October 2011!

I just finished writing my 59 page thesis for my Master's degree. A sense of relief has been felt in our house since I have been able to get more sleep and have not been doing homework for 2-3 hours every single night after the boys have gone to bed. Tom is on a campout tonight with the scouts.

Each Tuesday morning, our ward has a playgroup that meets together and does different fun activities. This has been the best thing to help me get to know so many cool women in our ward and their cute kids. Usually Jessica DeGroot organizes these activities but I am filling in for 3 months since she just had a baby. I am not naturally crafty and was so proud of myself for putting this together as a "cookies and costumes" party. Such a fun group and turnout! The donuts have eyeballs and the oreos are spiders. Here is a picture of our crew. Austin is a fireman and we were glad to see the safety reflector tape on his costume works well! He pretty much outshined everyone else haha. Axel is a doggie and he loves that suit but gets too hot for the dog face that sits on his head. I have a wig on-that is not my natural hair thank goodness.

Earlier in the month, the boys helps me poke these faces in our pumpkins. Austin wanted to take a picture with his face being "sad". He was very proud of his sad face (whatever makes you happy right?). Axel and Austin both kept ripping the pieces out of the pumpkin so we took a picture fast while the pieces were in the pumpkins and still working:)

Austin's face cannot contain any more excitement about this pumpkin! Glad he decided to have a "happy" picture.

As a mother, you just have to laugh sometimes at the impossible odds of actually cooking dinner without your kids destroying something while you turn your back for one minute. Austin found the wax paper and found it amusing to throw it out in front of him and watch it fly. When Axel saw what Austin was doing, he joined in the fun. I knew I would laugh about it one day so I took a picture! I'm already laughing about it!

Axel catch up

Here is our sweet little guy who a few months ago would crumble into tears when Austin would come up to him and scream in his face for fun. That's what older brothers are for right? To make you tough! Austin got his joys out of making Axel cry so we kept telling Axel that he needed to be tough and not cry so easy. After a few weeks he started trying so hard not to cry. Sometimes he would buckle but other times he was able to hold a poker face. Now Axel has mastered the art of screaming for fun. This is his favorite hobby! These two guys get each other screaming for fun and it's hard to believe it used to make Axel cry. He loves making a "t" sound and flapping his lips with a little bit of spit. He is highly attached to his daddy. He follows Tom everywhere. If Tom isn't home then he follows mommy. He loves to grab onto our legs to make sure we can't do anything! He is a great sleeper. He smiles so easily. He has a lot of enthusiasm and loves to get excited about anything and everything. We went to the pumpking patch yesterday so he has been trying to pick up the pumpkins!

Burns Park and Elder Mead!

Tom now teaches primary and loved that the singing leader had this competition of the kids buttoning up a shirt, putting on a tie, putting on big shoes, and holding scriptures by the time the primary sang, "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission". So we did it for Family Home Evening. We were all cracking up hysterically as I played the keyboard and Tom helped Austin get the clothes on. Austin thought it was great! He knew the song by heart after we did this activity a few times.

The Wonder Place

Grandma and Grandpa Mead gave the boys a little birthday money so we headed to The Wonder Place. The Wonder Place has so many fantastic things for kids to explore and helped keep us busy while daddy was at an 8 hour boy scout training on a Saturday:( The boys have put pieces of material over wind holes. They are watching the material hit the ceiling and waiting for it to fall back down! The boys were playing at the indoor sand table. Axel wanted to make sure the whole room had some sand so he was sharing freely! Austin wanted to see if he could cover his whole head with sand and came out with "sandy brown" hair.

They have so many blocks and older kids usually kick Austin out of their projects since he likes to knock them over:) An 8 year old boy let Austin help and Austin was thrilled!

Axel is playing in the water. They have baby seats and he splashes so crazy and is dodging his splash in this picture!

They have an area for the kids to "treat" the animals. Axel just gave this dog a shot. I hope the dog is ready to wrestle Axel! Dogpile takes on a new meaning.

They have a stage and tons of puppets and costumes. This place is amazing. I don't even have pictures of every activity there!

This was Austin's expression when I asked him to smile for the camera!