Fall @ the Pumpkin Patch

We headed over to the Butte and the Reindeer Farm for their Pumpkin festival. The kids loved feeding the reindeers. It was combat feeding though as those monsters were starving!


Katie and Alex loved riding the horses...

We took a hay ride to the maze. The Hay Maze was the highlight of the boys. It was tough! They ran after the tootsie roll bandit (if you caught him you got a tootsie roll). Katie like the lollipop fairy, who gave out lollipops and helped those in trouble.
Pretty morning in the Butte, around 30 degrees and sunny and clear... Beautiful location with lots of great views. The kids liked how they opened up a field and "planted" lots of pumpkins for kids to choose from...

October Happenings

Alex-School is going well this year. He's showing a new maturity, a large part of which is due to sports. We have a rule that he has to act like a 9 year old to do the sports and he's doing a good job of stepping up to that role and getting his homework and chores done. Cross Country finished in September and the new sport is Basketball. He goes to practice 2 mornings a week and has 1 game a week after school.

Sammy-For the first time there are activities for 3rd graders this year so Sammy is busy 2 afternoons a week. He's more into academics than sports. He's doing Lego Robotics and Battle of the Books. He's really turned into a reader and his report card is great in all areas!

Katie-Kindergarten is moving along, we've picked up a few bad habits from the kiddos in the class, but we're also moving along on our learning and the alphabet and numbers are coming right along. I think it was the right move to put her in so young. Her weakness is her writing skills but she'll get there as she gets older...

Alex-Cross Country

In September we finished up cross country at the big (and I mean) big district meet. Lots of kids!! Alex ran in the 4th grade 1.5 mile race and finished 8th overall and 1st in his school. I was impressed that he could truly run the whole race at that speed. Shocked me watching him dash over the hills like they were nothing. All those mileage club runs from his K-2 school recess days really have built him some muscles!
After the meet, we celebrated at Red Robin :)

School-moving along

We are up to our necks in Fall in Alaska. The temp this morning was 36 degrees and while it was a beautiful sunny day, the leaves are halfway down and the flowers have died. We're also moving right along in school with no issues so far... Here's the recap...

Alex-is so excited to have sports after school. He's into cross country running right now and runs 2 miles every day rain or shine outside. He loves to run and is very competitive. He's getting praise from the coach for listening to the coach's comments on style and technique. The big meet comes up in 2 weeks and he's very excited about it! He's definitely tired at night and getting homework done is a chore, but so far he's managing. He really wants to do sports...

Sammy-is more academic and volunteered to be a Conflict Manager at recess. If you know Sammy well you'd be laughing at this one. But he studied and took all the tests and received his badge and key and is one of just a few third graders that volunteered. He loves having power to let kids into the building to go bathroom and loves to walk them through problems. He claims it's a little boring as not enough kids get in trouble to need his help :)

Katie-in Kindergarten they are all about filling buckets (being nice to others). So she's constantly filling buckets of others. It really fits her personality because she loves telling people I like your shirt, can I help... She's well known by many kids and staff in the school because of her adorable personality...

I'm a BIG girl now!

August brought us many big events this year! Katie turned 5 and we made the decision to send our smallest sprout to kindergarten. (Literally, she's 1% for height!)... Here's the big girl on her first day of school... Riding the bus with the bus driver. He's waited 2 years to get her on his bus. He loves Katie and begged us to take a picture..
So excited to be waiting for the bus. And after 3 days of school a little girl joined Katie at the all boy bus stop.. That really made her day, now she has a best friend!