Fall Playdate

Fall is officially here! That means falling leaves, cooler weather and the return of our regular playgroup. While our playgroup did continue to meet throughout the summer, we only met once a month. Also, we gathered at parks or splash pads, so we planned no special activities for our kiddos. We sure had a wonderful time playing outdoors, but we've been excited to re-start our themed, more "organized" playtime, too. 

For our first playdate of October, we chose a fall theme. Jenna organized our snacks-- adorable peanut butter cracker sandwiches decorated as spiders.

She also brought along some fruit cups and allowed the kiddos to draw on little jack-o-lantern faces, if they wanted. The snack was a hit-- Cody and Jaden especially ate a ton!

The playgroup kids: Micah, Abbie, Kenzie, Jaden, Cody, Landon
(not pictured) Ryder, Hannah, Wes

 Our playgroup has a bit of a different feel this year, as a few of the older siblings are now attending kindergarten or preschool. The oldest kid is only 3 1/2, so all the kids are a bit more similar in ability and interest level. Also, we were happy to have our new friend Samie (and her kids Kenzie and Wes) join our group. Our little friends Micah and Landon joined us, too, even though their working moms could not attend. All in all, the four of us moms successfully corralled 9 kiddos (4 three-year-olds, 3 two-year-olds, and 2 infants).

After snacktime, we headed outdoors for a few activities. The weather was gorgeous that day! First, we gathered a bunch of leaves, sticks, and grass for some nature rubbings. Because the sidewalk was very rough, most of the pics ended up just showing off the sidewalk's texture. The process seemed to  still be enjoyable for the kids, though.

Here are our attempts to get a group shot of the kids holding up their leaf rubbings.

Jaden, Kenzie, Landon, Cody

Jaden, Kenzie, Landon, Cody
Abbie, Micah

Our next activity was a type of hide-and-seek game. We started with an empty tree picture...

...and then told the kids to search the yard for 12 hidden paper leaves. No need to tell them this direction twice!

The idea was to bring the leaves back to the paper tree and match the number on the leaf with the number on the tree. Other than Jaden and Cody, the kids were able to do this quite successfully! Cody definitely got the "find a leaf" direction and continued to bring REAL leaves back. :)

Ryder needed no help matching up his leaf!

Jaden was fairly excited to find the leaves hidden around the yard.

Once the leaves were all found, the fall tree was complete! The kids right away asked to play again, and probably would've played several additional times, too, if we would've had time.

 Next, we went indoors for a little owl-pumpkin craft that Ruth had planned. Ruth showed us her sample (just to Micah's left) and let the kids glue on their own owl features. 

Cody and Jaden's owls were a bit abstract. :)

Ruth had written, "Whoooo does Jesus love?" on the back of each owl pumpkin. What a wonderful fall reminder of our Savior's love!

Jenna eventually managed to get a funny group shot of the kids. She asked them all to make the baby laugh when she was holding little Wes. It worked-- the kiddos all put on their best goofy faces (except for Jaden, who was truly picking his nose, I'm pretty sure)! :)

We had a great time and are already looking forward to our next play group!

Our Recent Action

Jaden and Cody are, as the saying goes, currently "talking up a storm" and as usual, are always on the go! These videos provide a glimpse into their latest action.

Cars & Trucks

Other than "reading" books, playing with vehicles is still one of the boys' top pastimes. Cody and Jaden can identify all their vehicles by name, although they'd rather refer to some cars (like their fire engine or police car) simply by their siren sound. You may not be able to understand all of their vocab in this video, but you can at least sense the double-excitement the boys have in pointing out all their cars and trucks.

Prayer Time

One day recently, Cody bowed his head in the middle of lunch and started babbling. At first, I struggled to pick out all of his words, but eventually I figured out that he was praying for his cousin Abby! Cody willingly repeated a shorter version of his prayer for the camera: "Bless Abby. Amen." Jaden immediately parrots the prayer, with an enthusiastic fist-pump finish. :)

Twin Dancing

Another day, also during lunch, Jaden and Cody randomly started grooving along with the radio that was playing in the background. They allowed me to capture just a bit of their action on video.

The Cody Show

In the following video, Cody displays his skills on the piano along with his vocal talents (just a song of babbles, no real words). You can tell he enjoys having an audience!

Story Time with Cody

Not long ago, one of our blog posts featured Jaden reading Blue Sky. One of Cody's recent favorite books to "read" on his own is Where is the Green Sheep? Halfway through the book, Cody gives actions to the "near sheep/far sheep" page. At the very end, he demonstrates what the green sheep is finally found doing-- sleeping!

Animal Sounds

Jaden and Cody have known their animal sounds for quite some time now, but they've recently learned a fun new one (the last one on the video).

Welcome, Fall!

This past weekend our family celebrated fall with a visit to the pumpkin patch. The weather was predicted to be so beautiful (sunny and high 60s), and we figured it wouldn't be too busy this early in the month. It was a wonderful morning!

Jaden and Cody were too short to pose inside these animal heads, but the pics still turned out pretty cute! :)

We started our morning with some playtime in the corn box. What a great idea this farm had to include dump trucks and bulldozers with the corn. Cody and Jaden probably could've spent the whole day here!

Next, we got to ride behind a tractor. The seats filled up quickly, so we were happy that we got a turn to ride all together as a family.

Then, it was on to the slides. This slide was enormous... and FAST! We were shocked that Jaden was brave enough to slide down on his own. He loved it!

Cody seemed a bit nervous on his first slide down, so from then on, he was happy to be slide-partners with Daddy.

The second slide was a bit bumpy for both boys, but they loved this one, too.

After the slides, we picked out a spot on the hay bale "bleachers" to watch some pig races!

I can't remember who was winning here-- Eenie or Meanie.

Jaden and Cody didn't last long on the hay bales. They had to get an up-close view.

When the races were done, we got to walk around and pet some of the farm animals.

Jaden was definitely our all-around brave kid of the day. He just giggled when this horse tried to lick his fingers.

He couldn't figure out why the horse didn't want to eat his rock treat.

We also enjoyed seeing some sheep...

...and the famous racing pigs.

Other farm highlights included going inside a tee-pee,

riding on the swings (though this activity didn't hold their interest long at all!),

climbing on a large spider web (notice the people building with life-size Lincoln logs in the background... maybe next year we'll try this out!),

and climbing up haystacks.

Since Cody and Jaden were a bit too young to appreciate the real corn maze, we tried out this "cage maze" instead.

What a fun place for the boys to run around!

At the end of our visit, we decided to take home a few souvenirs. We walked through two different pumpkin patches to pick out our favorite family pumpkins.

We told Jaden and Cody that they could pick any pumpkin they wanted, and both ended up with these funny-looking yellow gourds!

This wagon helped us carry the pumpkins to our car. (The boys weren't big fans of the bumpy ride.)

What an enjoyable family day at the farm! We'll definitely re-visit this spot next year. Happy Fall to our family and friends!