Thanksgiving

 Max is excited that he gets to be in a big boy booster seat now!

The boys and I went to pick up my race packet.  The packets were held at DoTerra this year, and when we walked in and asked for directions for the conference rooms, the receptionist told us to "walk down the hall, past the Cafe".  Pace heard "Cafe" and his little eyes lit up.  When Bishka visits, she always take the boys to the BYU art museum and to the museum cafe afterwards; Pace knows a "cafe" is full of yummy treats.  We got smoothies and sat a a huge round table with a round bench! 

I roped a couple friends into this race with me!  I had a goal to run sub-2 hours, so we ended up not running the race together, but it was fun training and driving up together!

I started bawling the the finish line on this one...I feel really torn about this race.  I met my major goal:  I finished sub-2 hours, crossing the finish line at 1:55, shaving 7 minutes off last year's time.  I ran a PR, my fastest half ever.  BUT I ran a really dumb race.  I started with a too-fast pacer, and you know it's a bad run when every mile is harder (and slower) than the one before it.  I spent the last 12 weeks training to come in sub-2 (and a good sub-2, not just dead across the finish line sub-2):  I spent Mondays doing interval runs, Tuesdays and Thursdays at the gym doing back-to-back spin and Zutensity classes, Wednesdays doing tempo runs, Ridays doing yoga, and Saturdays doing distance runs.  I feel like I put the work in to shave off more than 7 minutes.  You know what this means...I'll just have to keep it up and run a smarter race next year!

A Few Games

These marshmallows and toothpicks kept the boys busy for a couple hours!

We taught Go Fish, Uno, and Crazy 8s to the boys one night and we had to play every day after school.  The boys can't manage holding their cards in their hands yet, so they set up a pretty elaborate  no-peeking system while they laid their cards on the floor.

Happy Thanksgiving

This year we created a Thankful Turkey and wrote thankful feathers each morning with our foundations.  The boys are both writing this year!  I've loved seeing what they come up with.  Sure, they wrote lots of convenient things they saw on the table, but we also got some other gems:  

"I'm glad I can grow up"  -Pace

"I can chase tornados when I grow up" -Pace

"Laove" -Max (Max is really, really good at sight reading and writing.  His phonics work is great.  He is still learning all the tricky rules English has, though...like in "Love,", the "uh" sound is an a, not an o.)

"Table" -Max (On this one, Max sounded it out and spelled it all on his own.  I confirmed it started with T when he asked, and then I loved over and Max said, "Mommy, does it end with a magic e because the a says ā?"  (The long a sound)  He even got the order of b and l right!

A New Dinner Initiative

The boys are used to having (snack-sized) breakfast, 2nd breakfast, lunch, 2nd lunch, and dinner is usually a combination of whatever is left over from all that snacking.  Or I ask them what they want (grilled cheese, sandwich, hot dog, chicken nuggets, etc. + smoothie).  While David and I sit down to whatever I've prepared for us that night.  

Well.  Looking ahead, and knowing my time is going to shift in January when I start this Masters program, it's time to get the boys on a more routine eating schedule...ie...eat what everyone else is eating.  I introduced it with homemade meatballs and sauce, thinking that would be a great transition. I put the bowls in front of the boys and immediately they started whining, "I don't like that!"  "NOoooo!"  "Is that red stuff?  I don't like red stuff!"  

I let them get all their whining out then very calmly said, "Ok, that's all the whining we'll do from now on.  At dinner time, I will be serving real dinner.  If you see it and decide you don't want it, you will say, "No thank you, I would not like real dinner.  I would like prison food please."  Then we took turns practicing the new catch phrase.  (Prison food is one slice of bread, no jam or honey, and water.)  They at first asked for prison food, and then Pace decided he'd try real dinner, and Max followed suit.    Pace ate nearly his whole bowl, and Max tried at least one bite of noodle and one bite of meatball, dramatically gagging and coughing the whole way.    

The Boys Helped Me Vote

Pace's Obsession

 Pace is totally obsessed.  We can't tear him away from legos.  He wakes up super early to build things before school, runs up to the toy room as soon as he gets home, and moans when I tell him it's time to get ready for bed.  He's an engineering expert, following instructions for 12+ year-olds, and if he can't find a piece, he improvises.  He created this number "Sometimes following the instructions and sometimes adapting it."  Yes, that is a direct quote.

We'll see how long this system works...Pace loves being able to open the drawers and find exactly what he wants, but he needs to learn to put it all away and maintain it...

Halloween

 Sunday, the day before Halloween, we carved our pumpkins!

Halloween Day (Monday), the boys both got to dress up for school.  Pace had to dress up in either an indigenous dress from a continent they are learning about in school, or an animal from a continent.  Pace and I decided making a penguin costume wouldn't be too involved. 

After school we went down Main St., David said the stores were doing trick-or-treating between 1-3...But they did it on Saturday, not Monday, Halloween Day...the boys were really disappointed, and Max cried-fell asleep on the way home.  Keo doesn't mind a sleeping boy as a cuddle spot.

Then we did our trunk-or-treat at the mill!  We had a graveyard trunk with fingers coming out of the graves for the treats (mini pudding pies with gummy worms).  The boys were pretty happy that night!

Halloween Festivities Part II

 The Saturday before Halloween we went to the Red Barn in Santaquin.  The boys and I went there a couple years ago with Max's Wee School, but we'd never been as a family.  It was a blast going together!  We rode the tractor out to the Field O' Fun.

We first did the corn maze mystery, finding all the tracks and discovering which animals stole Farmer Ben's pies.

Then we did the slides.  This poor boy--he knows what he doesn't like, and I've been holding him in my lap since he was a baby, trying to get him to go down slides.  Now that I have a visual of his poor, scared, terrified little face, I swear I won't make him do it again!  Pace, on the other hand, has really blossomed into a brave boy and loves trying new things.  He went down the big slide with Daddy and then decided he could do the small slide by himself. 

Pace and Daddy climbed the huge haystack mountain while Max and I dug in the gravel with trucks, and then we met up at the race cars!

We shot the apple cannon, picked out our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch (they were free, being a day before Halloween!), and then rode the tractor back to the red barn for treats--apple cider doughnuts and apple cider slushy ala mode!