Since so many family members were coming for the baptism, we had a little birthday celebration afterward for Paxton turning 8.
Paxton has wanted a pocket knife for a while now. We've always told him when he turned 8 he could have one and we kept our word. The first thing he wanted to make was a spotted stick and some beads like Grandpa does when we camp.
Jared took this great shot of our boys with our neighbor's boy who has become a good friend. They are dressed up for a pack meeting carnival. It will be really fun for Paxton to be a cub scout.
Between school, preschool, church, and family parties, both boys have had the chance to dress up several times this week, and they loved it. Star Wars is popular with our boys and they both had the chance to be Luke Skywalker and Obi -Wan Kenobi. They also dressed up as a cowboy, stormtrooper, and transformer.
Jared does not like answering the door on Halloween so this year we put up a sign at the front of our sidewalk with an arrow pointing to the neighbor's house. They had invited us to sit on their driveway around a propane fire. Jared joined them (with our bowl of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters) while I took Paxton and Bennett around the neighborhood.
This hayride was part of my aunt's family party which she invited us to. The boys played games and were spoiled with treats and toys. Thanks Carol!
Our nephew Jack was hanging out with my Mom so he got to come to the party too. He loved it, even though he didn't know most of the kids there, he wasn't ready to go home when it was over. He just had his 2nd birthday and we enjoyed his party with his mom and dad and extended family.
For fall break from school, we took the boys to California to visit amusement parks and the beach. On the way we had the added bonus of seeing Jaylene, who graciously let us stay overnight to break up the drive. We had fun with her and their two girls - Ellie is next to Bennett and Cami is next to Paxton. They are sweet, and Bennett got Cami laughing with his chicken dance. We love you J!
Here we are in the first line of the day! We went to Disneyland first hoping to avoid the worst of the weekend crowds. That worked for the first hour or so...but by the end of the day we could hardly walk down the sidewalks and streets in the park. The boys loved Tomorrowland and we got onto rides easily there. That's where we made the mistake of taking Paxton on Space Mountain. Jared rode with him and apparently he didn't like it at all. So Paxton thought EVERY ride would be like that and it was hard to convince him to try others. But he did some, and by the end of the trip didn't hate ALL rides. His fear surprised me because Bennett has had some car sickness and yet the rides didn't bother him a bit. His fear was more age appropriate; he didn't want to try the adult rides like big coasters but most others were fun for him. Paxton did enjoy Star Tours a lot with the 3D glasses.
The part that I enjoyed most about the trip was that our family shared it with Doug, Marin, Zoe, Jack, and my Mom. I doubt we would have gone by ourselves and my mom helped a great deal with juggling kids of different ages. I highly recommend taking a grandma (or grandpa, or both) if you go to an amusement park!
We liked Knotts Berry Farm and California Adventure parks just as much, if not more, than Disneyland. They weren't as crowded and the variety of rides was great too. Bumper cars were fun for the boys - I didn't hate them as much as I did as a kid.
My favorite family type of ride was the Cars Racers in California Adventure. The set, the story, and especially the race part of the ride was impressive and very well done.
Here's Bennett purposely pulling another face for the camera (both above and to the right). Lately he is into posing is silly ways for pictures.
We couldn't drive that far and not see the ocean so we spent a few hours there before heading home. Parking wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be and the beach wasn't too crowded. The weather was good the whole trip with low 80s.
This guy let Paxton try out his surfboard and Paxton showed good balance. Both boys liked the beach but Paxton loved the water and sand the most.
