Simple Goings on: October edition

I know I've written about Cal's co-op preschool before, but I had to share some additional photos. He and I are both loving it so much!  I am so grateful for a wonderful, supportive group of friends in my ward. It's fantastic being a part of such an active and vibrant little community of sisters.

In addition, my friend Natalie and I have worked out a weekly, post-preschool swap that is working out fabulously. This week it was my turn to pick up these two and entertain them for a few extra hours while Nat had some free time.

Hard a work on muffin-making!

And thanks to cousin Brandon for the Halloween package, which included these muffin-toothpicks! Here they area after a day or two, after Cal had added an umbrella:

Other fun things we've been doing? Grow capsules in the bathtub, which turned into bats, pumpkins and spiders:

Perusing the Macy's Christmas decorations (already on display! It's not even Halloween yet, people!). The kids were transfixed by these singing/dancing stuffed christmas trees. I mean, who wouldn't be?

Making "monsters" out of healthy snacks (sugar-fast friendly!):

Playing with all the leaves we can find. Cal loves the way the crunch and fly everywhere -- I mean c'mon, it's pretty fun.

Pretending to be a puppy, a mouse, or a squirrel. I'm excited that Cal is getting more interested in imagining and pretending. He has always been very spacial--loves puzzles, blocks, lining things up, etc--but didn't really role play or pretend. Now, he's constantly crawling between my feet and squeaking, saying, "I baby mousie, mama! I want cheese!" 

Speaking of cheese, we've even gone so far as to take the block of parmesan from the fridge (in a ziplock, don't worry) and set it out as bait to catch our hiding mousie. He loves coming out of his hiding place, sneaking up to the cheese for a pretend nibble, and then getting caught by me and Reed, who are always extremely scandalized to see a mouse in our house!

These last three photos are from a cute Halloween lunch we went to with some friends. I loved that we all can up with non-candy items to share. How do you like those bananas? :)

That's it for this week. I know it's not a party-a-minute, but we're enjoying life, one day at a time. :)

Halloween Pen Pals

Cal came up with this idea himself! In our weekly perusal of the Target dollar aisle for fun goodies, Cal made a comment about sending presents to his cousins Carson and Brandon. He is really into sharing lately, and I want to encourage him in that characteristic, so I said, "Okay! Let's mail some Halloween goodies to your cousins." We bought a bunch of little knick knacks from the dollar aisle, including a Halloween memory game, stickers, and some rainbow-scratch paper ghost ornaments. Cal was delighted when we went to the post office to send the packages, and I admittedly had a hard time keeping the secret until my sis and sister-in-law called to tell me the boys had received their presents.

But the best surprise came about a week later, when Cal received not one, but two packages in the mail.   

 Brandon and Carson sent him toys, decorations, even socks. Here's Cal putting up his new Halloween gel-clings:

 Cal was excited about putting a felt sticky face on the pumpkin in his room.

 And he LOVED this green monster claw; he took is everywhere with him.

We'll have to keep the tradition going and send holiday packages year-round. Cal loved picking out the presents for his cousins. Hooray for pen pal cousins! It makes me happy that they'll know each other when we get together for the holidays.

Fall Treats

For the last two months, Reed and I have been on a sugar fast. We came home from our campout with friends feeling so "sugared out", and decided to detox with no sugar. I have several family members and friends who have done it, so I got some advice, and read a lot online. I actually really liked doing it!

Anyway, when we reached two months, it was time to start eating sugar again! I decided to make one of our fall favorites with Cal: apple pie caramel apples. Don't they look nice? 

We had a little white chocolate left over in the double boiler, so I decided to make ghost pops like my mom used to every Halloween. Hers always turned out much cuter than ours, but it was still fun.

Cal and Reed had fun eating the treats, but I decided to extend no-sugar for myself indefinitely. It's helped me get in control of my health, so I'm just going to wait to start eating it again. This was definitely a hard treat to resist, though!

Handy Husband

Reed has been having some trouble with his car lately: the windows won't stay rolled up! The driver's side window has been completely broken for years, thanks to not one, but two break-ins during our time in Provo. It's pretty awkward for Reed (and hilarious) when he rolls through a drive-through in a bmw...and then has to open his door to pay and get his food because his window's busted. Haha! He's had a pretty good sense of humor about it, but when two other windows started having problems--including rolling down overnight-- we knew it was time to fix the problem. The trouble with having a German car is that parts and repairs are sooooooo expensive! It was going to coast $500 to replace each window regulator! I was not excited about that, but when Reed told me he was planning to do the repairs himself, I was...concerned. He is a grade A, white-hat hacker, but I never think of him as being exceptionally handy. He watched a youtube video and assured me that he'd disconnect the car battery so that the side airbags wouldn't deploy while he worked on the window. I was having visions of my electrocuted, unconscious hubby covered in the remnants of an exploded airbag. 

Thankfully, Reed proved me wrong and did and excellent (and completely safe) job repairing the car! Here he is with his eager little helper:

Can you tell which regulator is broken, and which is new? (I could not.)

And finally, here's a video of me attempting to sing with Cal to distract him from "helping" too much. Unfortunately, this is the response I often get:

Thanks to my handy husband, the repair ended up costing about $150 for all three windows!

Co-Op Preschool with Friends

In addition to his formal preschool, Cal and I are involved in a cooperative preschool program with five of my friends from church. (Side note: I am constantly grateful for the amazing young moms we have in our ward. It is an incredibly friendly, supportive environment.) Ashley and Amanda got this program started and recruited us, and now I don't know what we'd do without our wonderful once-a-week preschool with our nursery and primary friends. Each mom teaches one lesson every 6 weeks.

 This is a picture from my week. We learned about the letter D, and birds. Above, the kids are learning how to use glue by sticking feathers on a chicken. (The picture was taken before the event I like to call "Feathergeddon.")

Cal opted for one, showy, blue plume:

The aftermath of an awesome day teaching preschool:

This is a photo I snapped the day my friend Natalie was teaching. Look at these cuties waving snowflakes:

Natalie and I live close to each other, and have worked out a kid swap that is saving my life. It's hard to live far away from Cal's grandparents (both sets), but I am very fortunate to have such a supportive network of wonderful friends.