Vertuccio Farms Fall Festival

Last month I actually planned ahead for Halloween (go me!) and bought a Groupon for us to go to Vertuccio Farms Fall Festival. There are a few different Fall Festivals/pumpkin patches around here, but this one is the closest and closest means best in my opinion.
The day that we went, Tuesday, was an overcast day and it was very perfect for fall.

The first thing we did once arriving was go on the "train ride". Big shout out to me and Patrick for being able to fit into the barrels. Preston wanted to sit up front, so Patrick went up there with him and Jaxton wanted the very last seat so he sat there and Lucas and I sat in front of him. 

They were in heaven.

We tried to do all the things that would require sunlight since we knew we wouldn't have much time and that meant going to see the animals. 

And feeding the goats. 

The baby goats were adorable. They kept jumping on the big goats back.
I feel ya mama goat. So we made sure to feed her lots. 

The water pump duck races kept them busy for quite awhile as all things related to water usually do.

And then we pretended to be fly's caught in the spider web.
Well, Preston and Jaxton did, Lucas kind of just stood there calling for help. He'd make a terrible fly. 

We played the bean bag toss for awhile. 

And then Lucas played solo for awhile while the boys went down an enormous slide. Lucas gets a little iffy around slides. Slides and elevators. Claustrophobic maybe. 

He's obsessed with bouncing tho and was going nuts on the jump pad. 

We put the boys to work milking cows. Somehow Lucas ended up with his pants almost completely soaked. Farming is not in his future. Especially since he kept stopping to point out airplanes and scream out "AIRPLANE".

We skipped the giant corn maze because can you imagine?! hahah!!! Plus I still think of the movie Signs whenever I see corn stalks. They did have a small hay maze for the little kids and the boys had fun with that and with climbing on the "monster truck" tires. 

And then on our way out we stopped for Patrick to impress us all by ringing the bell on the hammer hit.
I tried and only got halfway. 

Jaxton tried and couldn't even lift the hammer all the way up. 

October Break

Ah October Break. The time of year when we schedule as many doctors appointments as we can to minimize missed school!

The week started off with a visit to the ENT. We have to get a 2nd opinion on Preston's ears since he's still got a hole in one eardrum that isn't healing. If we fix it he could get more ear infections and if we leave it it could get bigger. So we have an appointment to see a different ENT next month & we will go from there. 

The next day Preston had an appointment to get some cavities filled. Because he's little he had to be put out for it all. They gave him something to drink to help relax him that put his mostly to sleep. Then once he was in the chair they gave him the "laughing gas" and he was completely out. I got to sit in there with him which is both good and bad. Good that I could be with him but bad because he started throwing up (anesthesia makes him queasy, must be a redhead thing). Pretty scary to be sitting there watching him throw and and gagging and not being able to breath and just having to let the professionals do their work. 

He was pretty out of it after we were done, and threw up again in the car on our way home. He slept once we were home till about 12:30 and then was completely normal after that.

I told him that because of those two days of appointments we could do something fun, so Wednesday we went to The Phoenix Childrens Museum. It wasn't too crowded. Lots of families since it was October Break, but no field trip groups which is so nice. As soon as we got there (35 min one way) I realized I didn't have my debit card with us. UGHHH. Lucky I found a way around it by buying the tickets online and they were able to look them up. And I thought memorizing my debit card number would never pay off!
Matching shirts for them was brilliant. That way I only had to look for one color when they were out and about instead of trying to remember who was wearing what. 

I wish these magnetic connecting shapes weren't so expensive because I would love to have them here for the boys to play with. 

My boys are so different in personality. Preston is very anxious when we go somewhere, likes to know where I am at all times and doesn't like to wander too far. Jaxton on the other hand will just go off and be fine by himself. 

Making me a delicious pizza. 

Car wash is always a popular spot. 

The next day Lucas had his 2 year well check and we were all going to get flu shots, but that didn't work out so instead we went to the Gilbert temple and walked around and looked at all the pretty flowers. 

We all worked on homework together too. 

And then to conclude our October Break trip on Saturday we traveled down to Tucson to celebrate Patrick's dad's birthday. My boys do not travel well. This was a dress rehersal for our Utah trip. They did great. We hooked up the dvd player and they watched some movies, had some snacks The only hiccup was as soon as we pulled up to the house in Tucson Lucas threw up all over. The last 5 minutes of that trip are really windy/lots of dips, even I was feeling a bit car sick over it all. He was completely fine after that, and on our way home. I have high hopes for the Utah trip. 

We were pretty busy over the break, and it was nice to get back to our regular routine.
Although now we are in our busy season with birthdays, holidays, more birthdays and so on. But that just means more blog posts!

Lucas enters the Turbo Twos

Who are we kidding, Lucas entered the Turbo Two's long ago. I say Turbo Two's instead of Terrible Two's because he just go's and go's and go's and destroys everything in his path!

