Sunday, October 12, 2014

Collin

A post all about Collin! It's been so long since I've written about my boys individually, and birthday season seems like a good time to do it! 
Collin just turned 4, and is such a smart, funny, and sweet boy. His favorite color is green, or sometimes "green and blue."
His favorite animal is a zebra.
His favorite breakfast is oatmeal. On his first day of preschool, we told him he could choose any breakfast he wanted, and he chose oatmeal with bananas and cinnamon!
He says his "L"s like "Y"s and I love it.
He still loves puzzles and has advanced to doing 100 piece puzzles by himself. He can just sit at the table and do them for a long time. 
Another current favorite activity is coloring. A month or two ago, he became interested in coloring books and trying to stay in the lines. He would carefully color centimeter at a time in order to stay in the lines. Now he can do it much more quickly, but will still stay occupied coloring for a long time. He recently discovered color by number pictures, and loves them! He asks for more all the time.
He is the best big brother and loves playing with his bros. He calls them "Truban and Ellbiott," or for short, "Troob" and "Ellb.
He builds with blocks every day. He makes people out of them and has a specific way he does it- shoes, legs, hips, torso, arms, neck, head, hat. Sometimes he switches it up and builds people out of mega blocks instead.
It's so fun that he can hold conversations with us now. We also have to be careful because he picks up phrases that we'd rather he didn't! 
He gets a lot of comments on his long eyelashes- and they really are the longest eyelashes I've ever seen! (I don't think any of his pictures do them justice). We may be biased on this one, but he is just one handsome boy.
Collin loves doing Build and Grow projects with his daddy! He does a lot of the hammering himself. He now has 10 patches on his apron!
Checking out the caves at our beach family reunion.
He loves doing crafts, and was especially proud of these paper bowl animals we made.
Collin is always finding ways to spell his name with food or objects. This time it was banana chips.
I love this picture from an ice cream date with my boy.
He loves helping me in the kitchen, especially making treats. 
If you ask him who his favorite friend is, it is still Adam. We're so glad these two still get to see each other sometimes.
He got to hang out with his look-alike cousin Vance at a family reunion this summer. 
Collin and Truman. This boy loves his little brothers.
He learned to ride his training wheel bike this summer, and it has become a bit of a Sunday morning tradition to take a family walk/ bike ride to the park.
He also spells words out of blocks! We love his creativity.
Spelling out MOM with crayons. He is very interested right now in spelling words and sounding them out. 
A night out with Daddy to see the Lego Movie at the park.
Giant slip and slide at a primary activity!
Silly dress up boy
My favorite face he makes is his "scared face." The picture doesn't quite capture the way he makes his hands into fists and makes his head shake with his eyes wide. But it is funny. This picture was at the Point Defiance Aquarium.
He took this baby book and drew a picture of it! It was the first time he's copied a picture like that and I was surprised.
We went blueberry picking one day and Collin picked a lot, but ate every single one. We had read "Blueberries For Sal" and he thought it was funny to be like Sal and eat them all.

Splash park!
We joined a co-op preschool group where the moms take turn teaching, and Collin loves it! We had it at our house for the first time this week and he said "Mommy, I like you being my teacher." I'm so glad we have the opportunity to do this.
Special backyard campout with Daddy!
We went to the fair and Collin chose to ride the rollercoaster! He liked it, but looked a little nervous during the drops!
Asleep holding the birthday balloon he got in Primary!
Collin told me he wanted popcorn one day but I was busy with the twins. Then when I went in the kitchen, he had gotten out the popcorn maker and popcorn, and was putting in the kernels. So independent.
 Collin had a fun birthday, and we celebrated with friends a few days later! His birthday fell on a Tuesday. He woke up to a room full of balloons! He woke up before us and came into our room holding a white one to give to me, my "favorite color." We told him that he is 4 now, and he said "No, I'm still three! I didn't blow out my candles yet." So we made sure he had some candles to blow out in his breakfast! He chose chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.
 We went to story time at the library that morning, then came home and waited for Rob to get home for his lunch break. Then, Collin and I went on a special birthday lunch date to Red Robin. Also in the picture below is the musical birthday card my parents sent him. He really loved it and still plays with it.
 His birthday party was at Frontier Park, and we got lucky with great weather that day. He wanted a bumblebee cake. I don't know when he decided he loves bees, but for the last several months, anytime a bumblebee is mentioned, Collin says "I yuv yuv YUV bumblebees!" So, we turned it into a bug party!
Bee cake, ladybug strawberries, worms in dirt, caterpillar grapes, ladybug crackers. Collin had fun helping with the food and made some of the grape skewers himself.

