October

With the last book order I got a Gerald & Piggy set of 10 books, and the boys absolutely love them!  They read them to each other, laugh at the silly antics, these books kept them occupied through all of stake conference, they read them in the morning while eating breakfast--a success!  Thanks, Mo Willems!

Max's Upstart Report Card came in September, but I forgot to add it that month, so here it is.  Letter Recognition: K Beginning; Letter Sounds: 1st Beginning; Initial Sound: K Advanced; Blending: K Advanced; Sight Words: 1st Beginning; Real Words: 1st Beginning; Non Words: 1st Beginning; Vocabulary: 1st Beginning; Reading Comprehension: 1st Intermediate.  I wish I knew how they tested the kids; I don't know how Max would place K Beginning for letter recognition, but them place 1st grade on reading sight words, vocab, etc.  He's a really, really amazing reader, and an incredibly smart boy, so I wonder if he couldn't hear well with the head phones, didn't understand what they were asking, had some test/timer anxiety (which he showed at home every time the program had a timed activity for him to complete--which I never liked, and remember hating timed things in school).  Regardless of my questions, Maxwell is just an amazing little boy.  

Before I forget:  David brought up one evening at dinner that I was doing really well in my school, and the boys should be really proud of me for having "straight A's".  Max nodded his head, and said, "Yeah, not wobbly ones, just straight."  We laughed a good, long time at this--Max loved his workbook practice, working on making all his letters have straight lines instead of wobbly ones.  So, of course, mommy has worked hard on making straight letters, too.  

And, because I am too cheap to buy school photos:

We were so lucky to have our cousins come visit!  Christian and Robin were in town for a bit, and we met up with them Saturday to swim at the Provo Rec Center, and then they came over for dinner on Sunday.  The boys loved playing legos together, and they were nice enough to remember Pace's upcoming birthday--the boys were all happy to help him open and build his little lego set they brought for him.

They caught us right at the right time--David got really sick with a stomach bug Friday night though Saturday.  He finally calmed down when we brought him to the Instacare Saturday morning for some phenergan and zofran.  He was feeling well enough on Sunday, so we had everyone come over.  David got sick again Sunday night, and stayed home from work Monday.  When I called in to work for him, the center manager gave me a hard time on the phone, saying he didn't have extra people, so there would be no way David could have a sick day.  I didn't know I was specking to the center manager, I thought I was talking to the guy who makes the schedules, so I quickly retorted, "He's literally currently throwing up; what would you like me to do?!  I'm not going to tell him to wipe his mouth and head off to work.  The contract says if he has sick hours, you are supposed to give him the hours off. "  He grumbled, "Fine," and hung up.  I was convinced it had been something he ate, since the rest of us felt fine.  

Wednesday morning, Max woke up throwing up around 330/4, and threw up every hour on the hour until about 8.  So he stayed home from school.  Then about 330, the school called me to come get Pace, that he had started throwing up.  The poor little guy threw up literally every ten minutes for the next four hours.  He was completely wilted--couldn't hold his head up, no energy between throwing up, and threw up immediately after having any sort of liquid hit his stomach.  I brought him in to the after-hours clinic for hopefully some help--a phenergan or zofran shot,.  They gave him phenergan, but said he was already pretty dehydrated, and would need to be admitted for IV fluids if he kept throwing up within the next hour of the shot.  After two more throw up episodes, we were admitted to the hospital.  The mama bear in me was really disappointed that we went to the hospital specifically for IV fluids, and he didn't get hooked up for another 2 1/2 hours after we got there.  And the first iv they did blew--I kept watching it, thinking, Just hand me the IV kit!  I'll get him going!  He had 2 hours of IV fluids, then perked up, started talking, begged for something to drink.  Too much too fast; it all came back up, so we had to start all over again trying to get him hydrated. 

We ended up being in the hospital from Wednesday night through Friday morning.  David called in to work on Thursday, saying his son was in the hospital, and they didn't give him any grief, thank heavens.  So we could tag team that day, and good friends of ours were happy to help out with Max Thursday and Friday until I got home with Pace.  I knew Pace was finally feeling better when he looked over at me and started talking about minecraft.  Before that point, every response to any questions was "No", "Not now", or "Maybe later".  Pace's teachers also came and visited him Thursday after school, which was so, so nice of them!  We finally left Friday morning--they gave Pace a cool wagon ride out to our car!  And we were so glad to be home!  (And, thank heavens, we didn't pass anything on to our cousins...phew!)  This poor thing lost so much weight, and looked like a little skeleton pulling up his pants for about 7-10 days after getting out of the hospital.  The rest of the weekend energy was a big deal, and he melted down over the littlest of things all weekend long--David took the boys home after sacrament on Sunday, and I kept Pace home from school on Monday.   

