A few pictures

I know I've been really behind on the blog, so here is a bunch of pictures showing what we have been doing lately. Some are from a couple months ago, and some are from this past week.
Here is a picture of Keely after she discovered the box of sweet corn cobs when we were putting up corn a few months ago.  She couldn't pass up eating the tips and sucking the juice of the corn!

 Brooks has been playing a lot of sports...especially basketball after he got a KU Jayhawk shirt!

 Keely has become quite the little pest and loves to tickle and mess with her brother.  Sometimes he's a good sport about it, but most of the time he isn't too impressed with the pestering!

 Brooks has also been playing a lot of football.  He wears his Husker jersey almost every day. 

 One day Brooks needed something to do, so I got creative and made him a tub of cloud dough.  It's just flour and baby oil mixed together.  He LOVES it! I let Keely play up on the chairs with him for a little, but she made quite the mess and managed to fall off the chair, so needless to say, cloud dough has been strictly a Brooks thing after that first day!

 We've been out to check out harvest a couple of times this fall.  Brooks and Keely both loved the picnic supper.  Brooks and Blake have ridden a couple rounds in the combine and Brooks has really enjoyed that again this year.  It hasn't worked out right yet for Keely to get to ride, but maybe sometime yet this year. 

 I think Keely thought the field corn would taste like sweet corn! She was hoping!

 Halloween costumes this year...This is the first year Brooks hasn't cried about his costume! Maybe it's because he plays a football player daily! :)  But at least he let me draw the black lines under his eyes to make it a little more than just wearing a jersey! Keely loves her cheerleader outfit and likes to say 'touchdown!' while Brooks is playing or we are watching a game on tv.

 We carved just one pumpkin this year.  Brooks was excited to pull out the seeds

 He got right after it!

 Keely did not enjoy the process very much and with cutting some molars these past few weeks, she has had her fair share of crabby moments! We did however get a good picture of her with the final product.  You can kind of see her tear streaked face, but at least she's smiling! Her favorite word these days is 'puhkin' 

 In the past couple of days Keely has learned to climb up our kitchen chairs and join Brooks playing on the counter while I make supper and work in the kitchen.  It's nice not to have her at my feet and pulling on my leg, but she doesn't quite understand that she could hurt herself if she falls and is a little careless up there! She has enjoyed Brooks' piggy bank and putting coins in over and over again.

 Playing with daddy before bed!

 Lastly, Keely LOVES Cheyenne.  Especially when we let her in the house for brief moments at a time.

Starting Preschool

I know I'm a little behind on my blogs, but I'm going to try and catch up! At the beginning of September, we started a new chapter in our house.  Brooks started preschool! He was kind of excited about it, but really nervous too.  I had taken him to meet the teacher this summer while she was working at the school so he could see his classroom and play with some of the toys.  He had a great time there playing with Keely and checking everything out.  However, when it got closer to school, he started to get pretty concerned about having to stay there without mommy or daddy.  He kept asking, "what are you going to do?" And I would have to tell him I would go home with Keely and come back to pick him up later.  He wasn't too sure about that, but I tried to not dwell on it with him! At preschool orientation about a couple weeks before school started, we got to meet his teacher again and some other kids in his class.  As we were taking him up the stairs to see his room with everyone else, he got really nervous and kept asking, "What should I do?" "What should I do?"  When we said he should just go play with the other kids, he kept saying, "I don't know about that" "I don't know about that!"  Needless to say, he was in tears, and he didn't play with anyone that night.  On his first morning of preschool, I got him dressed and ready and I could tell he was nervous.  Luckily we avoided tears before we left and I was able to snap a few pictures of our school boy!

 Keely had to get in on a few pictures too!

He was ok in the van ride to preschool and waited patiently as I got Keely out of the van to walk him to his classroom.  He made it up the stairs and then the crying started.  It was really hard for me to leave my screaming boy because I knew he was just scared and not sure what was all going to happen.  So needless to say, with being pregnant, the tears started falling for me too by the time Keely and I got back to the van.  I really started doubting whether Brooks was ready to start preschool and if he was just too young yet.  Blake went with me to pick him up when his first day was done, and Brooks was at least smiling! He wasn't super excited to see us or anything, just normal.  We asked him how his first day went as we were walking out to the van, and he said, "I'm not impressed."  Blake and I could hardly hold back the laughter at that comment!  It's so typical of Brooks! We got him to tell us a little more about his day, but he didn't really say a whole lot.  Thursday was his next day of school, and he screamed when I left just as much as he did the first day.  It was a little easier to leave for me this time, but still hard to hear him cry so hard when I left! The next week my mom had to take him since Blake and I were in Orlando for the Ace Show.  She said he cried Tuesday, but then Thursday he was ok.  When I took him the following Tuesday, he didn't cry at all! It was a huge relief to me that it only took 3 times of going before the tears were done! He is now excited whenever it is a preschool day and looks forward to it.  He even plays 'preschool' at home.  I can overhear him telling the kids what to do and singing songs.  For some reason he likes to do that when he sits on the potty to poop, but hey, whatever works! We have already noticed Brooks growing up the past couple weeks with being able to play more on his own and being willing to play with other kids instead of just mommy and daddy.  He has started to learn some of the kids' names and tells us what he gets to do at preschool (if we ask him the right questions...if we just ask, 'what did you do?' he'll say, 'i don't know'.  but if we ask, "did you color' or 'did you sing songs' or 'did you play with any other kids' we get more out of him!)  His favorite thing seems to be playing outside on the playground, playing duplos, and singing songs. Needless to say, it was the right choice sending him to preschool this year.  I really think it will help his social skills and independence from Mom and Dad!