Seaton Family Holiday Pics

We had our holiday picture session this weekend where the boys did really great and we got our annual "blackmail" picture. They can't deny the brotherly love that they share!

Update: Robin's Cake Creations

Update - turns out that mom has "outsourced" the cake creations to Robin. These are her cake creations. See below for this year's creation.

Per my Happy Birthday blog, I mentioned that my mom has gotten creative in the past with the birthday cakes when combining my birthday with my nephew, Shane's. This year, we will be combining mine with Shane's and Ethan's. See below for one of her more creative masterpieces. A couple year's later she went pro.

Happy Birthday to All of Us

November is the month of family birthdays! There are 10 family member birthdays within 10 days of each other. We had two birthday celebrations this weekend with family. Saturday night, we celebrated my birthday along with Papa and Aunt Julie's birthday. We had a nice night of visiting, pizza, chocolate cake, and gifts - yeah! Sunday night we had dinner with Papa Terry and Gma Donna, where the boys enjoyed the visit and we had MORE chocolate cake. Next Sunday, we are celebrating my birthday and my 2 nephews' birthdays with my family. My mom has gotten really creative with the cake in the past when combining birthdays - so this should be interesting to see what she does this year. My only request is no more chocolate cake.

On my birthday, Connor asked me how “many” I was and I said 33 – he held up three fingers and said “like me”. I said no, 10-20-30 plus 3 (using my hands to signal the count of 10s). He said – that’s a lot and walked off. Gotta love the toddler’s viewpoint! Happy Birthday to all my family and my friends that are also celebrating birthdays this month!

Parent-Teacher Conference at Montessori

Last week, we had our first Parent-Teacher conference with Connor's teacher at Montessori. Little did we know that this is far more involved than a report card. We sat down with Ms. Beth to discuss Connor's progress in the three main areas - academics, behavioral, and work habits.

According to Ms. Beth, Connor is well rounded with an interest in all 5 academic areas that Montessori monitors (practical life (aka motor skills), creative expression, science, math, and language). It was no surprise that he is proficient in many of the math areas considering his parents are Accountants. It was a little surprising that he has an interest in the science area. Ms. Beth said that he is very curious about things yet to be presented and likes to watch the older kids at work.

Ms. Beth said that Connor stays quite busy during the day, really enjoys getting new lessons, and displays a positive attitude. She said he is easily pulled into inappropriate play, but is equally easy to redirect him back to the expected behavior. Connor recently asked if he could be the "Bathroom Monitor", so he is working with an older child to learn the role of this position. His motivation in this area relates to the fact that HE is usually one that the bathroom monitor has to remind to be quiet and stop playing in the sink.

Great news Connor! We are really proud of the progress you are making at your new school.

Trick or Treat

This Halloween, we have participated in more Halloween themed events since the boys are getting older. We went to Family Fun Night at Brady's daycare and we went to a Montessori Costume Party for Connor's school. They both enjoyed seeing their friends from school. Connor was really excited to see some friends that he hadn't seen in a couple months (since he changed schools).

For costumes, I purchased a train conductor costume for Connor since he is crazy about trains. I was having a hard time finding one for Brady, so I ended up ordering a Bat costume online. However, once it arrived, Brady and Connor decided to trade costumes. Okay - this will work, no biggee that one is a little small for Connor and the other is a little big for Brady.

Our first costumed event was the Montessori Costume Party. Connor was so excited to dress up, while Brady refused. I threw a hat on Brady and decided he could go as Brady. At the last minute, I gave Brady the option to wear the train costume or go as Elmo (Elmo Sweatshirt, Elmo hat, we're done) in hopes that he would choose one. He chose Elmo - good job Brady!

For Halloween night, we started out at Brady's Halloween Party at school and then went to pick up Connor early. Connor was really excited to show Brady around Montessori. Afterwards, we met up with daddy and started our evening of trick-or-treating. We went to Gma Darla's for a little bit and went through her neighborhood. We then went to Mimi's for dinner and trick-or-treating in her neighborhood. Before we had a chance to head home to our neighborhood, the cousins showed up at Mimi's and the kids had a blast playing together. This year, we skipped our neighborhood yet again and we missed all the trick or treaters. That's okay since the boys had a blast and still ended up with full buckets!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Connor's Field Trip to Mayse Farm

This week, Connor's class and a couple other classrooms went on a field trip to Mayse Farm. Connor was so excited since he had already been there with the family a couple weeks ago and knew what to expect (and what to look forward to). He said they got to ride a school bus to Mayse Farm, they did all the same things we did as a family but with his friends, and he even got to pick out a baby pumpkin. That evening, he decided he wanted to paint his pumpkin. At his request, I painted the face of the Jack O'Lantern and he painted the remainder.

What a great job Connor!

Our First Jack O'Lantern

At Mayse Farm a couple weekends ago, we selected a nice pumpkin for carving the week of Halloween. This will be my first memory of a pumpkin carving (although my mom said we tried one year) and the boys first pumpkin carving. Daddy researched pumpkin carving templates online and selected an appropriately scary one.

