Settling In, and Beginning of Preschool

My friend (I'll have to get her permission to name her and her kiddos on here...) emailed me better pictures of the little ones at the Bass Pro shop fish tank... you can see how hard it is to get both kids looking at the camera, and smiling. You can tell they're emphatically saying "cheese!" in most of the pics... and you can see how Evan clenches his fists when he says cheese :)

Aren't they adorable??? When we were walking the mall, I had the two of them hold hands so I wouldn't lose them, and we got so many looks, and people whispering to each other and pointing at us... I'm pretty sure most people thought that I was blessed with some blond twins. My friend, who's also brunette, and I got asked where we found the blond kids. Ha ha. Comments like that just make me roll my eyes. I mean, really? Do they want a lecture in genetics? An explanation of .... or a confession to kidnapping? But, I'm sure they all mean well, and no offense is taken.

And now back to the original post. I really wish you could add new pictures onto a blog post wherever you wanted them!

This is Parker sporting his new hat. When I was patching the boys' jeans, we came across a hat I'd started for the boys when they were babies. Parker saw it and begged me to finish it for him. Every time I went to work on something different, he would bring me the hat, yarn, and crochet hook. I finally told him I would finish it while he slept, and it would be done when he woke up. He was out of his bed ten minutes after I put him down, asking for his hat. I had to tell him it wouldn't be done until it was day, and then he stayed in bed until morning. He definitely loves his hat. I'm going to have to make one for Evan, since he's pretty jealous of Parker's.

Parker started preschool the 10th of September, and loved it. After we dropped him off, Evan and I played with some of our new friends. We met some friends through church who have kids our kids' age. They've had fun playing together, and we mom's have had fun being able to carpool--switching driving the older boys, and watching the little ones. But, Friday, for Parker's first day, we all went to drop him off. Evan was pretty upset to have to leave him, but had fun getting in our friend's van and going to the mall. We walked around the Bass Pro Shop and the kids had fun looking at all the taxidermied animals, the boats, the giant tank with fish, and especially the stream and water wheel. We also went and hung out outside the rainforest cafe, and the kids had fun watching the moving alligator, and playing with the frog on the bench. We spent a few hours at the mall, and then picked up the older boys from preschool. As soon as they saw each other, Parker and Evan gave each other the BIGGEST hug, right in the middle of the classroom. When Parker came home after our friend brought him back from preschool, Evan hugged him in the hall outside our door. Those boys really do love each other!! And, I'm glad they're not afraid of showing affection. There's a little girl at church that Evan enjoys showing affection for as well... she's almost 18 months old, and Evan can't get enough of her. He likes to follow her around and give her hugs, give her toys, and play with whatever toys she's playing with. Last week we sat by her family, and Evan looked over at her, pointed at himself, then her, and said "You, me, Costco?" It was so funny. Evan is starting to talk a lot more, and put sentences together. I love watching my children grow! Evan refers to anything not home as "Costco." I guess that just shows how often we went to Costco in Provo! Any time we leave, he says its Costco. He even calls the park Costco, so I'm pretty sure he was asking his little friend on a date to the park. Adorable, right?

This is a terrible picture of the kids in front of the fish tank.
Isn't she the cutest little girl???
My little guys in the car, in their matching UND sweatshirts. Yay for hand-me-downs! Parker likes to make sure that he and Evan match :) Just so you know, Parker's finger isn't IN his nose, just next to it.

So, the brotherly love isn't always foremost in Parker and Evan's relationship. The picture isn't the clearest, but if you look above his left eye, you can see where Evan got a Sharpie and drew all over Parker's face while Parker was asleep. Ah, the joys of unpacking and the kids finding things in strange places until we get everything put away!

We were really excited about this purchase... it's a wet bag that fits all of our dirty diapers and keeps odors in until we wash them. People are so shocked when we tell them how we prefer cloth diapers to disposables, but we really do! We love our bumgenius diapers! The econobum aren't bad either, and allow us to go longer between diaper washes.

You may notice the toilet paper on the towel rack above the toilet. No, our toilet paper holder isn't broken, we're just trying to keep the toilet paper away from Evan. He still likes to rip off pieces of toilet paper, suck on them, put them behind his nuk, then roll them up and roll them across his face, then put them between his toes, and then finally leave these spit wads ALL OVER. If he can get his hands on the toilet paper, he'll have the whole roll shredded and soaked. Nasty.

This is Evan playing with the boats in the Bass Pro shop... he had so much fun. It was soo cute!

I was grinding wheat for flour, and so didn't hear when Evan got into the cereal and dumped the entire bag of Kix on the floor. I think he preferred eating the cereal off the floor... thankfully it was recently cleaned!! We've been trying a more natural approach to cleaning: vinegar, baking soda, lemon. It makes things safer for the kids, and works very effectively and inexpensively!