Nana, Bapa, Noah, and Croup

This weekend Nana and Bapa came up to visit and brought Noah with them. The boys were so excited to see "their friend Noah"! When they got here we got a bite to eat before heading out to the pumpkin patch (more about that in another post). As we were leaving Carter's voice sounded funny like there was a frog in it. When we got to the pumpkin patch he was having a full on coughing attack. Once it was over however he seemed fine and we had a great time there. From there we headed back to Nana and Bapa's hotel where Nana watched Nolan and the rest of us swam. Tyler was pretty nervous in the water at first, but after a few minutes he was splashing all over. Carter had a blast jumping in and riding on Justin and Bapa's backs. They were both dead asleep when we got home.

In the middle of the night however Carter woke up to another coughing fit and with this one I knew he had croup . So in the morning we headed to the doctor. Luckily his oxygen levels were fine and he didn't have a fever at all. They gave him a prescription for some steroids and gave us the ok to have breakfast with Nana , Bapa, and Noah before they headed home and we said our goodbyes. Carter is already feeling better today, with no coughing last night at all. Even though Carter was sick, we still had a lot of fun with Nana, Bapa, and Noah!

Family Fun Night

A week ago the boys preschool had family fun night. They had pizza and ice cream, bounce houses, the cake walk, bean bag throws, and other games. The boys had a great time. They loved seeing all their friends too. Carter would point out everyone from his class saying "that's a friend!". Tyler, much to my amazement, would say hi to his friends on his own. Justin and I were scheduled to work the ice cream station at the end of the night. This actually worked out perfectly as the boys ate ice cream as I scooped and Justin fed Nolan. I was scooping with Tyler's teacher who told me how well he was doing this year. Always music to my ears! A very fun night!!!

Favorite Things

I haven't done one of these in a while. Here are some of my favorite things the boys have been doing.

• Tyler loves to pretend he is a police man directing traffic. When ever we are on a walk crossing the street, he holds out on hand and then waves another telling us we can go and the cars to stop. He also does this to Justin when he pulls into the driveway when he gets home from work. Last night he also did it when I was carrying a laundry basket downstairs - directing me the whole way. 
• Carter has such a sweet heart. He is always going out of his way to share his food, toys, or whatever else to Tyler. If Tyler wants something and Carter has it, he usually give it up without anyone asking him too. On the rare occasion that he does care and Tyler just takes it, when I get it back from Tyler and return it to Carter ,Carter will simply tell me "that's ok mommy, I don't mind anymore, he can have it."
• Nolan has started saying ohh and ahh lately. The best part - whenever he talks a smile is with it!
• Tyler loves to tell stories, however mostly to himself. I see him all the time pacing back and forth making up stories and explaining things to himself. I love his imagination!
• Another sweet thing Carter does if when it comes to bedtime. Even though we have bunk beds, Tyler still doesn't like to sleep on the top bunk. He is a restless sleeper and moves all over the bed he and Carter share. Carter knows this and instead of complaining he will just sleep on the floor with no complaints (we have made him a nice pallet on the floor because of this as well).
• Nolan still loves the changing table. Whenever he is upset you just need to set him up there and he gets all excited and started kicking his legs, moving his arms, and talking.

Air Show

Once again I am behind in the blogging. A couple of weekends ago we went to an air show. The boys had a good time seeing all the different planes before the show started. They also had a section called "touch a truck", where they had all different types of trucks from garbage trucks, to fire trucks, to cement trucks, to buses the kids could climb around in. That was by far their favorite part. Nolan wasn't to happy about eating outside so I had to go back to the car to feed him while Justin, Tyler, and Carter climbed around a C-130. After that the air show started which I think Justin enjoyed more than anyone else. The boys were more excited about the toy planes they got. Still a very fun time.

The Aspens that Weren't

Yesterday we had planned to take a drive and go see all the aspens changing color. We decided to take a different route this year and because of the location and a fire that happened 10 years ago we really didn't even see one single aspen tree. However we still had a great time. The boys napped for well over an hour on the way up. Right as they woke up it was time to feed Nolan so we pulled over and the boys got to take walk around the river, climb on rocks, and explore some. From there we drove on and happened to drive by Woodbine Ranch, the camp Justin worked at one summer in college. Justin jumped at and walked around some. He found some people who told us that the camp is now an ecological center but we are welcome to walk around. So we "hiked" according to the boys, all around the property and I finally got to see with my eyes all the places I have heard about from stories for the past 10 years. The boys thought it was really cool that daddy made some the stairs that we walked on! At the fire pit we talked about how the kids would sing songs around the fire. Tyler asked what kind of songs and we told him they were songs about a very important person. Tyler's answer was "that would be Jesus!".  He was right of course. We got back in the car and headed home for a quick bath before going to Heather's house or game night. It was a great family day, even if we didn't see any aspens.

Haircut

Well I love Carter's hair a little long, but apparently he doesn't. The other day I was inside feeding Nolan while the boys were playing outside. Tyler comes running in yelling "emergency, emergency!" and informs me that Carter was cutting his hair. When I went out to see I saw Carter cut a lot, but you couldn't really tell because of of thick his hair is. Except for right in front where he cut it very short. He told me that he didn't want long hair anymore and wanted it short like Tyler's. We are suppose to get family pictures taken on Saturday so I guess he will be getting his wish.

Celebration

 For Tyler's birthday this year we kept it very low key with just our family of five. On Thursday he got to bring cupcakes to school and pick where we went to dinner that night. Justin also came home early so we got some nice family time in the afternoon. Before we went to dinner Tyler opened his presents. He was very excited to get the cement truck he saw at Costco 10 days earlier and had been asking for every day since. He also really like the helicopter that Carter picked out for him and the wood plane he could color from Nolan.  The we were headed off to Red Robin  where his favorite part was the wait staff singing to him.

On Saturday he got to pick a family activity to do. Tyler picked putt-putt and we all had a great time. Nolan rode along in the front pack and we played 18 holes. At first Tyler would swing like a hockey player, but by the end of the 18 holes he had it down. From there he picked Chili's for lunch and then we ran a few errands. When we got home the boys watched Justin decorate Tyler's cake. He chose a purple dump truck this year with dirt in the bucket and dirt on the ground. I made him his favorite dinner - macaroni and cheese with sausage and then we had his cake for dessert. All in all a very nice birthday for our five year old!!!!