Since the boys did so great with their flu shots today (no fighting or crying), we decided tonight was a good night to carve the pumpkin. While daddy was carving the pumpkin (very professionally I might add), I suggested we pick out the pumpkin seeds for toasted pumpkin seeds. Of course, this became my task since the boys decided they didn't want to get their hands dirty.

The end result - a scary Jack O'Lantern, yummy cinnamon flavored pumpkin seeds, and a new memory with the boys!

Teenager attitude early or just a preview?

Connor and Brady are giving us a glimpse of what teenager attitude will look like with their new favorite phrases.

Connor has decided to end the majority of his statements or respond to our questions with "whatever". Imagine this being said in a smart alleck tone as opposed to being an answer to the question of what do you want for dinner. I have identified who one of the influences to this word were - daddy! Daddy has been caught on occasion responding to mommy's questions this way. Daddy now has some reform work to do!

Brady's new phrase is "I know that". The majority of time this is said as a statement that he knew something we just told him. It has came off a few times as smart alleck also in that we just told him something he already knew and we wasted our time telling him again. Well then!

Gotta love the personalities that are developing!

Fall Family Fun with the Boys

Today, we had an adventurous day enjoying the nice fall weather. We met several friends at Mayse Farm Market for an afternoon of fun. We went on a hayride to the pumpkin patch where we picked out a nice pumpkin for carving (which will be a first for me and the boys). We had fun on the slide, playing in the straw castle, finding our way through the hay maze to ring the bell, finding our way through Simba's Corn Maze, and drinking fresh apple cider (which Connor calls spicy).

After a long afternoon nap, we then ventured to "Boo at the Zoo" with Mimi & Papa. The boys had fun getting some nice treats and seeing and petting a few animals. The Jaquar was very active from all the people traffic, so Connor was excited about that. We were really disappointed that they decided to not run the haunted tram this year (which was the main reason we went), but at least there was some spookiness in walking through the zoo in the dark.

In conclusion, it was a nice way to spend the day together and to start some family traditions of picking out a pumpkin. We will definately make that an annual event.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Fall Festival "Troopers"

The Friday before the Fall Festival started, Connor asked if we were taking them because he heard there was going to be food and rides there. (Thanks to his friends at school). We had avoided the trip to the Fall Festival with kids up to this point - now we had no choice but to entertain Connor's curiosity.

We ventured to the Fall Festival Wednesday night with the boys and Gma Darla (extra support just in case). As soon as we got there, Connor was intrigued by the Ferris Wheel and other "older kid" rides. We focused on food first (of course). The boys had typical kid food - cheeseburger and corn dog. They especially loved the fruit haystack which was fresh fruit with mini-marshmallows. I decided for the first time in many years to venture beyond my favorites and try some new items. I tried the Hawaiian burger (Yummy!) and the Eagle Egg (also Yummy!).

After everyone got their share of food, we went to the outrageously priced ticket booth. I bought a small amount of tickets to give Connor the chance to ride a few rides. Well, Brady decided that he wanted to ride also. He wouldn't ride at Holiday World, but the Fall Festival rides interested him for some reason (go figure). We rode THREE kiddie rides for $15. I think next time, we will consider going on the Family Sunday and purchase an armband to allow them to ride many rides. The evening was fun and the boys will now be a part of the annual trek to the "Biggest Street Festival" in our town!

Montessori Update

Connor is doing very well at Montessori - we are very satisfied with our decision to move him and know that he is learning a lot. As well as the education, they also focus on basic practical life lessons that strengthen their fine motor skills as well as calling upon their sense of order, concentration, coordination, and independence.

Last week, they went on a field trip to Cmoe and received favorable reports about their behaviour. Later this month, they will be visiting Maise Farm to explore the pumpkin patch.

Following are a few pictures of Connor showing how he spends his days at Montessori (thank you Ms. Beth). The first picture is Connor in the quiet corner, where they said he is always careful to take his glasses off. The kids are allowed to go to the quiet corner when they need to take a break from the school day for whatever reason.

Let's Stick to the Routine - I want to know what's next!

Connor has always been a little fanatic about the routine and knowing what the order of events will be. About the time we started the nightly routine, he would usually recite what it was as sort of a confirmation that we weren't going to mix it up - Bath, Cookies, TV show, Book, Bed. Apparently, he finds comfort in this area as it allowed him to transition more comfortably at Montessori also. Ms. Beth said that once he knew how the day would play out, he was like "Okay - I'm good now".

Connor has now started extending the routine beyond a couple hours of time. On Friday mornings, he will recite what will happen from Friday morning all the way until Monday morning. It's so funny that he finds this important - "we go to school today, then tonight we start the weekend with mommy and daddy, this weekend we are going to do _____, then Sunday night I got to bed and when I wake up it will be time to go to school again (lots of enthusiasm here)". Talk about fast-forwarding the weekend....

Brady has started picking up this "trait" also. On the way home from school, he recites what will happen when he gets home. Usually I have to change the order because he tries to force a snack/dessert in there before dinner.