Happy Halloween (almost!)

All smiles before school this morning, watching the movie "Homeward Bound." Certain parts just crack him up!

His spooky spider cookie he made when we had 2 friends come over yesterday for a Halloween play date.

At school, playing the "Musical Numbers" game

Here he comes with his class!

Hi there! Sorry we've been MIA for a week here! We're doing fine, just have had a busy week, as usual! Last Thursday was Bear Cub's "Fall Festival" at school and I volunteered to help out. I was at the cookie decorating station and loved seeing all the cute kiddies in their class shirts, having fun. BC was happy for me to be there and let me work for some time before he started wanting to come and just stay with me. It was cute to watch him with his class and teachers doing all the fall activities. :) Tomorrow we'll go to school to trick-or-treat before heading home. I'm glad the Tuesday/Thursday kids are allowed to participate...he's excited to wear his costume to school! Speaking of his costume...it is adorable, but going to be VERY warm in our upper 80s, humid weather we're having. It may not stay on for very long on Saturday evening! A little Fall weather would be nice around here... maybe in February??

Another big thing around here --- which finally started last Thursday --- are the "WHY??" questions. I figured they were coming soon, as he asked all kinds of other questions, but wow, he asked "Why does....???" a lot now!

Some examples:

"Why is Mommy kissing me?

"Why do you like talking to me, Mommy?"

"Why are you doing dat, Mommy?" (about ANYTHING!)

"Why are we driving in traffic?"

It's pretty funny and leads to lots of interesting conversations!! :)

Happy Halloween to all! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures on the big day here (before he's a big, sweaty mess!). Have a good one!

Funny Bear Cub-isms

1. BC recently changed the names of most of his stuffed puppies around the house. When asked if he would change his name, he said, "Yes!" When asked to what...his reply was, "Tony." WHAT?!? We had a good laugh over that.

2. When dropping him off at school on Tuesday, a little boy got out of a car with a hooded sweatshirt on. BC looked at the sweatshirt and asked what it was. I told him it was a sweatshirt and he said, "What does a sweatshirt do?" Um....yes, you can tell we live in Florida!

3. On the night of our dinner at our friends' house, I decided to wear a dark blue and white striped shirt. When BC first saw me, he said I looked like a cow, but then quickly corrected himself by saying, "No, Mommy looks like a ZEBRA." Gee, thanks. ;) (Pretty true, though!)

4. He is recently VERY interested in clocks and the time. During the day, he'll ask me, "Mommy, what number is it?" while pointing to the clock.

5. While walking around the neighborhood, we checked out some of the Halloween decorations. A few of the houses have small white ghosts made out of plastic bags hanging from the tree. Of course, he asked what those were (he's very curious these days) and I told him that they were ghosts. He then told me that they looked like "white poop bags." Hmmm...come to think of it, they DID look like the baggies we use to clean up after Zoe! ;) YUCK!

Pumpkin Time!

Here's Bear Cub with his look-alike neighborhood friend, J! We walk with him and his mom and typically play once a week. We've been asked if the boys are twins!

Storytime at the church pumpkin patch....proof that BC can sit still and listen to a story! He's such a good boy!

He REALLY liked all the little pumpkins this year!

Say, "Pumpkin!"

Oooooh! More little ones! :)

On Monday, BC and I headed to a local church pumpkin patch with our friends for a quick storytime and pumpkin hunting. The weather was beautiful and the boys had fun! Bear Cub chose a perfectly round pumpkin to bring home (he's excited to carve it with Daddy!) and a few little ones too. I love this time of year...and BC seems to be enjoying it, too! :)

Fall finally arrived here in Florida!

All smiles while playing outside on Sunday! He slept SO good last night from all that fresh air!

We got "Boo!"ed on Friday afternoon by a neighborhood friend. Here BC is..with a mouth full of candy. Oh my! We then had to Boo! 2 other houses in our neighborhood to keep it going. It was fun!
Helping Mommy make a pumpkin cake on Saturday. We were invited to dinner at our neighbor's house...we had a great time - good food, great company, and the kids all had fun! The pumpkin cake was delicious too! :)

Goofing around outside!

Our cutie pies!

Hello! We have had a few gorgeous days here in Florida!! Cool enough to open up the windows, so pleasant to be outside...and yes, even cool enough to wear jeans and long sleeves. Woo-hoo! Of course, our nice little cool front is on its way out and we'll soon be back into our shorts. But...we sure did take advantage of this great weather by spending almost the entire weekend outside!

Sleepy Bear

Sound asleep earlier this week...the day of our big nature walk. :) He had fallen asleep in the car and I don't dare risk taking his shoes off and waking him up! He slept a long time that day! Love that lil bootie up in the air! :)

Pumpkins, nature walks, and grubs - AKA The Life of Bear Cub

The grub...read below for more details!

Checking out his collection from our walk!

Hanging out with some friends at the Pumpkin Festival

Checking out all the carved pumpkins!

Playing a game where he had to squirt the candle out with a Spiderman water "gun."

We had a very busy and fun weekend! It was so nice to visit with Aunt S and Uncle T on Saturday. They were kind enough to share some pavers they'd been given, so our back yard project officially awaits! They stayed for several hours and Bear Cub really enjoyed the visit. He also LOVED giving love to Aunt S's baby belly...I think he's excited to meet his new girl cousin this winter! :) We all are!

