Walsh Farm

Saturday, we went to Walsh Farm, which is a family owned and run farm filled with fall fun. (boy, that was a lot of "f's" :) Our intent was to get our pumpkins, but we came away with a really memorable experience too!

When we got there, Ben was immediately taken with all the hay bales which formed a maze and a tunnel. He ran straight into the maze and was so pleased to find his way to the end all by himself.


Then he thought the tunnel looked interesting, and investigated that too.



Xavier enjoyed sitting on the hay bales and watching all the kids run through the maze. Check out the "no hands" sitting!





A bunch of kids started playing "follow the leader" walking on top of the hay bales, and Ben got into the fun. Here he is about to jump from one bale to another. Does he have a future as a stunt man leaping across the tops of tall buildings?? Maybe...but I sure hope not!


After that we were off to the petting zoo, with baby cows, lambs, goats and donkeys. Practically all the animals came to investigate Xavier's wagon, which was apparently very interesting to them. Especially the goats and donkeys. Ben zoomed back and forth between all the animals, but had a particular liking for the goats. Mainly because they were too lazy to move away from him. :) Xavier loved all the animals and giggled continuously at them.






Farmer Ben:

Farmer Xavier:


Next, we ventured over to a big play area filled with about 6" of dried corn kernels. It was a dusty mess...but so worth it. The boys were both thrilled with this novelty! Ben enjoyed sliding down a slide that ended in the corn and filling up buckets then dumping them onto toys (thankfully NOT other kids, like some kids were doing...I was proud of Ben for not taking part in that activity). Xavier had the time of his life sitting in the corn, listening to and watching all the kids, and sifting through the corn with his hands.




Xavier was mad when I picked him up out of the corn (he whacked me on the head a few times and yelled at me :) but that was short lived, because our next stop was the hay ride. The ride included lots of bumps, which Xavier is always very fond of. He screamed and laughed with delight practically the entire time. Ben had a great time throwing off little handfuls of hay and looking at all the birds flying overhead.

Here's Xavier on the hayride, laughing at a bump:


And Benny looking inquisitive:


Me and the boys on the hayride:



After the hayride, we picked out pumpkins. Ben thought they made great chairs. He picked out 2 small pumpkins, one for him, and one for Xavier, and then Xavier got to "carry" them in his wagon.






On our way out, we were treated to a great surprise! A med-flight helicopter landed in a field by the parking lot to pick up a rescue crew for training purposes. The area was roped off, but we were fairly close to the landing site. I wasn't sure how Xavier would do with that, but we thought we'd give it a shot...and he LOVED it. I'll never forget the look on his face as the helicopter took off - complete joy. His hair was plastered down (as was all of ours) and he had this big open mouth smile on his face. He clapped all the way back to our car. And of course Ben was completely overwhelmed with happiness too. He said, "Daddy, I got to see a helicopter. It was SO cool!" That last statement pretty much sums up the whole outing! :)

Awwww, so cute!

I just love that my boys care so much for each other. Benny is always asking about Xavier...like when he gets up in the morning, he'll say, "Mommy, where's Xavier?" usually he's downstairs already, drinking his milk for the morning, and I'll say, "Xavier's downstairs." Ben will then inevitably say, "ok Mommy, I gonna go see Xavier." And upon seeing Ben first thing in the morning, Xavier will "talk" to him and kick his legs and clap. He apparently wonders where his brother is too, and then is delighted to see him once he appears :)

Ben is becoming increasingly independent and frequently insists on doing things himself. For example: Last night I was at work, and Nick's parents were visiting. Nick took Ben upstairs to get his pj's on. Of course Ben had to pick them out, and then when that ordeal was over, he told Nick, "Daddy, go downstairs and see Papa. Go watch football. I put my pants on by myself."

So here are some pictures from last week of my boys loving each other.

Ben rolled Xavier up like a sausage - surprisingly, Xavier was completely ok with it!

School, week of Oct 8-11

I've decided I'm going to try to make a post each week about what the boys did in school. This blog is also serving as my journal (I plan on printing it out one rainy afternoon :), so it will be nice to look back and see what X and B were doing each week. I'm going to include any new things they learned, as well as art projects.

This week the boys returned our friend Poky to school and handed him off to 2 other classmates (a brother and sister team!) Ben was sad to see him go. Xavier had a great week, his physical therapist tells me she had the best session ever with him on Tuesday. I love hearing things like that! Ben is also doing well in PT. I stayed for their PT sessions today. Ben is working on going up and down stairs, jumping, running, kicking and throwing a ball, and most importantly, following directions. He's doing pretty well with all those things, his coordination is improving slowly but surely. In speech therapy, Xavier is working on connecting words with pictures/objects, in hopes that this will be a reliable communication tool for him someday. Ben is working on putting the right ending on verbs ("-ing", etc) and speaking his sounds more clearly.

The boys are working on days of the week (Ben stood by Mrs. Browning today and rattled them off during the special song!), talking about the weather, and the season autumn. I think they're also working on letter and the sounds they make, because Ben has been singing "A is for apple, ah-ah-ah!" Today, Xavier picked out "weather Bear's" clothing. I was so proud of him when he looked so closely and chose appropriately the sweatshirt over a t-shirt, and pants over shorts (its a chilly 50 degrees outside today). I could tell he was really thinking about it.