The day of Lucas's birthday started off how all birthdays around her usually start. With a donut. Preferably one as big as your head and with "prinkles" on it. We even walked in the stroller to go get the donut which is a treat in itself. He probably ate about 1/3 of this in his first sitting, then another 1/4th later in the day and I think Jaxton finished it off. Middle child, scrounging for anything he can get. 

After Jaxton left for school I tried to get some good pictures of the birthday boy in his birthday shirt, but he was just in a goofy mood- maybe from all the sugar he had just consumed- and so these were the results. At least they are an accurate representation of how he is. 

He needs a haircut.....

As a special birthday treat I didn't make him go to the gym with me. He HATES the day care at the gym. Well, it's more like he hates kids his own age.  He stayed home with Patrick who was working a late shift that day and played on the tablet which is his current favorite activity. 

He had a nap and then threw a MAJOR tantrum when he woke up all because I asked him to come eat dinner. How dare I. He's going through a phase right now where he hates sitting down to eat dinner. He's ok with breakfast and lunch but dinner as soon as the prayer is over he will take maybe 1 bite and then say "I get down?" over and over and then scream when he can't get down.
This particular tantrum was quite long and included him wanting to go outside (family rule, no playing outside unless you eat dinner) It lasted quite a long time too, including 2 trips to the garage (time out spot) for screaming. Then suddenly it passed and he climbed up and ate an entire plate of spaghetti on the "You are special today" plate.
Two's. What can you do. 

His cake did not turn out well, I blame out dying oven for that one, but while it didn't look good I hear it tasted great. He ate it all. 

His special day ended with a trip to Lowes, no really, that's his favorite place to go, while I was at school. We had gone to Toys-R-Us earlier in the week and let him pick out a toy which he thinks needs to charge like the tablet does so whenever we are tired of hearing it we just tell him it needs to charge and he's cool with that. 

Other things about Lucas at two.
He weighs about 29lbs depending on if he's eaten dinner or not the day before.
He is in size 2T for shirts and shorts, the first of my kids to actually be in the same size shirt and shorts. Usually they are 2T shirts and 12mo shorts.
He has huge feet and wears a size 8 shoe.
For comparison, Jaxton at almost 4 wears a 9.

He loves to be outside.
He loves toast but with butter only.
He hates kids his own age but loves adults and older kids. In fact I think he thinks he's older then he is. 

 He is obsessed with yelling "bye" to everyone when we are leaving somewhere. The best is when we are walking out of Sacrament Meeting at church and he is just saying bye and waving to everyone. He's gonna get called as door greeter soon I'm sure.
Loves snacks like veggie sticks, chips, muffins, yogurt (which he opens on his own and gets out a spoon to eat).
Talks allllllllllllll the time. And well too! Yay! 1 out of 3! He is using 2-3 word sentences and knows hundreds of words.
He can count to 15, sing his abc's (not clearly), twinkle twinkle, no more monkeys, pop goes the weasel, pretty much a ton of songs. The other day he sang Jesus Said Love Everyone and I didn't even know he knew that one.
Despite being brilliant he can not for the life of him master animal sounds. Every animal you ask him about he will say it say's "Moo". 

He had a trip to the dentist last month and is great. He is missing a tooth, the one on the left of his front teeth, but you can't tell. They tell me he'll need braces so that extra space will probably help when he gets older.
We use to think Jaxton would be our first to break a bone but now we think it will be Lucas. He has no fear and loves to jump on/off things. 

We had a family dinner for him the Sunday after his birthday and he got some Mickey Mouse ears which he loves. He has no interest in watching Mickey Mouse, but his diapers have Mickey Mouse on them and so he recognizes Mickey and wants all things Mickey. Thanks Disney. 

 He really is quite sweet.
Everytime I buckle him up in the car he tells me thank you.
Every time someone sneezes he says "achoo bless you".
He is always happy to see everyone in the morning and has recently gotten out of the habit of screaming at the top of his lungs when he wants out of his crib (yes, he is still in a crib and will stay in one for as long as he wants). Now when he wakes up he just calls out for mommy or daddy and then when we go in his room he says "no screaming". See. Brilliant. 

He adores everyone in the house, I don't think he has a favorite. Whoever is closest is whoever he loves most at that moment. 

Here's to a year of attiTWOde and tantrums. 

The 1st Half of October

The end of September brought sickness. MAJOR sickness. I still don't know if it was food poisoning or a stomach bug. I got it first and spent about 10 hours being miserable before Patrick joined in on the fun. Being a parent is really hard when you are sick. But thankfully the boys don't seem to mind a day of unlimited screen time and all the snacks they can handle. While Patrick and I were in the middle of it all I got a call that Preston had thrown up at school and needed to come home. Poor guy. Lucky for him he only threw up that one time and returned to school the next day. Jaxton and Lucas never got it, whatever it was, and for that I am thankful. 

