Christmas Lights

Every year we add more lights to the outside of our house.  One of these years we are going to look like the Griswalds, and that would be ok with me.  I love Christmas, I love lights, I love decorating, I love buying presents, I love the magic of Christmas, I love getting Christmas cards, but I don't want you to worry I still do hate winter.  I think about 75% of our neighborhood has some kind of Christmas decorations this year.  I love that!  Here are a couple pictures of our house at night.

With a flash...

Without a flash...

I love it!

Garage

Only our true friends can really appreciate this, but we got the boat in the garage!  This is amazing news if you have ever seen our garage.  We finally splurged and bought some nice garage shelving that has doors to hide the s*** we have collected over the years.  Tyson thought it was awesome to help build the shelves!  He is quite good at using a hammer!

Until he hit Joel's hand...just kidding, my hubby is just a dork and thought this would be a funny picture!

But apparently it does help if you stick your tongue out!

But here is the proof:

Boat in the garage!

And here is the trash to prove that we did actually get rid of some of our s***!

Decorating the House

The boys loved putting up the Christmas lights this year.  They both loved being on the roof, very much unlike their mom and dad!  Tyson insisted that they all wear the Santa hats the entire time.  When Joel's would "fall off" he would run and get it and make him put it right back on.  As you can tell by the pictures we have had a pretty warm fall.  We can't complain about putting up the lights when you can wear sleeveless shirts and shorts!

And then when it was nap time Charlie still wanted to wear his hat and had to sleep with his dancing Santa and singing dog!

I love Christmas!

What I Go Through For One Picture

All I am asking for is a cute picture of two cute boys, smiling, and looking at the camera.  Is that too much to ask?  

I quit!

 Let's try one by themselves instead.



Back Up Plan

Just in case the pirate costume didn't make it in time I had a back up plan.  The Smurfs!  Little did I know they would be a HUGE hit around here.  The new game at our house is to dress up like the Smurfs and have Daddy chase them around as Gargamel.  Tyson has sectioned off a corner of the house as Papa Smurf's house and he cooks spaghetti for Grouchy Smurf.  Hours of entertainment I tell you!  And I have to admit they make some pretty cute smurfs!

Gotta Start Somewhere

Sorry.  That is all I am gonna say, but I'm am back now. 

A while back Tyson had his annual Fall Harvest Dance at school.  This is one of the biggest events for the kids.  They love it because they get to dress in costume, dance, and eat pizza.  Does it get any better than that?  Well, it did for the Lundstrom's!  Every year they have a costume contest that the kids love.  When they called up the second grade boys Tyson took it really, I mean REALLY, seriously.  He stood there, no smile, so serious, with his hand on his heart, dead serious.  We think maybe he was trying to keep his heart from thumping out of his chest.  This is a very crazy situation for my little Tyson to be in.  Front and center, in a crowd, and with lots of noises, but he did it.  As he was standing there the crowd started chanting "Tyson! Tyson!"  Joel and I were pretty excited that the kids had started this chant.  One of the hardest things (actually the hardest thing) is wanting him to fit in, to have friends.  When all the kids were chanting his name we were just so happy for him.  Anyway...HE WON!  He took his hand off his heart, so proudly collected his bag of candy (which by the way he won't eat), and moved to the side so the next group of kids could come up.  Such a proud mommy moment!

And here is our Woody dancing the night away.  He started the night jumping up and down, by the end he could barely lift his legs one at a time.

A Kite Flying Kind Of Day

Our neighbors went on vacation this summer and brought Tyson and Charlie back a kite.  We finally flew them a couple weekends ago.  They were the best kites we have ever flown.  They went up so easy and flew higher than any kite I have ever seen.  Tyson had a blast and stayed with it for a really long time.

Then the older kids (the grown men) decided they wanted to see how high it would actually go so they added more string.  After the 500 foot extension the kite was still going strong so they decided to add one more string.  They felt they needed a reference for where the new string was so they added Joel's hat.  It quickly flew up the string until it met up with the kite.  So then the true "kid" came out in them and they added everything they could think of.   Another hat, some 4th of July decorations, a small American flag, a cup, you get the idea.  It entertained those grown men for almost an hour!  It was a great kite flying day!

