Thanksgiving

 I am a bit behind in posting for Thanksgiving. We had my parents and my Aunt Carol from San Diego visit us for the holiday. Unfortunately all three of them caught something while they were here! Before the sickness hit, Gavin enjoyed some puzzle time with Grandpa.

Then both kids got to play with playdough with Grandpa while Grandma did some coloring in one of our coloring books.

We had a wonderful holiday together and on Sunday after Thanksgiving we celebrated Carlton's Birthday!! Nothing like having Birthday cake after all the Thanksgiving goodies.

Then we took some group pics...had to have a goofy one!

After my parents left, Carol extended her stay with us since she was not feeling well enough to get on a plane. I tried to keep Avery busy so Carol could get some much needed rest. Here's a video of her playing in the snow:

Gavin is enjoying his new gymnastics class. Here is a video of him attempting a handstand:

After a recent snowfall, Carlton made a makeshift hill in the backyard so the kids could do some sledding:

The kids caught the same cold Carol had, so we kept Gavin home from school for a couple days. During that time the kids wanted to play school with Aunt Carol helping out.

First video is with Gavin teach Avery to build with Lego and the second one is Avery teaching Gavin. No idea where Avery got her posturing!

Then we decided to get out some Christmas decorations and found an old Santa costume and Elf costume, so they played dress up!

It was very nice to have an extended visit with Aunt Carol even though she spent most of it being sick. After 2.5 weeks, she finally felt well enough to fly home! Grandma and Grandpa are still battling their illness back in Phoenix. Hopefully we will all be healthy for Christmas!!

All Hallows Eve

 We had lots of Halloween activities the week before Halloween. Gavin got to wear his costume to gymnastics, so he was a Ninja during his class. Here his coach is trying to help him do a cartwheel on the tumbletrack.

Then Avery got to wear a pirate costume for her class. Here she is doing the balance beam and then stirring a cauldron of witches brew.

Here is a quick video of Avery attempting to hula hoop. This was at Open Gym where she takes gymnastics.

On Saturday we went to Wheeler Historic Farm that had a Halloween Carnival going on. So we did a Hay Bale Maze, the kids played in dried corn and we rode on the cow train.

They also had giant checkers, connect four and monster horseshoes.

That same afternoon, we went to the Railroad Museum near our house that had a little Haunted Trail for kids. Avery dressed as a Princess and Gavin was a Ninja.

They got to do a small craft, get some candy and ride a train!

The Friday before Halloween, Gavin's school had a costume parade on their back field.

Then for Halloween, Gavin chose his Ninja costume (he also has a Knight costume) and Avery chose to be a Dragon Princess! Here they are before going out and then again with a couple friends from our street. 

They had a great time trick or treating with friends!!

To end this post, we have switched Gavin to a different gymnastics class. So he had his first lesson this past week, which he enjoyed! This one is more at the introductory level and we had to be on a waitlist for a couple months before a spot opened up.

So now Gavin doesn't have that huge Ninja obstacle course as part of his class. Hopefully this class will help him gain confidence in his abilities!

Halloween Celebrations and more

The kids and I checked out a local Halloween Carnival last weekend and they got to wear their costumes. They also got to do a little trick or treating and check out a very small petting zoo!

 

We also ran into our neighbor down the street at the Carnival, so we got pictures with him and his Mom!

Avery is still enjoying her Toddler Time through the library! This past week they got to have a little Halloween party.

They did some dancing to Halloween music and a costume parade.

We carved pumpkins with the kids a couple weeks ago but forgot to spray them to delay the rotting. So we got new pumpkins this weekend and carved those! So here are the first ones we carved:

And the second set of pumpkins we carved:

Avery got to wear her costume to gymnastics this past week, so here is a video of her enjoying that!

Today we got snow! It was supposed to be about 3 inches but I think we ended up with 6 inches at least!!

Here's a video of the snow falling....very large snowflakes!

For some reason Gavin really loves building a snow wall at the bottom of the slide. Here are a couple pictures.

