Cute Kid Videos

The following will show what the favorite movies around here are lately. 

He does a pretty good Gru. I love the accent!

And my pretty princess loves her princess movies.

Reading Time

One thing that Aaron and I have been very grateful for is Zack's love of books and reading. A great joy we have is that Lexi is following in his footsteps. We are very frequently asked to read to her, and she likes to sit in the "Lexi sized" chair and read her books.

She's cute, huh?!

Another great thing to see is Zack reading to her.

I really hope that we can foster this love to last their lifetimes!

Shoe Shopping

So last night we went out to get a few things, new play shoes for Zack and a birthday present for Landon's birthday party. On our first stop we saw, yet again, how indeppendent Zack has become. We also saw just how much Zack had grown. He is now in the Kids section, no longer a Toddler.
Anyways, we were looking for shoes that would go with his everyday wear. We decided that we were going to go with laces this time because now would be a good time to show him how to tie his own laces. While searching for those shoes, Zack fond a pair the HE wanted. Mom didn't care for them too much and tried to show him 2 other pairs. He decided he was not going to have any part of that! It is at this point that he started to thow a fit, and when Daddy stepped in. Amanda then took Lexi off to entertain her while dad dealt with the situation. This is how the following is recounted:

Dad calmly: "Zack, who's shoes are these?"
Zack yelling: "ME!"
Dad again calmly: "Ok, so you do have a say in the matter, but who is going to pay for the shoes?"
Zack trailing off: "Mommy...."
Dad calmly: "Ok, so who do you think get's the final say as to which shoes to buy?"
Zack pointing: "YOU!!!"

While Amanda was off entertaining the little princess, Lexi found some pink shoes and asked Amanda to put them on, afterwords stating: "Cute shoes, cute shoes". Lexi was disappointed when Amanda had to take them off so that we could go. She even tried to grab them again before leaving and was quite upset when Amanda put them back. What a little girl she is becoming! We have plenty of shoes thanks to several people sharing their hand-me-downs. Maybe next time Lexi. Shortly after, Zack decided that the shoes he really liked and had to have where the ones the mom really want to get for him. Ah, the power of persuasion. So we put both shoes on him and he ran to take the box up to the cashier.

We then walked, Zack ran in his new shoes, to the train store (Target) to get a birthday present for Landon and to look and see if there were any new trains that Zack could get with his good boy tokens. While we were there we found Kevin, a new crane truck that works in the Sodor Steamworks. Zack had to have him. Then we found a present for Landon which we had to explain to Zack that the train was for him but the new present was for his cousin. As we walked back to the car, Aaron put Lexi down and had her walk while holding his hand. Aaron had to lean to one side a bit, very cute to see. At the car we opened Zacks train and were very happy to see that the makers of the toy had not included a ton of packaging but simply advised that if we wanted to find out more about Thomas and his friends then we could go to www.thomasandfriends.com/engines . So after getting home, feeding the kids and getting them into their jammies, Aaron hooked up the laptop to the TV and played on the website for a while until it was time to go to bed. Zack had a blast watching Aaron go through the website with games and video's. One that he is very excited to see is Thomas and Friends: Hero of the Rails, a new CG animated movie coming to theaters. He hasn't stopped talking about it.

All and all, a great time spent as a family!!!

Halloween

Ok, I know I'm almost a month late in posting this, but I'm posting it anyway.

So, as many of you know, we had kind of a rough lead-in to Halloween. Shortly after my last post on the blog, we all got the swine flu. YUCK! It knocked us back for a good week. The coughs are only now just fading away. So, we didn't get to picking our pumpkins for carving until 2 days before Halloween, and didn't get them carved until the morning of. But we had fun doing it anyway! The night we went to pick our pumpkins was one of our first ventures out of the house after getting sick.

Fortunately, we were all feeling MUCH better by Halloween night and it was a beautiful night for Trick-or-Treating! It was only chilly, so we were fine putting jackets under the kids costumes. We were very excited to try out the treating in our own neighborhood for a change. Zack had a blast running up to the doors. He didn't want to keep his mask on for long though, as it got dark he really had a hard time seeing, so I was glad he took it off. By about half-way through he started telling us to stay on the sidewalk and he would go to the front door all by himself. Little Mister Independent! Lexi was glad to be out of the house. She had fun just watching the chaos and getting passed between Mom, Dad and Autie. Aren't they adorable in their costumes?!?!

Bonding

I love this picture because it shows how much Zack likes to dote on his sister. She sure is starting to respond well to him too. At least 10 times a day Zack insists on giving Lexi kisses. He loves to talk to her and look at her. He even shares his toys! We'll see how long that lasts when she actually wants the toys :). I can't wait to see them interact when he can make her laugh and smile by showing her how silly he is. He loves to be silly, show off and make people laugh. This kind of reminds me of the days when I was little. I remember when I was in kindergarten Ranna was very jealous that Christina and I left or school and she was left at home. Christina and I used to act extremely silly just to make her laugh before we left, hoping this would make it easier for her. I have a feeling things like that will be a common occurance with my children in the future.

"Brother's been picking on me in my sleep!"