Fall Fun

Fall is officially here! Fortunately we have been eased into the new season with super nice Fall weather. We were dreading the cold after being in Hawaii, but this has not been bad at all. And we seemed to have made a smooth transition back to our routine here in Bend. Piper started a new school called River Song Montessori school where she goes 3 days a week from 8:15am to 3:15pm. She loves it! After school we have been hitting up the parks around town. With the boys officially crawling now, even they are having fun swinging and climbing on the structures. Piper loves catching the boys on the slide.

Calvin and Jett are loving their new found freedom of crawling, Jett has quickly caught on now too and loves his independence. It was funny how they went about crawling so differently. Calvin threw himself into crawling, by squirming, scooting, slithering, really anything he could do to move himself across the room. Then he moved onto army crawling and eventually after not liking the prickly grass on his bare belly in Hawaii, he got up on all fours and crawled. Then he moved on quickly to pulling himself up on furniture and now can walk along the couch by holding on.

At first Jett was perfectly happy to sit and watch his brother roam. He just sat and sat and occasionally would reach as far as he could to get a toy, but if he couldn't reach he would wait until someone gave it to him. After a while I think it was getting to him that his brother was on the move and he wasn't. Sometimes I would see him just sitting there, not playing with any toys, just sitting and looking a little sad. Then once we got home from Hawaii, Jett decided to try his luck and crawling. I only saw him scoot once to reach a toy, other than that he just got up on all fours and rocked and rocked until finally he got it, and he was off. Now he crawls quite fast and just might be faster than Calvin now.

I wonder if this will be a pattern in their personalities..Calvin throwing himself into something, maybe not be any good at it, but doing it anyway just to be doing it. And Jett, waiting and watching closely until he knows he can do something right and do it well. This pattern was also true with them learning how to feed themselves. Calvin is a mess and just goes for it. Jett is still messy, but not as messy and seems to get more food in his mouth to be chewed and swallowed.

We have had visitors over this past month, first being David's long time friend, Dan Shaw. Dan came solo this time leaving behind his pregnant wife Alissa and son Payson. Piper was quite taken by Dan, it was so cute to see their immediate connection. She wanted Dan to sit by her, push her stroller, read her books, and even put her to bed. Dan was a good sport and a big help as Dave was recovering from a spout of Shingles. Dave had been in a lot of pain the week before Dan came, but still couldn't resist running the half marathon with Dan while he was in town. We had a fun filled weekend showing Dan a good time with yummy meals, walks to town and parks, a try at our paddle board, mountain biking, and of course that half marathon which Dan came in 2nd after 2 wrong turns and actually running about 2 miles longer than the race course.

Our next visitor was Grandma Alice. She came for a early celebration of Piper's 3rd Birthday. We have already had fun with her new hiking backpack, complete with a first aid kit, magnifying bug box, snacks, binoculars and the prized whistle!! Piper loves pretending she is lost and going into the bushes to whistle as loud as she can so we can find her.

Here are a few bath time pictures just for fun...