Where to Begin? A Week in Review...

It's not often that I let a whole week go by without blogging, but believe me, it's been busy.  My mom arrived on Monday (yay!!) and therefore I had the week packed with errands and appointments that are hard to do on my own with three kids and I also slipped in a few projects here at the house I hadn't had a chance to get to (again, because of the brood).  So, let me take you on a quick catchup of the week.

Like I said, on Monday, Gramma arrived!!!  I had been looking forward to this moment since we left NH in August.  My mom willingly agreed to fly out for a Fall visit to get me through.  I couldn't bare to think that leaving in August meant not seeing her again until Christmas, so she made sure that didn't happen and my wish came true.  Now, unfortunately I missed the airport photo opp, but I did catch a few pics at our celebratory post-pickup lunch at Chick-fil-A.

Penn was super happy playing in the playspace there and he found this tiny hole to peek through at the big kids climbing up into the tunnel slide.  Now, that's a cute profile.

Things got busy on Tuesday and we didn't really take pics except for one when we went to check out the demolition debacle that happened at the end of our street.  The diggers have been a lot of fun for the boys to watch, but while we were out on Tuesday morning a huge mistake was made that sent the remainder of the building crashing into the street through the safety fencing damaging telephone poles and people's parked cars.  Thankfully no one was hurt, but needless to say it wasn't exactly comforting to think about what could have happened.  My boys and the neighbor boys enjoyed the drama.

The dust and debris couldn't keep us away from enjoying the gorgeous Fall evenings up at the neighbor's though.  Here's Koen pushing Penn in their toy car on Wednesday (Koen's more dressed up than usual due to picture day that day, stay tuned in coming weeks to see how that turned out...can't wait!).

On Thursday I had the privilege of "helping" out in Tavin's preschool class during their playtime hour after the kids' arrival.  I had asked Tav's teacher early in the year if I could come and observe Tavin in his social environment, particularly to see how confident he is with his speech, etc.,  We arranged this particular day since my mom was in town to watch Penn.  At this point in the Fall, I was pretty certain that Tavin was loving preschool and completely being himself just from what I observed at dropoff/pickup and all the positive things he has to say about his teachers, classmates and activities.  I got to enjoy meeting some of Tav's classmates, "preschool buddies," as he calls them.  I got to see some of his favorite toys.  And what I enjoyed most was watching how his teachers interact with the children encouraging them to try new things and socialize and play with one another.  Here's Tav making a painting of a sunset while I was there.

Thanks to Gramma for helping out so much this week and especially for providing care for Penn during this particularly special appointment.  I was happily reassured that Tavin is thriving at preschool.  Speaking of thanks to Gramma...my mom is such a huge help with the household chores, hanging out with the kids and of course I just love her company.  Here she is shucking corn with Koen and Tavin for Thursday night's dinner.

On Friday morning, Doug took Tav out for some Daddy time while Gramma and I stayed home with Penn (the slowest morning yet and it was soooo nice!).  Tavin requested to take his baby pumpkin with him ("because it's my buddy").  Sure, why not?

After some errands, Doug and Tav stopped at the library for some new books and things we had on hold.  As has happened before, they stumbled in at the perfect time for storytime!  Tavin was the star attendee totally getting into the stories and the dances.  You'll have to excuse the outfit.  Doug dressed him.  Every shade of blue combined.

Well, that's a pretty good catch up of our week, but in the next few posts you'll see about our fun weekend activities.