Scary Sweet

 

 

We had a fantastic Halloween despite the cold, wet weather.  Carter chose to dress up as the Transformer, Bumblebee, this year.  He did not waiver on that choice.  Mia on the other hand went through about every Princess (twice) before finally settling on Ariel.  She's really into swimming lately so I think Ariel appealed to her on that level (that and the awesome red wig).

 

We carved pumpkins the weekend before Halloween.  The kids were excited to pick out the look for their faces.  Carter wanted "super scary" and Mia wanted "gloomy."  (She got that from a Halloween book we have). 

 

Here they are carving (Mia mainly watched Dave do it).

 

 

 Carter loved using the little saw tools.

 

 

The finished pumpkins.

 

 

 

On Halloween, Dave's work did an indoor trick-or-treating event for all the kids of Fishbeck employees.  Dave picked them up from daycare/school early and they went around to various desks throughout his work and came home with buckets full of candy. 

 

We then headed over to our favorite trick-or-treat starting point, the Slobodnik house.  Since we don't have many houses around us, it's nice to have a really close neighborhood with a familiar house. 

 

We were greeted by a silly cow (Juliet) and a spooky skeleton (Ruth).  We only did around 20 houses in the neighborhood due to weather and time, but the kids still got a ton of candy and were definitely ready for bed by the time we were done. 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Kindergarten

Carter started Kindergarten this fall and he is loving every minute! 

We had a bit of a head start since he did Young 5's at this same school last year.  He was already comfortable with the before/after school teachers, knew the layout of the school, what to expect when riding the bus, and was used to a longer day.  It was nice for Dave and me too, we definitely had less anxiety about what to expect.  What a breeze!

Here is Carter waiting for the bus on his first day.

We think it's important for him to ride the bus the very first day.  Gets him used to being independent right away (and apparently the drop off area that first week is mass chaos).  Carter typically only rides the bus on Fridays, however.

Here are Carter and Mia waiting for the bus on the first Friday (when Mia and I are home to "walk" him to the bus stop - or - end of our driveway).

Mia gets sad every time we put him on the bus (and a bit jealous).  It's crazy to think that next year she will be in preschool!  Oh how time flies.

We had our first parent-teacher conference for the year (November).  Carter is doing extremely well and we are so proud.  He can read well beyond the level expected and she told us she just ordered some new books, specifically for Carter, to keep him "challenged."  (He is currently reading chapter books at home).  She said he is really good at math too (thank you Dave!) and counts well beyond expectations.  She showed us an exercise where the kids were supposed to fill in numbers on a grid, Carter did his grid so quickly that he created his own grid on the back of the paper because he was bored.  Carter's only area to work on is staying focused and be less chatty.  He tends to "gab" with friends and gets off track.  She said this includes eating lunch in a more timely fashion as well.  Hmmmmm, didn't see that one coming at all.  :)

We're VERY proud of Carter.  He is so smart and grown up!

Deck

As most of you know, this summer was our deck project summer.  We launched it on Memorial Day weekend and Dave worked on it pretty much every weekend the entire summer.  You might be wondering how it could possibly take an entire summer (and then some) to build a deck...the answer is, we built a large deck with many levels and built-ins, plus when Dave does a project, he does it to perfection.  It is the coolest deck we could have imagined.  Well beyond my expectations and definitely my favorite project to date (easy for me to say since Dave did 99.9% of the work). 

Here are some before, during, and now shots. 

Demolition of the tiny existing deck.

 

The area cleaned up and ready for building.

Dug around 15 holes to support the frame.  Luckily Dave had help from his brothers for this phase.

Checking out the depth.

 

Here was the concrete that would later fill the holes.  Just a few 80 lb. bags to lift.

Framing.

Dave always had a helper, eager to help measure or just nail something together.

 

 

The first deck boards!

 



Here you see the metal framed fire pit (and lots more progress on the deck boards!).

And here is what it looked like at the beginning of September.  About 95% done at this point. 

 

 

The triangle areas will be planter boxes next summer.

 



 

The fire pit is covered in this shot, we plan to tile the outside next spring.

The kids and I couldn't be luckier to have such a wonderful builder/Dad/Husband.  The deck is absolutely beautiful, couldn't have asked for anything better.  Thank you also to Josh and Mark, Grandpa Jernstadt, and Grandpa Baldwin for all of their help as well (and Grandma Baldwin for painting the trim on the barn windows)!  We couldn't have done it without all the support from everyone. 

Birthday fun, day 2.  Michigan Adventure!

Grandpa and Grandma Jernstadt joined us for more birthday celebrating at Michigan Adventure.  We had awesome weather and so much fun on the rides, both dry and wet!

 

We started out doing the regular amusement rides.  Carter and Mia both enjoy roller coaster type rides so we had fun going on pretty much anything that they were tall enough to ride on.

 

 

Carter also asked to ride in the front car on a lot of the rides! 

 

Carter loved the go carts too!

The kids (and grown ups) also loved the log run ride, Mia was a bit nervous about the big hill but she did a great job.

We also tried out another water ride that we've never been on before.  We thought it was a ride like the log run, a ride where you get splashed a few times here and there.  Since Mia was too short to ride on it, I drew the short straw and stayed behind. 

There were some great viewing points for this ride.  Here is Mia, doing some dancing while we waited for them to appear.  While we were waiting I happened to notice that everyone who exited from the ride was soaking wet from head to toe.  Sometimes it's nice to sit a ride out!

Here they are rounding the first curve.  This was the first of MANY waterfalls.  If you look close, you can see they are starting to realize that they are going to get very wet very soon.

A few more splashes than the log run.

Rounding another corner, Carter seems to be loving every second!

Too bad I didn't get an "after" shot as they sloshed their way to the exit area.  Not one spec of dry clothing on anyone. 

We headed for the water park next since most of us were already soaked.

Mia was showing off her new found love of putting her face in the water.

After the water park, we did some more dry activities.

 

 

A big smooch for Grandpa.

 

On the way out we met Charlie and Lucy - the kids were a bit shy at first, but they humored me and let me get one picture.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for coming on our fun filled adventure!



Carter Turns Six!

Hard to believe that Carter is a six year old!  We took a long weekend and celebrated with a party and a trip to Michigan Adventure.  We had such a good time, it's fun to close out the summer with such exciting activities.

First we had a little party at our house the Saturday before his birthday. Carter wanted a Lego cake and Dave did a fantastic job making that wish come true.  (We even put 6 of his favorite Lego guys around the cake to make it more authentic). 

 

 

Grandpa and Grandma Baldwin, Uncle Josh, Uncle Mark, Aunt Traci, Ema (Grandma Webb), and Grandpa Webb all came to help celebrate. 

Grandpa and Grandma Baldwin

(Yes, this is our new deck that we were sitting on...it's not quite done here, stay tuned for a deck post in the near future).

 

Uncle Josh

 



 

 

Uncle Mark and Aunt Traci

Ema

We had fun watching Carter open his presents, he did a wonderful job reading his birthday cards out loud (even the hard words) to all of us.  His reading is incredible lately!

He got a lot of cool stuff - Lego's (of course) along with a neat spiderman web shooter and this cool new big wheel from Dave and I.  This is not your old-fashioned big wheel from the 80's.  This one goes super fast and spins on a dime.  Carter's face was priceless the first time he cranked the handle bars to find himself doing a 360 before he could blink. 

Even Dave had to try it out...

We had a fantastic party, thank you to everyone who came and made the day special for Carter.

Happy birthday Bud, we love you so much! 

Stay tuned for our Michigan Adventure post coming up next.