B's big date!

We try and spend as much 1:1 time with the kids as we can. I've been trying during these last few weeks of maternity leave to spend as much quality time as I can because I know that it's going to be completely nuts when I head back. B has been very in to dinos lately, so I thought it might be fun to go see the exhibit at the museum. I carefully told him they were dino bones over and over again. He promised me that was ok. Turns out they were also having a shark exhibit... double bonus!  Basically, it turned out to be two sharks in a fish tank you could touch, unless your arms are the length of a four year olds, this guy, and finding Nemo on a tv. I'll let you guess which one was his favorite.

TO my surprise we lasted about 40 minutes in the dinos. This is about 20 minutes more than I was expecting. Thankfully there was no one there so he could just run back and forth between the dinos. His favorite was the pterodactyls. Amazing to me is that the dinos all have different names than when we studied them in school. No more brontosaurus!  His favorite thing to do at night is talk about if a dino is his size, the size of his room, or the size of the house. I think this might've helped him understand that a little more.

 After our dino power hour we headed down to the metro rail station. I am probably the only idiot trying to push the metro rail off as a train, but hey, it was a LOT cheaper than the dinos. We got there just in time to catch a train. B couldn't have been more excited. He "choo chood" the whole way downtown.

We met GiGi at the train stop where we promptly got to meet a cop on a horse AND see someone get arrested. Welcome to Downtown! At Jason's Deli, he was treated like a unicorn. It is a little jarring to see kids downtown. I bet that was the only mac and cheese they made all day.

 In a spur or luck (those seem to just follow him around) the Total Formula 1 car just happened to be in the lobby of mom's office. Since there wasn't a line, the people let B take the simulator for an extra long spin. And, since he was so cute I guess, he was the only person who got to actually sit IN the car for a photo op.

 

I think this could definitely qualify as Beckett's best day ever. The only think missing was gummy worms and it might be perfect. We rode the train back (sitting backward which he liked EVEN better) and headed back for naptime. Did I mention we did this all before 1:30? TIRED MOM!

Soccer shots...

B is about 2/3 of the way through his first "Season" at soccer shots. I love it mainly because there are no early Saturday morning games and because it's really more in tune with what a three year old needs in soccer. His coach  Ziggy leads skill drills, and they play a brief little "game" at the end. (There is pretty much nothing cuter than a bunch of tiny guys doing jumping jacks or running sprints.) Everyone gets a ball, and we do our own orange slices at home. Everyone's happy!

 

B seems to really be liking it. Because it's still 900 degrees outside, they take frequent water breaks. B is always the first run to make it to the water and the first one back on the field. He's got some hustle and always leaves with bright red cheeks. He's also the shortest one on the field by about a foot. He's just barely three but he's playing with the big guys including his red headed best friend from school, Connor.

 

 

Right before they play the game each week they each get to "Score" a goal while everyone chants their name.

 

 

 

He doesn't seem to be overly aggressive or competitive. It'll be interesting to see if that comes out later, but he does love kicking, hitting, running, and doing anything that boys like to do.

It's pumpkin time!

I decided that given the overall craziness of October, if we didn't go to the pumpkin patch the very first day they got there, we wouldn't go at all. B was insanely excited about going, woke up from his nap grabbed his shoes and yelled at us to go to the pumpkin patch. Then you guessed it, the minute we got to the pumpkin patch, he wanted to go home. ugh. Getting all three to look in the same direction and smile is going to impossible for many more years. I guess this is a good alternative, calmly smiling (or not crying) in completely different directions.. Emmy looks so old in this picture I just can't quite get over it.

 After snagging some individuals (won't tell what was promised/bribed to get these) we headed home with a few gnarly warty pumpkins, our favorite kind, to go with the GIANT one I scored at Sam's for 10 bucks. No one is quite as excited about the giant pumpkin as me, but I don't care. I love a bargain!
It's fall, ya'll!