Saturday evening, we walked to our community's Pumpkin Festival. They had games for the kids, pumpkin carving and live music. It was PACKED! And so, so hot. Miserably so. But we met up with some friends, the kids had a blast, and we stayed until the lighting of all the carved pumpkins at 8 that night. It was a late night for us...but well worth it. :)

BC and I went to a birthday party for a little girl in his class on Sunday, while Daddy went into work for a few hours. The party was packed with kids! It was at the little girl's home...brave Mom, if you ask me...with pizza, cake, swimming, and a bounce house! Most of his class was there -- but only 3 boys! So, it was a flurry of pink all around, besides those 3 that tried to find something to do!

BC and I pretty much stayed around home yesterday, as I'm nursing a pretty sore throat and hoping to be on the mend soon! We ventured out for an official "Nature Walk," scouring our neighborhood for interesting creatures to put into his bug catcher. We found a few...but can never catch those pink dragonflies that he so desperately wants to get...for ME! We were out for about 2 hours...it was a real back yard adventure. :)

Last night I was getting into BC's backpack to get loaded up for school today. I needed to empty out his letter bag - they moved from A to F this week (I can not for the life of me figure out why this order!) and I needed to clear out last week's acorns he'd brought in. Well, much to my surprise...and his DELIGHT...we found a grub inside the letter bag! I guess it had been living in one of the acorns. Wow, BC was excited!! I had to retell a dramatic version of "How Mama Found the Grub" many times last night! He even acted like a grub (in a cage...his idea), as you'll see in one of the pictures. This boy loves his bugs, frogs, and anything NATURE related!

He had a good day at school today! How can I tell? Well, for one....he doesn't smell like his teacher's perfume! I know he's needed more redirection when he smells like HER...I think because she has to pick him up to get him where he should be. But today...he smelled just like he did when he left home! :) He's getting better in Circle Time and even helped share a book that he had brought in. I know he LOVES things like that! After school, it was on to the library for us and now he's snoozing away after his busy day.

Have a great week ahead! Let's see...we're most likely going to be making a trip to Clermont to visit friends this week and for me to play a little Bunco with my old gang. BC will hang out with the hostess' boys and her husband and then we'll head home. I'm looking forward to it - just hoping that I don't feel too sad visiting with my "old" friends! :) Can't believe we've been in our new house for almost 4 months...wow, time sure does fly! Take care!

Just checking out some frog web sites...

Excuse me, sir, but where DID your pants go??

School time!

Hard at work...I found 2 great preschool workbooks at Wal-Mart. One has simple following the directions activities and the other is called "I Can Cut!" and has adorable animal pictures with dashed lines to practice cutting. He really likes this!

So intent and serious!

Working on a cutting activity...still trying to figure out how to hold paper AND cut at the same time!

Center Time!! This is his "long train" that he created at the building center.

Last week, Bear Cub picked out this adorable blue table and chairs from IKEA for our playroom upstairs. I told him we would be doing a little school "play time" at home every once in a while and I wanted him to have a table to work at. Well, so far, he is loving to play school!! We've been taking about 30 minutes to practice some things that he's learning at school, like writing his letters, coloring, and now, cutting. Mostly I wanted to do this for him to practice SITTING still in a chair, which is going very well! After our "table time," he gets to choose a book and we do a pretend "Circle Time" where he sits criss-cross-applesauce on the floor while I read the book. He loves it!! I'm not pushing it all -- I don't want to burn him out, but we make it fun and even end our "day" with Centers. His idea of Centers is basically playing with the toys in the playroom and then telling me when to ding a bell (me saying Ding! Ding! Ding!) and then him choosing another area to play in. It's pretty cute...and I love to play teacher once again!! Enjoy the pics of our lil school boy...he's a smart one, that's for sure!

That handsome Bear Cub 'o mine...

Posing with Daddy's hat...wish he'd wear one for real! What a cutie.

Having fun at the YMCA splash park today.

The big swimmer!

Hey, the "CHEESE!!" face is actually becoming a REAL smile now. Yay! :)

Goofing around on his tricycle... I'm telling ya...he is FAST when he gets going!

Wastin' away again...

...in Margaritaville??? Hmmm...no...just in the land of Bear Cub! :)

I have no new pictures to post (shame on me!) but I just wanted to say hello while I had a bit of quiet time! It's been a nice, relaxing weekend so far. We have Daddy home from work, and even he's napping right now! He has been working SO hard the past week in preparation for his start-up...which officially begins on Monday! He was in the office at 4 a.m. today (eeek!) and deserves a little nap, I do believe. :)

Bear Cub and I enjoyed a morning of trike riding, a Power Walk for Mama, and a stop at the park with the swings. Our weather has been so nice...still warm, but there is a bit of change in the air that EVERYONE is thankful for! Maybe Halloween night will be a bit cool??!? Wouldn't that be marvelous!

Speaking of Halloween...BC is going to LOVE it this year! He already has his costume. And thank goodness for that! If you remember last year, we were on a full blown duck costume hunt for the entire month of October before I finally gave in and made a pretty darn cute (if I do say so myself) duck outfit for the man. Nope, none of that this year... once he said what he wanted to be (I'll keep it a surprise a bit longer) and I spotted that costume...it was his! :) He loves candy and with this new neighborhood full of families and festivity, I think we'll have enough to last a year! I wonder how much candy WE'LL have to buy?? People seriously decorate around here...it's a lot of fun! I'm anxious to see what Christmas is like here! Lights galore, I bet!

Well, sorry for the uneventful post. Just wanted to say hi and wish you all a good weekend! I'll get my camera out and ready... a picture post will come next! :) I promise!