 The end of September also meant it was finally time for Krissa and I to go see Wicked! We had bought these tickets back in February, so it was quite a wait. We had no idea the details of the story line, but I LOVE Broadway shows and have heard rave reviews about this one. It was great. Amazing. Wonderfully Wicked. And we had such good seats! 7th row! Naturally the next day I had to buy the soundtrack and have been listening to that daily. 

Oct 1 also means I started Whole 30. Basically its a program that doesn't focus on weight loss, but other non scale victories. It's no carbs, sugar, gluten, dairy, or processed food, just clean eating. The point of it all is to get everything out of your system by just eating the basics and then you can reintroduce things into your diet to figure out what is making you miserable. I've been having terrible stomach problems since Lucas was born. I get sick to my stomach and throw up at least 2-3 times a week. I was feeling gross and bloated all the time, tired, and I developed yet another ulcer. So I decided to try this out. I'm on day 14 and so far so good! I don't miss carbs as much as I though. I do crave sugar sometimes. I cry for Dr. Pepper. but I haven't had any stomach pain. I had a headache the first few days, and have had some moodiness (sugar withdrawls), but I'm really liking how I feel. Hopefully I can keep it up and figure out whats going on. I'd recommend it to anyone, but it is a lot of prep work. I had to make my own mayo & salad dressings and had to go to a few different stores I don't normally go to (Trader Joe's, Sprouts) to get the things I needed. But we will see what happens! 

 Jaxton had picture day at school so we spent a lot of time practicing his smile for the pictures. I have zero expectations for how they are going to turn out. Last year his 1st picture looked like a mug shot and the 2nd picture he looked like Igor from Frankenstein. So it really can't be much worse then that!

Thankfully this little injury happened after picture day. I'm still not sure what happened exactly, but it involved the refrigerator door or drawer. I don't know if he ran into it or what, all I know is one minute I'm sitting on the couch irritated (whole 30 day 3 was a doozy) and suddenly I heard a huge bang. I though they had pulled the drawer out of the fridge because Lucas has a tendency to tug that thing open but instead Jaxton started screaming and blood started oozing. We iced it with a popsicle and he was ok after that. But I think it's going to scar, so now he'll have a scar in the middle of his forehead just like all of us with chickenpox scars! 

 Lucas has been fun lately.
(post on his birthday coming later)
He has some social issues where he hates kids his own age. Older kids he loves. Adults he loves. Kids his own height he screams at. We are trying to work on exposing him to more chances to play with them, so play dates, and trips to the library and such, but I don't know if it is working. I took him to Jaxton's school for a party at the end of September and he sat in my lap with his head in my chest by the end of it clinging to me tighter when other kids would come up. I've been taking him to the day care at the gym while I work out which he HATES. I tell him we are going to the gym and he will just yell "NO GYM!" Trust me kid, I get it. But I make him go and as long as he is by himself they say he doesn't cry. If a kid comes up and heaven forbid wants to play he loses his mind. Don't worry, I always bribe him accordingly after these things. He really likes going to Circle K or QT and getting an icee or squeeze it. In fact once we are done at the gym and get in the car he will say "mommy ba-bum". This is Lucas speak for gas station. It is derived from the sound it makes at Circle K when you walk in, the dinging of the bell, ba-bum. He likes to mimic dinging noises so the whole time we are there he just says "ba-bum" over and over again.

 Preston wins the award for best school picture. So great. He has a loose tooth & I'm so not ok with that! It's not even a bottom one, it's a top one. That makes him seem so old!!!!

This past weekend we went and supported our friends who were doing the sprint triathlon. I did that race last year and have no desire to do it again, but I thought the boys would enjoy seeing what one of these things is all about. They certainly did enjoy all the free goodies they got from the vendors and bouncy house. The race they were less interested in. 

And lastly this past weekend was our primary program. They did AWESOME. They both had their parts memorized and didn't get scared or cry or anything. Preston was blowing me kisses from his seat the whole time, and everyone chuckled after he did his part because he stood there for a few seconds and just smiled so big. Jaxton doesn't sing much in Primary, but he was actually singing the songs up there! They had pretty solid parts too.

Jaxtons part- Jesus Christ is a child of God just like me. He had to come to Earth to get a body and set an example for all of us so we can be like him.
Preston's part- When we read the scriptures we read about the testimonies of the prophets about Jesus Christ. Before he was born they testified that a Savior would come to save us all and after he was born they continued to testify about him and his life. I know that President Thomas S. Monson testifies about Jesus today and that we can live with him again.

They got tons of compliments which kind of overwhelmed them, but they were gracious at accepting. Made us proud that they did so good.