Halloween, the Long Run and a couple birthdays to boot!

Trying to find the perfect pumpkin!

I'll let you all decide the caption for this pic! 
(These were too "unusual" to leave unphotographed!)



"a-l-m-o-s-t  g-o-t  i-t...."



Do you see the resemblance?! 
(This was NOT intentional!)




Griffy, the littlest cowboy 
(I know, I know, we totally recycled this costume...)




Spiderman, the Cowboy w/ his valiant steed and their arch nemesis...Captain Evil Pumpkin

 



This was the only action shot where I don't look like I'm in pain. ; )

Griffy and Mommy after the Long Run with a well-stickered sign courtesy of Sawyer & Griffy 
(Raleigh City of Oaks Half Marathon, 11/6/2011)



Mommy's 36th b'day cake and two little boys with fingers in the frosting
(They are like locusts, they just move in and devour or destroy everything in their path!)





Griffy and Sawyer in their birthday hats.
Griffy is TWO!



Griffin enjoying his birthday cupcake. MMMMmmmmm!
(Carrot cake w/ cream cheese, recipe courtesy of Grandma Jill)



Sawyer also enjoying Griffin's birthday cupcakes!



How many people does it take to open a child's toy?



 A few of Griffy's favorite things:  peanut M&Ms...

 

Rocketships...






and Books!





October and November were busy fun filled months.  It all started with a most unusual Halloween.  Griffin was going to be a dragon.  The dragon costume was back ordered and we were notified of this "issue" the day before Halloween. Well, crap.  I mean, great. (Per Sawyer, I am not allowed to say "crap" or "stupid" anymore.)  It was way too late to order a new one and the local stores had been all picked over. So, I begrudgingly recycled Sawyer's two year old Halloween costume.  It just felt so much like cheating I could hardly stand it!  But, the show must go on.  THEN Halloween arrived.  A very cold, drizzly and rainy day turned into an even colder, drizzly and down pouring night.  I already knew how this would go.  We would be fighting umbrellas all the while physically carrying two little boys through the rain from house to house.  Arrrgh.  Sawyer said, "I don't want to go out because it's cold and rainy."  Hmmmmm.  I asked Sawyer, "What do you want to do?" He said, "I want to wear my costume and get candy."  Now, that is something I can do.  We put their costumes on them, took pictures on the porch, gave them each a glowstick and turned out all the lights in the house.  I grabbed our bowl of candy and prepared the house.  John took the boys from door to door trick-or-treating in the house.  Each door was answered by a different "neighbor" that looked eerily similar to the last...maybe a distant relative...  They met a Vikings football fan, the Count, a fire(wo)man, a drill sergeant, a train engineer, a pirate and an old fisher(wo)man.  (I think even John was surprised at all the people that lived in our house!) In the end, the boys got to wear their costumes, stock up on tons of good candy and we all stayed warm and dry in the process.  It was a win-win-win! (I've got to remember to thank Uncle Craig for all those costumes he bought Sawyer after Halloween last year!)

The next weekend was my "Long Run".  This was the longest distance I'd ever run.  I'm not a runner.  I've never been a runner. I hadn't run a day in my life until this year even though I'd always wanted to try.  With the help of some great friends (and a local training group) I ran a couple 5K's and then set my sights on the City of Oaks half marathon (13.1 miles).  It was a blast! 
Was I tired? Yep.  Was it painful? uh huh.  Was it worth it? Absolutely.  The boys (all three of them) were there at the end to see me cross the finish line.  I was proud of myself. Never mind that this guy who whizzed past me like I was standing still (literally the air from his wake blew my racing bib up into my face) finished three minutes before me and won the whole thing!  (Did I mention that he was running the FULL marathon?!)

The following weekend we celebrated my birthday and the weekend after that was Griffin's 2nd birthday.  We did a lot of celebrating and a lot of cake eating in November!  Griffin continues to grow although he's considerably smaller than his big brother was at this age.  He's 60th percentile for height and 20th percentile for weight.  Long and skinny.  His hair lightened up a lot this summer and I think his eyes are going to stay blue/green.  Everyone says he looks like his Momma.  Poor kid!

Griffin is Mr Mischief with a pain threshold reserved primarily for secret agents.   He started pre-school this month.  On several occasions I've picked him up and questioned the bump on his head or new scrape on his chin.  The teachers can't ever tell me what he did because he doesn't cry.  They notice his new scrape or bump immediately, but can only speculate as to how it got there. 
He is a massive mess maker and will be the first to drop, shred or throw anything.  The problem is he likes to throw items up.  What goes up, must come down.  Did I mention his pain threshold?  Griffin will eat anything.  "Griffin spit out the Lego man's head."  "Griffin, no, no.  Don't put tires in your mouth." "Griffin, please, stop gnawing the stoppers off the cabinet doors."  "Griffin, oooh, what was that?  Oh, the corner of your new board book."  He loves to draw on his face with markers and then eat the "wicks".  Griffin can spot airplanes before anyone else can even hear their distant roar.  He loves planes and helicopters.  (He makes the greatest plane/helicopter noises combined with animated hand gestures.)  Very expressive, but not with words.  (Although he says "backhoe" and "baby" with amazing clarity.) That is Griffin in a nutshell.

Sawyer is in pre-K and is learning SO much.  He can write his name almost perfectly.  The scale of the letters is still a bit of an issue.  All the letters are there and are correct, but they don't look like they belong to the same word.  (It's pretty cute)  He writes other letters/words too.  He likes to write his friends' names.  Sawyer knows all his letter sounds and is starting to sound out words.  He knows a few words by sight.  Mostly names, but is working on other words.  Sawyer is more infatuated with Spiderman and Batman than ever.  I picked up a couple old Super Friends VHS tapes for 50 cents at a garage sale and he's watched them repeatedly ever since.  He can fully explain how the world was turned to Bizarros and Cheetahs.  Other than super heros, Sawyer spends his time eating.  From the moment he gets up with "Can someone fix me breakfast" the food requests never end.  "Mom, can I have a yogurt?" "Raisins in a blue bowl?" "Peanuts in my Spiderman bowl?" "An apple cut-up w/out the peel in an orange bowl?" "Gummy bunnies?" "A banana?"  Its an endless assault of requests.  You wake up at 7am and by 10am you still haven't made it out of the kitchen.  (And you haven't had breakfast or coffee yet either!)  He's growing taller by the day so I guess its all for a good cause.

I hope you all had a great fall!  I'll be posting our Thanksgiving and Christmas pics soon so keep checking back!

Love,

The Wellhouse Family

Andrea, John, Sawyer and Griffin (aka Little G or Griffy)