McCutcheon Family: September - School, Swimming, and Sunshine!

Colten has been very busy at school this month! They just finished a unit on dinosaurs and even watched their class volcano explode - too cool! Colten also has been working hard on printing his letters and numbers. He has made great progress already but still struggles with letter size and staying on the lines and that number 5 really gives him difficulty. He always compares his to ours, not realizing that we all have had YEARS of practice. Hang in there, Colten! With your determination, you will master it before you know it!

He also started staying for lunch one day every week. I wanted him to get used to eating both hot and cold lunches at school since next year he will be in kindergarten all day. He was so excited for his lunch box and to stay with his friends, especially because he would get to eat with Kayleigh even though she is not in his class this year. Miss Mary said that he was too cute on the first lunch day. I guess he thought it was still part of class and he wanted to do things just right so he kept asking her, "What should I eat next?" after he finished each part of his lunch (bologna and mustard sandwich, grapes, carrots and ranch dip, and a juice box). This month he is also going to try hot pizza lunches! Yum! Yum!

Olivia, Kayleigh, and Colten ready for school and lunchtime!

Colten also has been continuing his swim lessons at the Y and is still loving it and doing sooooooo well! For the first two sessions, I left Ryan home with Daddy but I noticed that some moms were in the really shallow area with their young toddlers and I found out that while Colten is in his lesson, I can take Ryan in to play as well! Needless to say, Ryan was thrilled this past weekend and had a blast on the play-gym in the water. The first time he went down the slide he went under and then didn't want to try it again, but I reassured him that I would hold his hand and then he loved it and went again and again and again. In fact, he even went down the larger tube slide 3 times as well! He had so much fun but of course didn't want to leave even when Colten's lesson was over.

After Colten's lesson, his teacher stopped Tom and told him that we may have a future swim team member on our hands. She said that he is very concerned about his technique already and that he pays attention to his form while swimming. Who knows what he will pursue, but it was a great compliment and he does LOVE it!

After swim class, we were off to our annual trip to White House Farms for pumpkin and apple fun! We had planned to go the previous weekend, but Colten experienced his first school sickness with a fever and cough and runny nose. But in the end, it worked out even better because the weather was perfect! When we first arrived, we took our annual horse-drawn hayride through the apple orchid.

Tom and Jerry were our guides!

Then we were off to explore the petting zoo, playground, inflatable caterpillar, and lake. Colten loved climbing around in the inflatable caterpillar but Ryan seemed too young; there was a rope ladder to climb in order to get to the top of the slide that led to the exit and I was worried that he wouldn't be able to make it up or that other kids would not have the patience to let him try. He was so sad though as he peeked through the windows to watch Colten. So I took Ryan over to the lake, bought some fish food, and let him feed the fish. He loved it and laughed away.

Mommy, Colten, and Ryan in the pumpkin cut-outs

Ryan and Colten with Bonnie the farm dog

And then it was off to the pumpkin patch to choose this year's pumpkins! I desperately wanted a cute photo of the boys together, but no luck. I got a few good individual shots though. In the end both boys chose pumpkins they could respectively carry (at least for a moment) and ones that are covered in bumps. Gotta love it!

"I found mine, Mom!"

"Me too!" I love his face as he tries to lift it!

I was really hoping to get a great photo of Ryan that I could use on his upcoming birthday invitation, so I tried one last time on a pumpkin bale of hay...but no luck.