Some of this week's artwork followed the "fall" theme. Here's a collection of their masterpieces:


The one on top is a pumpkin, painted by Ben. He proudly got it out of his bag and placed it on the refrigerator yesterday as soon as we walked in the door. I said, "Benny, did you paint that?! I love it! Is it a leaf?" I asked that because the day before he had told me he made an orange leaf with paint. He frowned, and said, "no Mommy, its a PUMPKIN!" He looked at me as if to say -its big, orange, and round, ya big dummy...what do you think it is!? Anyway, of course I told him it was fabulous and that I loved it and wanted to look at it every time I came in the kitchen. That seemed to satisfy him and he said, "I made mommy soooo happy!" Yes you did Ben!

Below the pumpkin are 2 sponge paintings of fall leaves with a little book made by each of them at the bottom. Xavier's is on the left, Ben's on the right.

Last week the boys had a unit on self-esteem at school. We worked on a little project together about family and their favorite things. Unfortunately the posters we made were all but destroyed when I tried to unstick the tape that was stuck on the back of it from hanging up at school. But I was able to salvage these 2 paper plate faces representing the boys - can you pick which one is which?


Here's a candid of Ben helping Xavier hold a magnet to hang up his painting. Xavier always gets this unsure look in his eyes when Ben is "helping" him...as you can imagine, there have been some misguided (but well meaning) attempts in the past. One that comes to mind, "get off the couch, Xavier. Come play with me!" as he's dragging him off the couch by one arm. Like I said, not good, but with good intentions.

Last, but most certainly not least, the boys were very excited to have a visit from a fire fighter today. I was there for the very beginning of the visit, as Xavier was finishing up his PT. All the kids were sitting in a circle, and Ben ran up to the fireman and jumped up into his lap. He looked at him with a grin from ear to ear. After getting a badge sticker, he sat back in the circle...I'm sure he'll be talking about the visit for a long time. Both boys came home with fireman hats. Unfortunately, Benny has been on a photo strike as of late and I could not, for the life of me, get him to sit for a picture today. So here's Xavier, proudly displaying his artwork in the background, and showing off his fireman hat. That boy is such a ham, all I have to do is get my camera out and he turns into a big showoff.

He flies through the air...

with the greatest of ease! Nick and Xavier have a new way of swinging. Xavier is strong enough to hold on a little with his legs and Nick gets them both swinging pretty high! Scares me a little...but Xavier loves it so much.


Love this picture.

A new friend!

Xavier and Ben brought a new friend home from school last Wednesday - the classroom "pet" Poky the Puppy! Poky's last day with us is today, and the boys had a little project to do with him. They were responsible for bringing him with us wherever we went and showing him a good time - then we document our adventures in a journal with pictures and a story. X and B had a good time with this, although Benny really didn't want to have his picture taken with Poky for some reason. Notice in nearly all the pictures he won't look at the camera...silly boy.

Here are some highlights:

Of course, Poky got to come horseback riding! Lucky Poky! Ben held Poky while he and Xavier raced at the end of the session. It was another tie (same as last week), and again, Xavier really thought it was fun to race Ben, he giggled and smiled the whole way!



"I'm reading to Poky!" Ben said. Here are the boys and Poky enjoying a good book.


The boys also took Poky on several wagon and bike rides. In the first picture, Ben is saying, "Look over there, Poky! There's another puppy!" (Our neighbor's dog was out.)




Poky particularly enjoyed swinging with Xavier!


Xavier wanted to bring Poky to church. Here he is all spiffed up and ready to go :)


We thought about taking Poky with us to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins, but with temperatures near 90 (wow!) we decided to wait until next weekend when its cooler. Maybe Poky will get to pick out a pumpkin with one of the boys' classmates, another child gets a turn taking him home each week - what a fun project!

Twisters!

We've been soaking up every last ounce of the warm weather while it lasts! The boys and I play outside after lunch everyday, soon we won't be able to do that - how depressing! They both love swinging, and Ben has taken to really like spinning on his swing. He also likes to spin Xavier, which Xavier loves. Somewhere along the line, Ben started calling this manuver a "twister". So now he will wind Xavier up and say, "Ready Xavier? I'm gonna give you a big, BIG twister!"

The wind up:


Look at the determined look of concentration on Ben's face:


Ben has also figured out how to wind himself up, by positioning himself on his belly, he can use his feet to wind up! Then he'll say, "Weeee, I'm flying, like supermaaaaaaaaan!" as he's spinning around.


And today, Ben found a new way to swing Xavier while remaining on his own swing - how talented he is! He doesn't like to see Xavier sit still in the swing because he knows how much Xavier likes to be moving. Ben takes a running start, and in one (not so graceful motion)leaps onto his swing on his belly and grabs one of the ropes on Xavier's swing. The result is a crooked forward swing for both of them. This picture makes me laugh, because Xavier looks so concerned, like, "I'm not so sure about this, but I'll give him a minute to see where this goes...it might be good..."

Kitchen progress note

After about 6 months of behind-the-scene work, our kitchen is finally starting to come together!

Last Friday, Nick and Xavier sat on the kitchen floor surveying the project.



Designed by us and handcrafted by Nick, the cabinets are a true labor of love.
Nick's always saying, "this cabinet is built like a tank!" Here's Benny testing that theory.


The section you see here will be the main part of our kitchen and will house our cooktop/oven, dishwasher, and sink.


More updates to come!