Halloween 2013

We went to a trunk or treat on Saturday.

James chose to be a train guy.  But no hat.  And then he decided to also carry the train I made for Isaac several years ago.
 

Isaac chose to be Shiny from Dinosaur Train back in July and he went to the store to pick out fabric with me and watched several hours worth of sewing while we put it together.

Camping with friends

One weekend in September we went camping with friends.  It was a little stressful at first trying to get all the campsites but then we had tons of fun.  Isaac and James were so excited to build a fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows.  Although Isaac doesn't like hot dogs and neither Isaac nor James likes roasted marshmallows.  But a fire was still exciting. 

James was jumping up and down so excited. 

Isaac was pretty happy too.  He got those glasses as a prize at school for bringing in box tops. 

It was so fun setting up tents.  Of course we need lots of help to do so. 

I wanted to take James' picture by the tent but he wanted to eat his smore.  Or really just some chocolate and then some graham crackers. 

Here's a better picture with the tent.  

Here are our friends the Lees.

Here are the Gublers.

I was so disappointed that our friend Julianne got sick so she and her mom and baby brother had to stay home.  But Brinley and her dad came.  

cooking some breakfast

Dads and kids

We went for a little hike with friends.  It went a lot better than our hike later as a family which ended in disaster.  We will leave that to your imagination. 

Oh my goodness, James and Isaac had so much fun.  James was in little boy heaven while camping and asks to go again.

On Sunday we went to Forest park for a little walk.  

Good old Saint Louis in front of the art museum

I made the kids take off their jackets to get photos of them.  We did one minute photo shoots.

some news about James

Well it took a few weeks but I finally feel like I can say that James is potty trained!  We have been accident free for almost a week.  Potty training might be one of my least favorite things but it is mostly done for now so hooray!  the #2 thing was hard and I had many doubts and many many loads of laundry and one screaming fit.  But mostly I was patient and kept on doing it and after one suppository and a few laxatives, James finally got the hang of it.  Yay for big boy James!  Now he wants to go #2 a few times a day so he can eat fruit snacks and watch a Thomas episode.

So here's a few pictures from the process:

Also, James has just been changing so much lately.  He is talking so much and telling us stories.  Lots of people have commented on how much he is talking now.  And we've been letting him try out Isaac's old balance bike.  He is slowly getting the hang of it.  I can't believe how old he is getting.

 Here is Isaac when you don't play the game exactly right...

Ok, I have one story about Isaac, too.  I went to curriculum night last week.  There I was shocked to learn about all the things they expect these kindergartners to learn in a year.  They told us that what kids learn in kindergarten now is what it used to be in first grade.  They are supposed to be reading--go from a level A to D.  And writing 45 minutes at a time by the end of the year.  I can't imagine Isaac learning all this stuff! But probably he will.  I hope he will.  At Isaac's desk was a packet of information with a note:  Please see Mrs. Ladd.  Oh, during the presentation I was wondering and wondering what Mrs. Ladd was going to say to me.  Maybe Isaac is falling behind already.  Maybe they are going to put him in "intervention"--where they take kids to get extra one on one help.  So I talked to her afterwards and my heart just melted to hear her say "I just wanted to tell you what a kind boy Isaac is.  He has just taken our special needs boy and helped him with everything.  He helps him with his lunch, he plays with him at recess, he asks for him as his bus buddy when it's time to go home.  I've really been impressed with how kind and thoughtful he is."  I said, "Is that Nevin?"  I knew Isaac had a good friend Nevin but I didn't know he had special needs.  She affirmed that was right.  Isaac is such a sweet boy.  I think he genuinely just likes Nevin as a friend and probably doesn't even notice that he is different.