It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Over the Thanksgiving holiday break I took the boys to Bass Pro. They have a Santa wonderland! Have y'all seen this place? We've been going for years, but this year they added a fun and very special friend... a talking robot reindeer named Olive! He's great! :-)

I highly recommend this place! Although Santa wasn't there until 3:00 the day we went... I assumed the guy would be there all day. We got there at noon. After the boys played with all the toys they have out we went to visit the mall Santa. Problem solved! ;-)

 Slade checking out Olive the reindeer because it said we could take pics.

 Sitting in Santa's chair while he was M.I.A.

 Playing the hunting game... now Slade wants a pink gun.

 We found Santa! He was at the mall... Gavin had a talk with him while I got Slade situated. Gavin said it was one of the most exciting moments of his entire life. :-)

 We also did some decorating over the Thanksgiving holiday.

 As well as the Gingerbread house tradition

 Gavin's tree

Slade's tree

Olive the robot reindeer

If You've Seen One Grandma...

...Then You've Seen Them All???

According to Slade that's how it goes anyway. :-)

The only grandma he calls grandma is my grandma... Make sense? That would be his great grandma. He calls Art's Mom "guelita". Ok, here's the grandma story. Slade saw an older lady at the grocery store. I was busy trying to find an item on the shelf and wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying and neither was the lady, at first. When the lady started walking towards him he said, "Oh hey, it's grandma!" The lady didn't hear him at first and said, "What?" Then I saw her smile as she said, "Oh" I think that means she figured out what was going on. Then Slade said, "Mom, I saw grandma!" 

The lady did look a lot like our dear, sweet grandma... :-)

Decision 2012

Election Day is a very exciting time. Not just for the registered voters that help choose the President of the United States, but also for students learning about the importance of voting. Gavin's class voted on a few things: longer recess time, no homework on Wednesdays and Movie Day. They also cast their vote for either Ed the elephant; which was their way of voting for Romney or Dumbo the donkey; which was Obama.

And the results...

Ed the elephant won

and

Movie Day !!

They also voted on the movie:

Charlotte's Web or Finding Nemo...

Finding Nemo had the most votes!

The kids had a lot of fun and most importantly have a good understanding how a democracy works. :-)

StL Family Movie Night

We went to Family Movie Night at Gavin's school last night and had fun. They showed the movie on the lawn between the parking lot and playground. The school has this huge movie theater size screen that the movie was projected on; so the 100s of people were able to see just fine. The school's various clubs sold candy, sno cones, popcorn, pizza and drinks. Everyone brought blankets and chairs to sit on and some kids ran around and played on the playground equipment. The kids had so much fun. The event was a huge success!

Bone Crushers

 Slade wants to be a bone crusher really bad :-) He ran on the field 4 times.

 Gavin with his awesome block kick! NO one scores on #6 !!! 

Gav making a break on the ball.

This is Gavin's first game this season. They did great! Their team is called the Bone Crushers! He had his karate tournament in the morning and his soccer game was at noon; so he had an action packed day! Go Gav!!

Karate Tournament

 Gavin approaching judges before competition.

 action shot during sparing

karate champion !!

Happy Birthday, Gavin!!

 Slade and Guelito b ballin'

 Gav and Camryn riding a dinosaur like they own the place...

 Fore!

 Slade ridin' horsey

 Art's racing Gabriella on the motorcycle game. Pretty sure she won ;-)

 Gavin and Kaitlyn 

Everyone's lined up for the Scavenger Hunt!! Oh ya :-) 

 Kaitlyn Gavin Luke and Camryn

Gav's Ninja cake... it was yummy! 

 Gabriella Kaitlyn and Gav being silly

 Happy Birthday, Gavin!

 Baylee and Laura racin'!

 Jack and Jackson :-)

Alison and Gavin with the Scavenger Hunt list.