Here is a video of Avery going down the slide with the snow wall in place:

And I will leave you with a picture of Avery reading one of the books we got at the library. This was the day we got the book, so she couldn't wait until we got home.

October So Far...

 Our October has been busy with Gavin in school, having homework and going to his Warrior Fitness Class (gymnastics). Plus Avery has her gymnastics class, toddler time through the library and they both have swimming!

Avery entertained us one day with some piano playing and singing. I sneaked a video of her:

And her is a video of her trying new tricks in gymnastics:

Then Gavin got to try a couple new things in his class:

Then at Toddler Time, Avery got to be a superhero with a mask and cape. Here she is showing her muscles.

In this video, she is doing superhero exercises.

And more new stuff in gymnastics:

Then today we did a hike in the woods to see the Fall colors. It was nice to get outside and enjoy some fresh air. Both kids did great on the hike and did not ask to be carried once! We did 2.6 miles!! Would have been a bit longer but there were cows on the trail, so we had to turn around! LOL

Fun month so far....and we are ready for Halloween!

Lego, Gymnastics and More!

Carlton decided to purchase a Lego project for he and the kids to work on - a Haunted Mansion. Just over 3,000 pieces to it and it took them about 3 or 4 days to finish it.

It is a pretty cool structure with the portrait in the top left lighting up with a "ghost" that haunts it. There is also an elevator in the middle that takes riders up and then drops them, kind of like the Tower of Terror. Here is a video of Gavin cranking the elevator.

The kids love it but now Gavin likes to take some of it apart and rebuild it....in other builds.

In other news, both kids ended up graduating to the next level in their swim classes!! So here is the obligatory pic!

We have also signed up Gavin for gymnastics, although his class is called Warrior Fitness. The "regular" 5 year old gymnastics classes are all full, so this was the only other option for his age. It's a bit advanced for him but we are on a waitlist for the other class and hope he can switch sometime soon. In the meantime, here are a couple videos of him trying the Ninja Obstacle course for the first time. In the first part he had to climb over this wall and then jump onto the balance board.

Next he had to pick one of three paths to go through using rings to a rope or and on to another ring or net of rope.

From there he was supposed to climb up the net of rope and move on to the next section but he couldn't quite get up.

In the next section he chose to try the rings that slide across the bar.

The last thing he had to attempt was a "Spiderman" crawl using these huge foam blocks.

Needless to say it was challenging for him!! We will see how class two goes this coming week.

Hopefully we all start feeling better this coming week. Gavin caught a cold his first week of school which he shared with all of us. Then he got an ear infection from the cold. A couple days after finishing his medication for the ear infection, the school sent him home for pink eye!! We got him into the doctor the same day and on medication. After 48 hours we thought we were in the clear because he was no longer contagious and no one had caught it. Then the next morning, Avery had a goopy eye. So we took her to the doctor and got her medication for pink eye in both eyes. That was on Thursday and now I need to get myself checked out Monday to see if I might have it too. Fun, fun, fun!!! Meanwhile, Carlton has caught the cold we have all had for a couple weeks now. One of these days, we will all be healthy again! That's all for now!

Keeping busy

We had a busy week with some new experiences! Ms. Avery got to try out a gymnastics class this past week and loved it! Here are some videos and pictures of what she did in her first class.

Forward bunny hops down the long trampoline, then backward bunny hops...

Forward rolls into the foam pit and then she got to choose her own method. By the time she got down to the foam pit on this one, she was dizzy!!

Then we went into another part of the gym where there were three different obstacle courses set up. The first one she started with the parallel bars.

Next up was a backward roll on a foam ramp and then onto a balance beam doing bear crawls backwards.

On another obstacle course they had to climb up a ladder and jump down, then walk on a balance beam and do a flamingo pose in the middle of the beam.

The last obstacle course had rings, uneven bars, and parallel bars again.

So our little monkey girl is going to take gymnastics now and see how she likes it!! If nothing else, it gives her a regular class to get out of the house while Gavin is in school. And then the other day she showed me how to workout in the garage....using the gardening tool wagon and old wheels from one of Carlton's remote control airplanes.