It's Harvest Festival Time

Is there anything cuter than small children dressed up in costume? This weekend was the weekend of harvest festivals (Kyle went to 2 of them) and I've never seen so many adorably dressed preschool-aged kids all in one place. The costumes were so creative and unique. Our friends, the Hutchens invited us to their son's preschool for some genuine, home-made fun. 

Here are the boys dressed up as Batman and Robin! :)

 Robin Hood and Batman were very excited!

 While Nate was working on his arrows, Kyle and Gav were ready to save the day with their muscles!

The games were so fun, creative, and best of all...totally geared towards Kyle's age.

Little Robin stayed in the action to the best of his ability! :) He was so cute following us around. Don't feel too badly for him, he can hang well. He likes to walk around and tell us what he thinks about everything.

Gone Fishing

We're all about finding new spots and enjoying the pieces of quiet nature around us. This was a lovely park and lake and the boys enjoyed exploring and fishing with Daddy.

Kyle says, "My Daddy taught me this." Of course he did. :)

 Gavin loved the ducks, water, and airplanes going by overhead.

 Yay for nature. This kid is nuts about being outdoors!

Preschool Volunteering and Back to School Night

Last Friday, Kyle had his share day in school. That also meant it was his turn to bring snack for his classmates and Mommy got to volunteer "for the whole day!!" It was such a fun morning. With Gavin in the childcare program they have there, I got to spend a very productive 3 hours fully focused on my firstborn. I loved getting to volunteer and experience what all my parent-helpers experience or likely feel when they are in my classroom. It's such a different perspective. 

Kyle loved "helping" me decorate these little clementines pumpkins. 

He finished up his weekly homework.

Kyle got to share 3 clues about his mystery share item. 1.It has wheels, 2. It comes to my house, 3. It's stinky!! It was a trash truck! Oh, and here's his teacher, Miss Erika.

Kyle had special privileges all morning since it was "his" day. Here he's leading his class in a song before snack.

Then, tonight, we all (including Auntie Michelle) went to his Back to School Night. He was so happy and proud to show Daddy more things in his room and very excited about his Auntie coming to see his room.

They are learning about bones right now and this was his skeleton out of noodles. How'd we find his? It was the one with the biggest glob of glue still trying to dry. :)

We read his Bat story... :)

Then he showed us his self portrait.

So interesting to note the developmental mark he's at with his drawing. He's not so keen on sitting to draw or do crafts... :)

We closed out the night with a round or two on the playground equipment.

 We're so proud of you, Kyle. :)

1st Pumpkin Patch of the Season

Yesterday, after Gavin and I picked Kyle up from preschool, we went to Irvine Regional Park for a little fall flavor.

Kyle loves trains, so this ride was one of the reasons we went here.

Gav tried to pick up each and every pumpkin. He'd strain and grunt (no exaggeration!), but alas the pumpkins were a bit too heavy for the little guy.

He's trying soo hard, that the veins in his neck were bulging!!

The ponies were on a break, so these had to suffice.

Can you guess how much this pumpkin weighs? We couldn't either. No clue.

Gav kept walking back to this tractor. He couldn't get enough of it, all the while saying, "Brrm, brrm, brrm!"

Yeah, Gav, you've got some growing ahead of you.

 My handsome little men.

We have a picture of Kyle at this very spot when he was just 2 months older than Gavin is now ...

Time flies. 

Beach Time in the Fall

We are loving the fact that our beaches are less crowded now that school is in session and the Inlanders aren't coming in droves each weekend. Since it was too hot and dry to be indoors, we spent the majority of the weekend at the beach. Off-shore winds made the sound of the waves crashing seem majestic and the excess spray super beautiful. My photography skills (or lack thereof) and poor camera don't do it justice. 

See the spray coming off the line (below)? 

We enjoyed breakfast and kite flying next to a really neat German couple. It made me miss the Germans we know. :) They have boys with the same age difference we have, though theirs are 5 or so years older. So we had some fun things to talk about!

Gavin even got in on the kite action a little, too.

Then, we spotted a classic car show at the elementary school a block over. This is the school's black top/basketball court area...right on the sand. (I'd love it as a student, but can you imagine the vigilance you'd have to have as a teacher to make sure all students were safe and accounted for in this open, public area?!) Anyhow, the cars were beeeutiful and I was wiping drool from Rudy's mouth on one of them in particular.

After hitting up the bounce house and checking out the the cars, we had fun with this map. He sure knows where 4 of the 50 are!

 CA and IL are obvious ones...but I'd be remiss if he didn't know where SD and OR were! :)

Aside from the recent heat, we've loved the cooler temps and brisk mornings! Can't believe it's already fall and soon we'll be hitting up a pumpkin patch (like maybe this afternoon!).