Fighters Unite

 

This is one well-dressed Wolverine.  I love that Ethan put the tie on to complete his look.

Very intently watching the Packers play.

A while back we had Ethan over for a playdate.  Those three boys have a ton of fun.  It's been a busy week this week.  Ty is finally swimming. I was shocked to see how well he is doing.  No life jackets, no noodle, no help from his teacher.  It's pretty exciting to know that next summer, when I take him to the pool, he'll be able to go down that slide.  He's really looking forward to that. Deacon is is swim lessons as well and doing ver well. Of course, he's not swimming on his own yet, but that will come.  Ty is also doing very well in school.  His teacher told me that he's doing really well with the reading portion of the lessons.  Yay!  I cannot wait for him to learn to read.  He's anxious to learn as well and practices on the "books" that they send home.  He'll then want to read the words he knows when we read him stories before bed.  

Benefit

The gang!  We went to a benefit for a friend's mother this two weekends ago.  We all went as flappers and gangsters.  What a great time and what incredible friends Joel and I have been blessed with. 

The boys had a blast with Kaia and Halle and I am going to frame that picture of all four of them.  Hopefully when they are all older we can get another shot just like that.  :)

All photos are courtesy of Jenna Loos.  Sorry Jenna, I totally lifted these off your blog.  Thanks for taking such great pictures.

Halloween

 

 

The whole Kelner family gets into the action for Halloween.  We have so much fun with it!  The boys had a blast trick or treating and they brought up quite the load.  We have enough candy to last us till next Halloween.  I keep sneaking some of it off to work so we can try to get rid of it. 

 This past weekend I went to Hearts at Home in Rochester.  I had a great time with some really good friends and learned a ton of things that I hope I can apply in my day to day life.  It makes me miss my own family down in Texas a ton.  Can hardly wait till March when we get to see them all again.

Fall Boat Ride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last weekend we got invited on the Sauke boat again.  It was a perfect day for it.  Beautiful, sunny, warm enough and the fall colors were so brillant.  Good thing we went out when we did.  Almost all the leaves are now off the trees. 

We had Ty's parent-teacher conference today and that went well.  Ty is where he should be and his listening skill have much improved.  At the begining of the year, it was taking several reminders for him to listen, but now he's so proud to tell me that he had no reminders that day.  She confirmed that it's gotten much better.  She does a discipline technique called "Full Bucket".  They have a paper bucket with their name on it and three stars attached to the bucket.  If they hurt somebody or don't listen to the teacher then they have to go remove a star from their bucket.  At the end of the day, they color in how many stars they have in their bucket and bring that home to the parents.  Every day is a new day so they start every day with all three stars.  If they lose all three stars, then it's called "tipping your bucket".  The student has a conference with the teacher and they have to bring a note home to the parents that the parents have to sign.  So far, Ty has not "tipped his bucket".  And so far, he's almost made two weeks with completely full buckets.  Only one more day.  We'll see if he makes it. 

I got to see Ty at his swim lessons today.  He has improved so much.  We go to the Dells tomorrow and I can't wait for him to show Joel how far he's come.  I also can't wait to see how Deacon handles does there.    

Halloween Costumes

"Wolverine, get out of my house now."
"Ha ha, Batman, I'd like to see you make me."

"Oh, I'll make you."
"Bring it."

"Ka Pow!"
"Zoinks!" (Deke would have to throw a Zoinks in there :))

"Take that, Wolverine!"

"Don't mess with Batman."

These two seriously crack me up.  Ty got his Wolverine costume this past weekend.  Deke had a batman costume and he wants to go as Scooby dressed as Batman for Halloween.  They've been putting on these costumes and having a grand old time making up elaborate stories about their characters.  

1st Boat Ride

 

 

 

 

 

We went on the Sauke boat in early September.  It was a warm enough day and we stopped at a sand bar to let the boys play in the water.  They had so much fun.  When other boats would go by there would be some pretty nice waves.  They loved them.  They would sit in the water and wait for the waves to come in.  They had so much sand in their shorts that when we got them home and bathed them, our bathtub was full of sand.  We went out on the boat this past weekend and the fall colors were amazing.  I'll post pictures soon.

1st Day of School

 

Ty's Orientation Day

Ty's first full day.  Waiting at the bus stop.  His favorite part of Kindergarten is riding the bus.

Deke's mad that he doesn't get to ride the bus too.  Actually, he's just goofing off, but he looks like he's really upset. :)

Here comes the bus! 

I've been bad about getting photos off the camera.  I've let it go for well over a month.  So be prepared for some photos from a while back. 

Last night, some good friends came out for a night on the town to help me celebrate my birthday.  I had a blast.  Today, the Sauke's had us out on their boat again.  I found some photos from our first trip on the camera, so I'll have to post those soon. This was such a beautiful trip with all the fall colors.



Jay Cooke State Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were camping in Banning, we struggled to get Deacon to take a nap so we decided to go for a drive.  Poor Deke missed out on some of the best parts of our camping trip.  We stopped at Jay Cooke State Park, which was about 30 minutes away from Banning. Beautiful spot. I really want to go back here and hike more of the trails.  As it was, Deke was still sleeping when we pulled up, so Joel and I took turns going to this bridge and looking at the view.  After this stop, we went into Duluth.  Another area I want to go back and visit again. Deke slept through all of this and didn't wake back up until we were pulling back into our campsite.