Collin loves his friends and was glad so many of his favorites were able to come! Here he is with a friend from preschool who he calls "Richard the Funnyhead" and cute Emma, his good neighbor friend from Portland who just moved close to us!
Cutting the cake with Charlotte, Adam, and Collin

He and Emma picked up right where they left off. . . they love playing with each other!

We just love our 4 year old!

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Grothaus Family Reunion

We had the best family reunion this year in Lincoln City, OR. We'd spent a lot of time planning for it and it paid off. Everything seemed to have gone smoothly, there were fun activities every day, and the kids had a blast spending the week with their cousins!

We stayed in two houses on the same street, with a short walk to the beach. In our house were us, the Heggies, and the Hatfields. 11 little boys in one house made for lots of fun cousin time! The downstairs was perfect for the kids to play and have sleepovers.

Along with playing at the beach every day and finding seashells, the highlights for the kids were: the air hockey/foosball tables at the house, a talent show, a pinata, a nighttime glowstick dance party, a superhero costume day, a photo booth, beaded necklace making, a sandy starfish craft, a s'mores night, a trip to the salt water taffy store, and a cousin sleepover every night. The week was jam packed with fun stuff for them to do.

Some of the other adult/family activities were: visiting a lighthouse one day, checking out the Tanger Outlet mall, a golfing day for the men, and getting family pictures taken. And my personal favorite, game nights with the adults and teenagers every evening after the kids went to sleep.

The photos are out of order, but here are a few of our favorites!

First walk down to the beach! Tyler, Spencer, Dillon, Collin
Sleeping twins on the first night. Fortunately, we were able to plan our days around their naps and they did pretty well sleeping in their pack and plays in the gigantic closet of our bedroom (having twins scored us the master! ;)) But really, it worked out perfectly and they were able to sleep soundly and stay on their nap schedule.
Running from waves with Grandpa
These boys sat and dug in the sand for hours!
Dillon, Elliott, Truman
Collin and Dillon playing a little air hockey in the garage game room
Cousin sleepover
Family beach picture
We had a family home evening talent show. Collin's talent was spelling his name out of chow mein noodles and cheerios. (It's covered up in the picture, but he likes using whatever he has to spell his name).
Truman and Elliott's talent was reading their Curious George book (finishing the last word of the sentences).
Truman and Collin checking out the "caves"
Grandma and Elliott
We were able to have some professional group photos taken while we were there.

Siblings
Katie and Justin designed awesome Family Reunion shirts! It was fun for all of us to match.

Nightly games of Werewolf. So much fun!!
This was a pretty bridge on our way to a lighthouse.
Bumblebee pinata! Truman had fun hitting it. Elliott just wanted to hold the stick and did not want any one to take it away after his turn!
Truman getting cozy with Aunt Lindsey (We took a picture because either of the twins letting anyone else hold them was a rare moment).
Cute picture of Truman
Twins running free on the beach
Supermen Tyler and Collin
Superhero cousins!
We met Lindsey's baby Walker for the first time!
Exhausted from too much fun.
Photo booth
Lindsey took individual family photos for everyone. Our family is in a stage where good family photos are just about impossible. . . but we did get a couple of good ones!


We had to make a stop for hand made salt water taffy!
The reunion was a success and definitely a highlight of our summer!