This wasn't even at it's highest.  I actually could not get a good picture because it was so high!

  

Tyson Story

Last Friday I ordered pizza from Pizza Hut to be delivered.  They said it would be 45 minutes, so I jumped into the shower really fast.  When I walked out of the shower I heard voices.  I hurried up as fast as I could and came out of our room.  As I walked out I see Tyson handing a check to the delivery driver and the driver was saying, "you need to give that to your mom or dad to fill out."  I then figured it all out.  He had found my checkbook, wrote his name on it (he obviously was writing fast because he left off the n), tore it out, and was handing it to the delivery guy.  Good try buddy!

 

My Big Come Back Begins

I know, it's been a month, but I promise I will make it up to you.  We have lots of stories to share but I don't want to overwhelm myself so I am going to go one at a time.  Where is the best place to start?  The first day of school of course! 

Charlie got to go back first.  He is going to the same great preschool with the same great teachers so we were ready for him to start.  No big milestones or anything so this was easy peasy! 

 Who is ready for preschool? ... Me!!!!!

 
Tyson started 2nd grade.  Holy smokes, 2nd grade!  I remember 2nd grade and I hated it.  It was the year I cried every morning and told mom I was sick everyday so I didn't have to go.  I hope this is not going to be that kind of year for Tyson.  It started off with the building not being ready for the kids to go.  We started 2 days later then all the other schools in Manhattan.  Tyson was ready to start school around August 1st, so it was a LONG month just waiting.  And when I say ready I mean backpack on, lunchbox on the counter ready to be filled, and asking about every 5 minutes, "school today mommy?, do I start 2nd grade today mommy?".  I am really not exaggerating, it was really hard!  But we finally started, he loves his teacher, and his very best friend and neighbor is in his class!  He could not be more excited.

And here he is with his very best friend, Cadence, on the first day of 2nd grade.  They even have matching backpacks!

Quotes of the Day

Here are a couple quick quotes that I heard yesterday:

Charlie - "Are you kidding me?" while slapping his hand on his leg.  Wonder where he heard that?

Tyson - "May I have a donut please? ... Wow, that was a good sentence!" (and by donut he means bagel, poor kid doesn't even know what a real donut is)

And just cause you can't post without a cute picture.  Here is Charlie enjoying movie and popcorn night!

Riley County Fair

I will apologize in advance for the amount of videos and pictures in this post, but I can't help it.  We went to the fair last night.  When we mentioned it beforehand Tyson said, "No, I don't want to go.  It is too loud!"  Not a good start.  We wanted him to do the tractor pull.  He said, "No thanks, I'm good."  Usually when he says these things we can talk him out of it, but in this case we couldn't lie to him.  The fair is loud and it was 100 degrees out and there are tons of people and it stinks.  The odds were stacked against us.  But being the stubborn parents we are, we made him go and said he needed to just try.  And he did.  And he was awesome.  And Charlie thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Joel even said today that one advantage of having two boys with autism is that little things to most people can be the greatest things to us.  We had a blast. 

When we started talking about the fair I remembered the cowboy hat in Tyson's closet.  Well, Tyson refused to wear it but Charlie LOVED it.  The kid won't keep a baseball hat on but wanted that cowboy hat on almost all night.  When we first put it on him he said, "horse" right away.  I thought it was pretty cute that he associates cowboy hats with horses. 

Both kids did the tractor pull, rode some rides, went down the giant slide, and rode on the ponies.  If Charlie's hat would fall off he would yell for it.  He had to wear it.  By the end of the night Tyson decided that he wanted a cowboy hat too.  We are going to go get him one today so they can both wear them tonight at the rodeo.  Yep, we are going back.  They had so much fun we think we are going to try it again!  I love it when we can find things to do that the entire family enjoys.

Here are all the pictures and videos I promised.  Watch what you want! :)

YEE HAW!!!!

Here are the videos:

Tyson on Slide

Charlie on Slide

Riding Horses

Tractor Pull