Fall Break

All the schools in Utah take a 5-day weekend during October.  I think most kids are really excited about this.  Miles was really disappointed.  "You mean I won't see Mrs. Godfrey for 5 days?"  was his general response.

I tried to come up with some fun things for us to do instead.  A lot of people use this as a chance to travel, but that was not in the cards for this year.  We just tried to do some low-key things around town.

Day before:

Molly's toddler class had a trip scheduled to the farm.  Luckily we could bring siblings!  It was just about perfect weather for it this year and the kids had a great time :)

Miles loved this miniature corn maze because he thought it was a ninja training course.

Did you know that goats like to eat pumpkin?  I did not.

Baby pigs!  So cute!

They were even pretty good-natured about me forcing them to sit on a bench for pictures.

Sometimes the corn has been so low that the maze was pretty easy.  Not this year!

They thought this giant sunflower was a tunnel.

Picking their own pumpkins!

The donuts at the end were a big hit!

On the official day one of the break, we went to see Planes: Fire and Rescue.  I'm not sure if any of us really loved the movie very much, but the popcorn and M & M's were a big hit!

Day two brought a play date with Molly's best friend, Tyler.  He moved a few weeks ago, so Molly was thrilled to see him.  Miles was thrilled to see all of Tyler's toys.  Molly cried for about 20 minutes straight when we had to leave, and Miles said we should all move to Tyler's house.

I distracted them when we got home with these neat magic paint books that my mom sent in the mail.

Day three was our big Saturday!  I love the BYU Homecoming parade, and we showed up nice and early for our blue pancakes.

There was SO MUCH candy from the parade this year.  We let the kids eat a little that day, and then it went into our stash for Halloween.

After the parade, we headed out to Price to see my sister Emily's family.  I'll do a separate post on that when I have more pictures!

For the final day of the break, we were all pretty tired.  Molly had her toddler class, and then we headed to Arctic Circle for lunch afterwards.  Both kids are in love with the playground and the miniature ice cream cones at the end!

         

 It was a nice little break, even if Miles was jumping with excitement at the end because he was so thrilled to be going back to school :)

Nap Time

Molly can't fall asleep without all of her friends.  In case you were wondering, that's about three separate blankets and probably 10-15 stuffed animals hiding the blankets.  I'm always shocked that there's any room left in the crib for Molly!

SLC Maker Faire

This event was basically tailored perfectly to Gerrit.  He's a mechanical engineer.  He wants our children to be engineers, so he tries to do a lot of hands-on science and engineering activities to get them really excited about it.  He does extra engineering as a hobby.  So when I found out about a DIY engineering festival in Salt Lake, I knew we would be going.

There are really big maker fairs in other parts of the country.  This one was much more low-key, but I really appreciated that there were a ton of hands-on exhibits!

 Someone had a carving machine and made Miles and Molly little plaques with their names on them.

 Making frog pop-up books.

 They've played with these wind tunnels so many times at Thanksgiving Point, but that didn't stop them from spending another 20 minutes there!

 Both kids were in love with this R2-D2 robot.  Molly spent the whole drive back crying because "I lost T2!"  They really wanted to take it home...not happening.

 Miles got to drive the Lego Robotics vehicle!

With some very, very expensive mechanical art.

The Rain-assance Festival

We got discount tickets to our local Renaissance Festival and decided it sounded like a lot of fun.  Neither of us had ever been to anything like it before.

And then....it was the rainiest day of the season.  It was pouring, cold, and windy...but we already had the tickets so we decided to brave it anyway :)  Sadly, large portions of it had to close for the weather.  We were really looking forward to the medieval village!

Cold, wet, and thankfully still happy :)

Even with the weather, we still got to see a lot of neat things:

*A puppet show
*A Jack Sparrow impersonator that Miles thought was awesome
*A falconry exhibit
*Some neat musical acts

*Man-to-man combat with some pretty serious weapons

*A real joust!

And lots of kettle corn for bribery!

Molly at 2.5

I can't believe Molly is actually two and a half now!  Here's a little bit about what she is like right now:

* Molly is a sweetheart.  She loves to give hugs and kisses and cuddle.

* Molly LOVES playing with other kids.  She always wants to go outside and play with the neighbor kids.  She makes friends at the playground, the grocery store, storytime, you name it.  One of the highlights of her life was when her best friend from nursery came to play at our house,

* Molly has a great imagination.  We play a lot of imagination-based games with her play dishes, stuffed animals, and other toys.

* Molly never stops talking!  She's a chatterbox and just loves to talk to me (or anyone else who will listen) all day.

*Molly loves the show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  She roars a lot now, and sings all of the little songs from the episodes constantly.

*Molly loves everything pink!  I'm not a huge fan of pink, but I think she would wear nothing but pink given the opportunity.

*Molly has a strong independent streak.  She does things when she wants to.  Anytime I ask her to come get dressed, put her shoes on, etc. she runs away in the opposite direction and flops over.  For example, this is what she did when I asked her to come outside with me and take pictures:

*Molly loves to color.  She always wants crayons or markers, and is getting much better about only coloring on the paper :)

*Molly loves books!  Her favorite book right now is "You Will Be My Friend" by Peter Brown.  It's so fun to snuggle up with her and read a few stories together.

Bunk Beds

Baby # 3 is a boy!  We're all excited, but for a little bit different of reasons.  Here's all of our reactions to finding out we were having a boy.

Molly:  Yay!  Baby brudder!  I don't think Molly realizes a difference either way, and since Miles wanted a brother, so did she.

Miles:  Yay!  This is exactly what I always wanted!  He was jumping up and down at the ultrasound.  He's been telling me all the things he's going to teach his baby brother.  It mostly revolves around his favorite games and learning to be a ninja.  I also casually mentioned that when they get older, we'll probably get bunk beds.  Miles is now almost as excited about having bunk beds as having a brother.

Me: Yay!  I can call the baby by name now :)  That's one of my favorite things about finding out the gender mid-way through.  I'm also excited to be halfway to meeting him!

Gerrit:  Yay!  We don't have to talk about baby names.  Gerrit hates talking about names, and we didn't have a girl's name picked out yet.

Passport to Provo

Well, it's official.  We are now part of a Guinness World Record!


Last month, Gerrit and I went with the kids and his sister to participate in the world's largest scavenger hunt in downtown Provo.

Everyone met at the convention center, and then there was about a five square-block radius with all the activities.  We knew we weren't going to win, so we just picked whatever activities the kids would think were the most fun!

Reading from Cat in the Hat at the bookstore.

They had these cutouts of the mayor's head around town. A little weird!  

 Gerrit riding the Google Fiber bike.

 Miles telling a joke at the Covey Center.  I think it had something to do with Oreos.

 Playing leapfrog.

 Molly loves dogs!

 With Paxi the llama.  Miles really loved the llamas!

I think they needed about 900 participants to beat the world record.  They ended up with over 2000!  They had a big after-party that night to celebrate.

Sooo....we got these shirts.  Miles calls it the "creepy bunny" shirt.  It's actually a really comfy shirt, but Miles is pretty accurate about the rest of it.  Gerrit won't wear his because he's  "afraid they might fire me if I wear it to work." We also got Google Fiber shirts.  Not creepy.  Gerrit does wear that to work.

Of course the little kids loved the light-up dance floor!

 Miles and his new best friend.  I think they danced together for 2 or 3 songs.

Molly and her new best friend.  They really liked looking at all the lights.

Molly also adored these light-up fountains.