Dinosaur Museum

I went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with my class and found out that teachers and one guest get in for free. That night I told Brandon because we had been talking about going but hadn't yet. He decided that on Saturday (two days after I was there on a field trip) that we should go. Getting in for free is a nice perk for teachers, especially since we could probably spend hours there reading everything.

When you have an almost 2 year old with you on the other hand, you don't have hours. I felt like we breezed through and it took us about an hour and a half.

Now, over the summer we went with my friend Heather and her kids. Austin loved it of course! He wasn't so sure of the water feature that they have. It is a play area with sand and very slow running water. The kids can make dams and then watch the sand slowly erode. When we went with Heather, Austin would put his hand in the water willingly, but if he touched the sand he would get this disgusted face and then start to cry because the sand was stuck to his hand. Her daughter tried to help him, but he didn't want her help.

Kaylee trying to help Austin

This time, he was a little better with the sand but he really just wanted to splash in the water (which is against the rules). After we pulled him away from the water he went and sat on this dinosaur statue. He kept giving it a hug.

Austin is fascinated by turtles, thanks to Heather. So, when we entered the room with the giant sea turtle Austin freaked out saying "Turtle!" over and over. He didn't want to leave that room.

Right before the end they have a sand pit that you can "dig" for fossils like an archeologist. Austin had a blast in here. Afterwards, he however was upset because he had so much sand in his shoes and socks.

Pumpkin Carving

This year we decided to only carve one pumpkin. Halloween snuck up on us and we carved our pumpkin the night before Halloween. I was expecting Austin to hate the pumpkin guts but I was willing to let him try. Here are the results:

Not so sure at first

Brave enough to stick his hand in and loves it!

Going back for more

Trying to make it in the bag

Finished product

Halloween 2.0

For Halloween we had some professional photos taken of Austin. 

We have a friend that was offering

a steal of a deal to help her get her name out.

We think that she did a wonderful job. 

Thank you so much Crystal!

Look at those blue eyes!

 

I love this one in black and white!

Photos done by Crystal Spencer

Lately

Well, we have been very busy. Brandon is now working on coding for Android at work. This is great because it is challenged and busier than ever. Also, school is just whizzing by. I feel like the school year just started but it has been 50 days. Weird! These kids are so fun. We just went on a field trip to the dinosaur museum a couple Thursday's ago. The students had a great time, and many fell asleep on the way back to the school.

Austin loves to help cook. He tries so hard to actually stir anything on the stove, luckily he does not touch the stove. He is getting so tall that he can put the spoon in the pan and touch the food. He also gets out all the pots and pans, asks for a spoon, puts toys in the pans, and then stirs the toys to "cook." Of course, after he is done cooking we just taste it! Quite the imagination.

Austin loves to also color. He will climb up the chairs at our island and say "cajur" over and over again until we ask him if he wants to color, to which he replies "k." He will then say please and once we give it to him he will thank us. It is so sweet to have a very polite little boy.

Austin is now starting to say prayers. He is very good about it sometimes and other times just wiggly. He gets very excited for church, but he of course has a very hard time sitting still. He does pretty good, but he is still learning. Austin still loves nursery and could care less if we are there. He will walk right in and he doesn't look back. When we go to pick him up he doesn't run to us, he sees us but keeps on playing. Seriously, who would want to leave fun toys and a bubble machine?

"Spookies" and Halloween

When Austin would go to the sitters he would walk around all the time saying "spookies" and putting his hand over his mouth. I recently had a whole week off from school and I decided that I would put up some Halloween decorations that he could play spooky with as well. So, one day we headed to the dollar store and brought some decorations. It wasn't much but as soon as I put them up around the house he started walking around and saying "spookies." It was so funny!

I also bought some of that spiderweb stuff to put up outside. It looked wonderful when I was done and Austin was asking all the time to go outside and see the spookies. However, if you know anything about where we live you know that it is super windy all the time. The spiderweb started to get all tangled and just look like cotton balls. Epic fail on my part! I thought it would last but it clearly didn't. Oh, well, I won't be trying that again any time soon.

For Halloween Austin was Brobee from "Yo Gabba Gabba." He loves that show and just loved putting on his costume. He would walk around the house asking for "Bobee" if we mentioned it at all. Seriously, he would go crazy for his costume when he saw it; we couldn't put it on him fast enough.

Of course, Brandon had to dress up, too, as DJ Lance Rock from "Yo Gabba Gabba" as well. We went trick-or-treating at the mall to help Austin get used to the idea of it. Once he realized it was candy, he tried everything to get some and eat it. Sometimes this included the wrappers if needed (Tootsie Roll wrappers to be specific). He had fun but was done after about 30 minutes.