This and That

Ty's friend Ethan comes over for playdates on a pretty regular basis lately. Ty's also gone over there for an afternoon as well. Ethan is such a polite little boy. They even include Deacon in on their play. It helps that Ethan also has a younger brother that is only a month younger than Deacon. In the picture above they dressed up in superhero customes. Ty was bumblebee and Ethan was Spiderman.

I LOVE it when Deacon puts on his snowboots with his shorts. It just cracks me up. In this one, he even found some huge gloves that he took outside with him and kept putting on. Yesterday Joel and I took the boys and headed to the Cities. I wanted to do a little bit of shopping and we decided to visit the Loos clan while we were there as well. Always a good time to hang out with them. The four kids get along so well. Two more weeks to go and we will all be hanging out at a beach in Cabo. I just cannot wait!

Cowboy

Ty's favorite teacher had her last day on Weds. Ty wanted to write a thank you note to her. He wrote the 'thank you' at the top and the 'I heart you' and his name at the bottom. He also drew all the hearts. He dictated the rest to me and I wrote that for him. I thought it was super sweet.

Sunset! The color were so vibrant last night.

Mama, don't let you babies grow up to be cowboys! Both boys found cowboy hats at a garage sale. Ty's been wearing his all afternoon. In the bottom picture he was getting tired of me taking his picture and refused to smile for me.

More party pics

Ty's 'mad' face :)

The kids has so much fun at this party and I had a blast getting the pictures.
Ty has a favorite teacher at his school and today was her last day. Apparently, Ty is also her favorite. She told me yesterday that out of the past three years of teaching, Ty is her absolute favorite and that if she ever has a little boy, she wants him to be just like Tyler. What an awesome compliment. It made my day. `Normally, I think that most people that don't have kids yet look at mine and think 'my kids will never behave like that'.
Joel has been in the Cities with some co-workers for the past two nights for training. I had the wives of those co-workers over for dinner last night. It was nice to get to know some of them a little better. I'll definitely have to try to have them over again.

More Party Pics

The Loos' girls. Are they not two of the prettiest girls ever? I'm normally very happy with the fact that I have two boys, but being around these two makes me wish sometimes that I did have a little girl.

Tyler with baby Jonah. He has such a sweet side to him and is so gentle with kids that are younger.

Okay, does he not look like he is 10 in this picture? Geez, he looks so much older than 5.

The Red Door

Our playhouse was very popular during the party. Up to 7 kids would manage to squeeze into this tiny little house and then explode out of it and take off in a thousand different directions!
Tonight, Joel headed to the Cities for training. So it me and the boys for two nights.

My favorite pics from last night

I love that it looks like she is totally pushing him down in this photo. She didn't, it just looks that way in the photo. Connor was the monster and they were all trying to get away from him. (I mean to say that Connor was playing the role of "monster", not that he is a monster. He's one of the sweetest boys ever!)

Uggh! Boys! (Kaia and her Sister, Halle are the only girls in our group)

Oh Connor. Too funny!

These two are the oldest in the group and you will do as they say. (Don't worry,the younger ones totatlly hold their own even with these two staring them down :))

MMM, Nutella

Tyler is turning into such a big boy. He made lunch for Deacon and Connor. Nutella sandwiches. Connor got to where he only wanted Tyler making it for him.

Holy Deacon, Batman

I have no idea what he was crying about. Deke just loves dressing up as batman and he's so super cute in the little outfit. He makes Tyler play Robin. It's hilarious.

Fun Times

In the picture above, they were dancing around the living room. They do this weird thing where they just circle around and around. Not really dancing, but it makes them happy. They've also gotten into this thing where they love wearing their winter hats (and pretty much nothing else). Deke has a batman one and Ty has a spider man one.
Okay, so time for a sweet story about the Deacon since I made him sound like such a terror in that last post. Yesterday, both boys got to pick a treat from our treat jar (it includes fruit snacks, stickers, stuff like that) Deke picked first and he picked this Power Ranger Sticker. It was the only power ranger sticker that we had and of course this is the one Ty wanted. Ty was pretty upset that he couldn't have it and was starting to go into serious pout mode. Deke asks him: "Why you crying?" He knew it was because of the sticker because Ty did ask if he would trade and Deke said no originally, but when he saw how upset Ty was, he handed the sticker over to Tyler so Ty wouldn't be sad. I thought it was super sweet of him. These boys can be so protective of each other.
Today, Deke was being stubborn about getting ready to go to the store, so Daddy told him that he just wouldn't go unless he put his pants on. Tyler was over there arguing with Daddy that Deke couldn't do that by himself. Deke was getting pretty upset as well because he really loves to go to the store, so Daddy did help him put the pants on, but then wanted him to put his shoes on. Deke was again getting worked up even though he knows how to do this. So Tyler put Deke's shoes on for him so he wouldn't get left behind.
On another note, Scooby died over the weekend. We picked a new fish tonight and his name is...Batman.

Sleep over

Playing Whac-a-Mole. Yeah, a game with hammers, that encourages you to hit these little moles. Just what these boys needed and of course, they wouldn't hit each other, right? Right. This game did not last very long before it ended up on a high shelf. (and they lost the privelage of this game, thanks to the Dekester)

Watching Scooby Doo Camp Scare. Connor is so funny because during the scary parts, he'd hid behind the big truck he has on the chair with him.

And here we catch Deacon in the act of hitting Ty with Lightening McQueen. Just kidding he didn't hit him, but probably because he got yelled at before he could. Mom ruins all the fun.

And the afternoon after Connor left, they are both konked out. I understand from Heather that Connor also took a nap that afternoon. They wore each other out. Deke is really not as bad as I make him sound. He can be super sweet most times, but he does have a little bit of the devil in him. We had a blast with Connor and loved having him over. They all three shared a room and suprisingly we did not have any problems with that at all.

Last of the Hike pics

Last of our hiking pictures. Had John Bberg's birthday party last night. It was so much fun. Neither Joel nor I wanted to leave. Finally around 10:30 we decided that we probably should get the kids home in bed. It was quite the late night for them. I was hoping they'd sleep in today, but they were up at 7:15. I shouldn't complain because that's really not that bad for them. Normally they are up around 6:30. Today, we get Connor! We are all excited to have this energetic ball of fun over. I'm sure I'll get a ton of great pictures of the three of them.