Thankful

I am so thankful that Greg and I both have such wonderful families.

I am also thankful that they all live relatively close. We were able to see both families in the same weekend with minimal time spent in the car.

I am thankful for the amazing food we ate! But not for the numbers that will be on my scale this week!


Greg after a delicious meal.




The boys having dessert. I didn't get any pictures of the meal because I was feeding kids!

 I am thankful that my kids had fun people to play with all weekend!



Logan loved playing with the big kids.




Tyson and Jacob (his cousin) sharing a toy.




Logan doing a puzzle with papa.




Tyson riding in the car in Grandma's basement.




Logan helping with Grandpa and Alex's windmill project.


On Thanksgiving day, we went to Greg's Aunt Donna's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

We got to see Greg's Aunts and Uncles and cousins and Greg's parents and sister and kids. My kids really enjoyed seeing everyone. Even though they don't always see their extended family, they warmed up right away.

After Thanksgiving dinner, the kids played with toys and the adults talked.
Then we celebrated Jacob's first birthday!!

The kid is such a neat little eater! I didn't get any messy cake pictures at all. This is the only semimessy one but it's blurry.

On Friday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Bradley's house. We had a yummy dinner. Then the boys all went to the basement while Julie and mom and I cleaned up. You will notice there are NO little girls in any of these pictures- there are no little girls on either side of the family! But I have to say, we're getting pretty good at the "boy stuff".

Nick played video games. (Look at Uncle Greg buggin' him while he tries to concentrate!)

Alex worked on cars.

Logan learned to ride a bike!!!!!

(I'm very excited by this one! Doesn't he look big riding that bike all by himself. At first he could only pedal but couldn't steer or brake. That was wild. But then my dad taught him to even steer and brake by himself!)

Tyson rode in the little car for more than an hour-- until he discovered that he could push the car-- which was much more fun!!

It was a fun and crazy day and I am thankful for that!

My Super boys

Logan and Tyson dressed up as Superheros for Halloween this year.  Logan was Batman. He requested his own costume this year. The only thing he knows about Batman is that he likes Batman fruit snacks!

Tyson was Superbaby!

Logan got to go out for Trick or treating for the first time. We just went on our street and part of Estates. Logan had so much candy in his pumpkin, it was overflowing! Our neighbors were all so thrilled to see him and so sweet with him.
He wasn't so sure about it when we started off. He knocked on Kim and Terry's door and Terry came to the door. Logan said, "Trick or Treat." and Terry gave him a huge bag of candy. After that, he was pretty much sold on it and kept saying, "Let's go another one house."
He even said, "Thank you." and I didn't have to remind him! Daddy really works hard with Logan on manners and it is paying off.
I honestly wasn't sure I would enjoy trick or treating. I mean, it seemed a little uncomfortable to go to neighbors houses and beg for candy. But Logan and I had a blast. All the other kids were out on the street and weirdly enough, they all mostly knew Logan's name. Most of the kids on our street are upper elementary aged but most of them stopped and talked with us and made a big deal out of Logan's cute costume.

Tyson stayed home with Daddy and helped pass out candy. Logan thought it was super hilarious that we trick or treated at our own house last and that Daddy got to give him candy.
The next morning, at 7 am, Logan told us, "I want to go trick or treating again."  Hope he can wait a whole YEAR for that.

Ps. I love this picture! I love that Logan can WAVE at the camera but he can't bother to LOOK at the camera. LOL!
Now, we're outta here..

Chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga,

Choo! Choo!
I took the boys to the Museum of Transportation for a fun Friday outing. It was actually the easiest and best outing I've done with them by myself since Tyson was born. I think they are starting to get to the ages where going out and about will be easier.
We started our morning by going to Creation Station. With an adult admission, you can purchase admission for you and your kids to Creation Station for $1.50 per person. I didn't have to pay admission for the boys to the museum so we did Creation Station. I'm so glad because it was the best part of the day. It is a giant playroom and you get one hour of free play time. It is geared for preschoolers but the lady in charge had put down a blanket with stuffed toys and books which was perfect for Tyson.

 They got to dress up

play with trucks and cars

play with the train table (imagine every single item from the Thomas catalog. It's like kiddie toy crack!)

Climb on a wooden boat and dress up as pirates

and play together and with other kids

After Creation Station we rode the train. It's about the same size as the zoo train. Unfortunately, it doesn't go very far. And it costs $4.00 to ride (in addition to the price of admission for the museum.) But you can't go to a museum about trains and not ride the train. So we rode it.

After riding the little train, we went and explored the big trains. We spent most of our time in the freight train area. We could go inside the cars and the boys both loved it.

Then we went up to the passenger train area.

We couldn't get into all of the cars. They were fun for me to look inside but the boys could have cared less. They were getting tired and also hungry.
So we left and went to McDonald's for chicken and fries. (Well, Tyson actually had applesauce and sweet potatoes. poor thing!)
They are building a new visitor's center at the museum of transportation. We'll have to go back and see that some day.