Gourd Glitter (Owen & Autumn chose the name)!

And here is Owen’s very legible & proportioned Handwriting Skills. Yes, I am a VERY proud Mama!!!!!

Brandon the Watch D.O.G

Owen’s Elementary School has this really cool volunteer program just for Dad’s called Watch D.O.G.S which stands for Dads Of Great Students. The purpose is since most Dad’s work full time and aren’t able to volunteer very often, is to have the Dad come in for the entire school day (8am-3pm) so they can just take off one full day instead of an hour here and an hour there. The dad’s check in, get a cool T-Shirt to wear for the, and get a very busy full schedule for the day. The tasks involve Crossing Guard, Monitoring the Halls, Library Assistance, Random Classroom Assistance, Their Childs Classroom Assistant, Playing with kids on the playground that may be looking alone or sad, eating lunch with kids, etc. It’s a really neat program and of course my AMAZING Husband jumped at the opportunity to volunteer, especially since his days off are during the school week. Owen absolutely LOVED having his Dad at school for the day :) It was a long day for sure, but it’s something Brandon will cherish being able to do forever. Owen even got a hand delivered letter to his class the next day that Brandon got to write especially for him. He was SO excited to show me his letter after school. Can’t wait to hear about the next time he gets to be a Watch D.O.G in February.

Autumn’s ‘All About Me’ Board

Autumn got to do her 1st school project last week. She was given an ‘All About Me’ Board that she was to complete at home. The next day she got to present her Board to the class and bring a special item for Show & Tell. She had a blast working on her assignment at home and she selected her very special Stuffed Giraffe ‘Grumpy’ to take along for Show & Tell. Her teacher said she did a wonderful job presenting to the class! Way to go Autumn, Mommy & Daddy are SO proud of you!!!!!

This is super acurate and describes our sweet girl perfectly :)