ET's Prechool Conferences...

I met with ET's preschool teacher on November 3rd for conferences. I cannot tell you how excited I was for this meeting! I am happy to announce that everything is going great for ET at school. He listens well and plays well with others and is adapting wonderfully. All the things a parent wants to hear.

He is actually one of only two kids in the classroom that will start to be sent home with books because both teachers think he is capable to start reading. WOW! Ms. Laurie also said that ET is quick minded. He is usually the first one to finish his work and ask what they are supposed to do next. She gave me an example of them doing math one day and he was able to count and add numbers remarkably well.
I asked her to tell me how he interacts with friends. In particular I wanted to know if he tends to lead or follow more often. She said that he tends to lead outside on the playground more often than inside.

One of the things that the teacher showed me was a self portrait ET had drawn in school. I think she said they look to see a minimum of at least 5 parts of the body. ET's drawing displayed well over 5 parts. On that same note, I am just amazed with how great of an artist ET is becoming. It seems lately that he can draw anything with no help at all. He is just able to picture it in his mind and draw it on paper. A huge skill in my opinion. Here is a couple samples of his work he has made for me lately. It is hard to keep up on which ones are my favorites because he seriously loves to draw everyday.


A truck...and many, many staples.

Our family...

A car going up a snow-capped mountain...

A treasure map...

A helicopter...

A dinosaur...

Our family in our house...

One of his largest creations yet...

He tried spelling, "Hurry, hurry! Drive the fire truck!" (This is from a song we sing with the daycare kids.)

A few more trucks...


and a burning building.

Potty Training!

How ADORABLE is this!!!! I am so glad I could catch a picture of Nate going potty for his second time! On Halloween night, he surprised us by going potty for the first time. This picture is from the morning after (November 1). Last week he went a total of 4 times on the potty! We don't plan to take this serious for quite some time (being that he is only 21 months), but practice is key. :)

What a cutie-pie!

Halloween Night!

Trick-or-treating was pretty successful for us. This was Nate's first time, and he definitely caught on quick. We brought the wagon along in case the kids needed a break. We planned to go around the block, but there were so many homes giving out candy that we eventually started skipping houses, and then walked the last stretch home without any more stops. It was a lot of work to get Nate in and out of the wagon at each stop, so half of the time we carried him. At each house we would put Nate down and he would walk up to the front door with ET to get his candy. He was so good, and never showed an ounce of shyness.

ET was so excited to go out and definitely had a good time, but he was very tired by the end of the night (he had daycare, and school this day as well, so it was a lot to pack in). He was so tired at one point he even stated, "we already went to this house." He also kept telling us he wanted to "ding it" (ring the doorbell) each time we reached a new home. So cute!

Nate did an excellent job and was a trooper through it all. He kept his mittens and hat on the whole time, and never whined a bit. He truly was happy to just be getting candy. We laughed because no matter how heavy his bucket was getting, he had a death grip on it and was not going to let it go. ET was even asking me to hold his bag, but not Nate. He knew all to well what he was hanging on to. :)

This is my favorite picture! We took this pic before eating dinner. I wanted a picture of them by their pumpkins before it got too dark outside.

We dressed the boys in two layers of clothing under their costumes. It was a beautiful night, and none of us were the least bit cold.

I put the black face mask under ET's helmet and it looked like it was part of the costume. ET was so happy when people would tell him that he looked like a real firefighter. He was so proud of his costume he wanted to drive over to Papa Bob, and Gma Darlyn's house to show them. He said, "they would love to see me." :)


This picture is not very clear, but it was the first house. Being that it was Nate's first year trick-or-treating I had to take a pic. :)





I love Halloween, but seriously, why do we do this? Any other day of the year it would not be okay to send our children out to strangers home and ask for an EXTREME amount of candy. Now it sits in our home, making us feel guilty for eating too much or making us miserable because we ache for just one more piece, and that is just my own will power I battle with. I didn't mention the BEGGING that comes from the children each night. Seriously, does anyone want any candy?
This stuff is going into the garbage in a day or two...or three... :) Regardless, Halloween is so much fun!!

Halloween Party!

Here are the pics from our Halloween party for the daycare kids. We had blast, of course! One of their favorite activities were the mummy races, and the GIANT mess they had fun making afterward. :)




This picture just cracks me up! :) Of course my little ones want to do everything the big kids do. I love it!

Toilet paper party!

Our little GENIUS!

Excuse me a minute while I brag about our son! :)

ET had his early childhood screening last week. The lady that tested him said that Emmett ranked off the charts. Apparently, she even said she only sees high scores such as his every once and a while. We are just bursting with pride!

ET came back from the appointment and immediately he came up to me and said, "Thanks for being such a great teacher Mommy. They said I was really smart." Okay, okay so Jay told him to say this to me, but I'll take it! :)

We praised ET so much after his appointment that he apparently wanted to continue to show off how smart he is. Over the last week, ET has put together all of his puzzles in his room! ALL of them! He even put together one puzzle that had one hundred pieces, and a Spiderman puzzle that has 150 pieces!!!! Yes, he did these ALL ON HIS OWN! Seriously, this kid is AMAZING! :)

These are just a few of the puzzles he put together. The dog puzzle on the lower right has one hundred pieces!


This Spiderman puzzle took him nearly a week to put together, but we was not going to give up. WOW!

Halloween Church Party (Saturday, October 29)...

We went to the annual Harvest Party at our church on Saturday night. They had dinner, games, cookie decorating, a bounce house, craft table, and trick-or-treating in the Sanctuary. The boys had a blast! It was fun to see Nate participate in all the games (such a difference than last year). He really did not want to be left out on anything (including throwing the darts at the wall of balloons...watch out)! :)

ET was so proud of his costume that I think wearing it was probably his favorite part of the whole evening. On the other hand, it took some convincing to get Nate to wear his costume. He eventually gave in when we told him it was just puppy dog jammies! :)