Pace's birthday was Saturday--the day after we left the hospital.  I told Pace we should probably wait until the following week for his party, and it'd be find to put it off, but he just broke down in tears.  I think knowing his birthday was on Saturday and his party was coming was part of what got him through the hospital.

I am not a theme-birthday mom.  I did one party when Pace turned 3, and thought it wasn't worth the time and effort!  But a month or so before his birthday, Pace started saying he was going to have a Minecraft party.  David said he would take over, and said he'd do a scavenger hunt.  So I provided all the prize items, and David set it up.  It ended up being great, and maybe I am a theme-birthday mom, with David's help!  We gave all the kids orange glow sticks for their torches, and David set up a mine down in the movie room, so all the kids had to use their torches to find diamonds, emeralds, slime, glowstone, etc.  Oh--and prior to the mine, the kids went to the farm to pick some jack-o-lanterns, farm animals, and tnt.  Finally, the kids had to kill a zombie piñata.  You could tell Pace was running out of steam at the end--everyone was here for just an hour--but that was perfect timing.  We had also told Pace he could pick out whatever birthday treat he wanted--I am not a cake-maker, so if the boys want cake, we pick one out from the store--but he said he wanted a fresh strawberry pie.  That I could whip up! 

This little boy is growing up so fast.  He is sweet, tender-hearted, smart, and a thinker.  I loved over-hearing a conversation he was having with Max where they were talking about something in minecraft, whether or not something existed, I think, and Pace told Max, "Maybe it is that way, Max, and we just don't know it yet."  For some reason, that made my heart smile--here was my little boy, thinking three dimensionally.

The boys are demonstrating the Tu-Ti-Ta song/dance they learned in Ms. Andersen's class.

My good friend, Becky--the one who swooped in to rescue us and help out with Max while Pace was in the hospital--her son Owen and Max are good little buddies.  We alternate Wednesdays as our Owen-Max play days; one week Max goes to their house, the next week Owen is at our house.  They play together so, so well, just talking to each other the whole time, playing the whole time--it's such a joy to have them play together!  We had some errands to run one Wednesday, so we had lunch at Costco before doing groceries and other errands.  The boys talked the whole time about things 5 year old boys talk about.

Max has also started doing a heart sign and the pointing at me.  He's my little mama's boy, always ready for a snuggle and always ready to tell me he loves me.

We had a ward chili and pie cook off, and I brought home 2nd place for my Sugar Cream Pie--yum!

Then we had a Halloween Scavenger hunt!  We received an anonymous invitation to participate in a scavenger hunt--we still don't know who it was from, although we have an idea...we had to follow clues and go to locations all throughout Spanish Fork, finding ingredients on tokens we had to record for a "witches brew", or doing tasks (one was tp-ing another team's house).  We had a great time!  

And, finally, Halloween!  We spent Saturday before Halloween trick-or-treating along Main St. with all the businesses, and, as David said, "Our boys are method trick-or-treaters."--they were both Dark Side Star Wars characters.

Then we went to the Red Barn for hayrides, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, slides, and the apple cannon!  

I had to hold Max on my knee so he could reach the trigger, and I told him to look through the circle aimer and hit something.  He said he wanted to go for the apple, took some time aiming--I love the look on his face--he really is looking, taking his time, and aiming!--and then he hit that apple square in the middle!

There was a new attraction this year, too--a super huge trampoline!

Pace spent quite a while looking through the pumpkin patch to find a perfect pumpkin.  Max was excited when he found one that "Looked like a butt"--que lots of giggles.

Sunday we carved our pumpkins--Max showed off his pumpkin butt.

On Halloween day I went to Pace's class to do the "photo booth", and the kids had a blast.  And a goat attacked David's truck.  We didn't get any photos from that night, but it was the first time the boys officially trick-or-treated.  Every other year we did trunk-or-treats, or walked around the stores at the mall when they were really little.  We're in a great trick-or-treating neighborhood this year, and David got home at a good hour, so we walked the boys around and I manned the door.  The boys were out for about an hour, and were home and done by 7:45.  What a busy night!