Gavin's birthday was Saturday, September 29th, but he had an early surprise at school on Thursday. His school allows parents to do birthday balloon deliveries before the morning announcements. I scheduled it for Thursday because Friday was another special day at their school; which was going to be a bit hectic; so better that I do the balloon for Thursday.  I'll get to Friday's fun stuff in a minute. :-) They even have a card for us to fill out and all that great stuff; so I got it all ready, delivered it and he was taken aback. The class gets so excited when a parent visits. It's cute... Gav was sitting at his desk studying when I popped in with the balloon and he said, "Thanks Mom, but it's not even my birthday yet." Lol They get to keep the balloon at their desk all day. I was surprised. Anyway, Friday was a very special day, Grandparent's Day. Art's parents drove in for Gavin's birthday and it was so awesome that Grandparent's Day happened to fall when they were visiting.Although I have no pics from that event because it was grandparents only... I need to get them from my In laws... they had a wonderful time with Gavin at his school. First they attended Mass. Then had a reception in the gym while being entertained by the school choir, each grade then sang a song and the school band played as well. Then they were dismissed to the classrooms and were free to tour the school. Gavin had so much fun showing his guelitos around. :-) They had early dismissal that day; which was an awesome start to Gavin's birthday weekend! Art's parents stayed for a week long visit with us. The boys had so much fun visiting with them. They always take them to our neighborhood park everyday they're here. We really enjoyed their visit, guelita's cooking and all their help.

Happy Birthday, Slade!!

 at Gymboree

 Elmo Bday cupcakes

 enjoying his cupcake :-) Yummy!

 Camryn and Gavin at Luke's party

Slade and Aunt Kim at Luke's party

Slade turned 2 on August 17th!! He started out his day by going to hang out with his pals at Gymboree! He loves playing there and during parachute time everyone sang Happy Birthday! :-) His teacher blew extra birthday bubbles Slade's way too! Awesome!! Gavin helped me make Slade's Elmo cupcakes. I baked them and Gav decorated them. He did great! Slade loves Elmo and he really enjoyed his cupcakes as much as Gavin did making them. :-) After we picked up big bro from school we took Slade for a trip to ToysRUs then we all went out to dinner. Everyone loves that! The next day was Luke's bday party; so I threw in a couple pics from that. Not sure how I managed not to get one of Luke...??

Back To School!

 Gav on his way to his first day of 2nd grade!

Gavin is in 2nd grade and he is at St. Laurence this year. He was so excited to meet new friends at his new school! We are very proud of him; he's doing well. Things are a lot different at St. Laurence compared to his old school. He has more homework that's a bit of a challenge; which is great! He also has more auxiliary classes. They have two per day of the following they attend every other day: Spanish, Art, PE, Computer and Music. Art is his favorite and he also likes that they have to leave his classroom in order to attend those classes and have a different teacher. They go to Mass on Fridays and have Religion everyday. Part of their Spanish curriculum is learning their prayers in Spanish. This year Gavin will be receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation and First Holy Communion. He also recently joined the Chess club at school and loves it! The club was open to the entire school; so Gavin thinks it's neat to have 8th graders in there with him. They meet once a week and play chess. :-) He's still involved in karate and soccer starts soon; so he is busy, busy, busy! Go Gav! We are very proud of him; he doing awesome!

Summer Vaca in the ATL

This summer Gavin asked if we could visit Atlanta, GA. He found out about the awesome aquarium... I guess Google told him. ;-) We flew to Atlanta and Gavin always does well on flights, but Slade... He was a mess on the way there. Not a screaming mess; just a squirmy/whiny one. We made it though and had a blast while visiting Atlanta!

 Gav enjoying the flight to Atlanta

Beluga whales

 Gavin and Slade loved watching the Beluga whales swim.

 They get very excited when children get close to the glass. The whales really put on a good show and pulled out all their fancy tricks when all the children moved in for a closer look. Belugas love attention.

 Gavin was trying to identify all the marine life in the aquarium; so he could check it off his manual.

 Japanese Spider Crab

 Stingray and baby sharks - You can touch them if you want.

 Sawfish

 Look how big that Whale shark is compared to all the rest of the fish... They had 2 of them and they are awesome!

 Slade loved the fishies

 Guitar fish

 Manta Rays

 Whale sharks

 Cute dolphin painted sculpture at the entrance of the Aquarium. It's wearing a Falcons jersey and the players autographed it. We thought that was cool of them.

 World of Coca-Cola

 Look at him... he's just gotta know everything! Go Gav

 Since Art and I used to live in Atlanta; there were a few restaurants we were dying to get back to because we missed them! Here we are... :-) In the evenings we all hit our hotel pool. Art stayed with Gav in the pool and Slade liked the hot tub; so that's where we hung out. We had a great time! We got a ball from the $ store and all the kiddos at the pool had fun throwing it around! Gav had a great idea suggesting Atlanta for our family vacation. Their aquarium is amazing, but busy... like super packed! If you go; buy your admission tickets in advance and you will have no problems with the 45 minute line for tickets. Good news! On our flight home Slade slept. Yay! :-)