September was definitely a blur! I blinked and it was suddenly October... "/
Nonni stayed with us for two weeks at the beginning of school and through her birthday. She requested ice cream for her birthday instead of cake and we were more than happy to oblige such a reasonable request! :)
Thomas started his Tae Kwon Do after school program and they gave them a pizza to take home and bake the first day. I am not 100% sure why, but he was super excited. Well except for the fact it only came with pepperoni. So I went and bought his favorite topping (sliced olives) to put on top instead. He put together the whole thing without help, but I failed to noticed that he used to whole can of olives until he was done...
He *really* likes olives.
Henry has finally started drawing people! They are much different than Thomas' first people drawings, but equally as creative. My blue hair is apparently blowing in the wind and I have no idea why Nonni has no arms...
I moved to a new group at work and despite my old group calling me a traitor* for leaving, they apparently are going to miss me enough to make me a cake. Kathryn made me this awesome masterpiece complete with our team logo and my favorite emojis on the side. Plus is was chocolate-chocolate, which she knows is my favorite. I am definitely going to miss this crazy team.
*Traitor (and back stabber) was because we have a long running team building going at work that involved playing other teams every month. And I was trying to figure out if my old or new team had a higher ranking before committing to staying on the old team. Ha! Also where the team logo came from. Yes, that is a shark with an executioner blade. And a pear on it's arm. It's a long story...
I finally bought a 3D printer! Sometimes at work they give us little "bonuses" for when we do something above and beyond or help out in different areas. So when I got my most recent one, I decided to put it towards something fun for the family. As you can see - the boys really like watching it print! Especially when I am printing toys for them!
Or hanging out with me when I am trouble-shooting a particularly difficult print... Sad penguin is a great visual of how I felt at this particular moment.
This forklift was such a pain. It would get 75% printed after sooo many hours and then something would fail. The supports snapped off several times. I finally flipped it to print on it's side and that completed the print, but it's so rough on the side. Ugh. Matt still liked it enough to use it, but I wasn't super happy with it. (It's a phone stand for his desk at work - it's not shown here, but it has a bright orange seat that goes with it.)
Thomas and I played Waterworks for the first time! The boys have gotten so much more interested in playing games with me and I love introducing them to ones I played with my family when I was a kid. I definitely beat him on this one, but he seemed to like the concept once he was got it.
Henry didn't want to be left out and demanded to play Kerplunk. I totally lost on this one... My spatial awareness failed me this particular morning!
These kids are obsessed with making cheese bridges. Anytime we have grilled cheese sandwiches or quesadillas, the two of them compete to see who can stretch their cheese out the furthest. Thomas definitely won today!
There is an apple picking place just down the hill from our house that we have never been to. One of my friends at work said his kids had a blast picking apples, so I told them boys we would get up Saturday morning and go pick apples! Except it wasn't open anymore...! There were still some apples on the tress, but the gates were locked. The boys were so devastated. :(
Luckily, I had gotten an email from the farmer's market and some of the vendors were bringing apples. So it wasn't quite "picking" apples, but the boys seemed just as excited picking out apples from the giant bucket.
Matt even pointed out that some of the apples still had "tree" attached to them, so the apples with leaves still attached were definitely their favorite. Crisis averted and we got enough apples to make mini pies and apple bread. Win-win!
I volunteered at the zoo the other day to help hang up the Christmas lights, so I wanted to take the boys and show off all of my hard work. They seemed suitably impressed, but more excited to just be back at the zoo again. Our membership had lapsed a few months ago and I finally renewed it. They love the zoo!
The seals were super interested in the boys today. I swear this guy kept coming up to the glass to say hi - though I told the boys he was trying to give them kisses, which led to hysterical laughing. :)
Since Thomas is now in real school, Henry is now our crock-pot chef at daycare. He was super excited to do his first class and it was chili, which is usually pretty tasty. He had a blast and I didn't have to make dinner! Also, I just happened to have fritos, so it was an even better dinner! :)
I love going through Thomas' school work he brings home because he gets to excited to tell me about every worksheet. Sometimes parts of the sheets are blank and he likes to make up his own work at home. I walked over and he had made this one into all of the important flags. Soooo proud that he has Texas, Alaska and the US flag. That's my boy!
Not sure how the railroad track in the corner is related, but that boy does love his trains...!
I taught him this trick this morning when he was pestering me for waffles. He was a little nervous about the fact that the waffles would be too hot, but after I convinced him to just let them cool for a bit, he was all over it. He even made one for his brother!
One more chore I can hand off to the little guy. :)