Did you know that Keaten likes to play with trains? What?!?! You didn't know that! Have you been living under a rock? No, seriously, he loves trains! I built him a train table for his 3rd birthday, and we got some track, trains, bridges for a good price from a fellow co-worker, and now we have a full blown boy who doesn't mind playing trains all day, everyday. In fact, we just got another lot of tracks, trains, bridges, and accessories for a good deal through a buy/sell page (but you didn't hear that from us, as the kids don't know it yet, so sssshhhhh). Keaten loves trains so much, Thomas the Train and Chuggington can frequently be heard on one of our televisions or his tablet. They are just as popular, if not more so than Bob the Builder, and let me tell you, Bob the Builder, is a big deal too!
Over the past 6 weeks Mommy has been tricking Keaten into practicing his numbers, colors, and counting. She has found a few creative resources online that are pictures of trucks, construction equipment, and so forth, and you have to place a certain number of "stones" in its scoop or bed. Needless to say, Keaten saw the trucks and his attention was set! Of course, he still has his 3 year old moments. He'll pretend to not know the answer, but then if Daddy asks, he all of a sudden knows it!
What is even more challenging is the fact that Mommy is having a hard time adjusting to having one child at home all day again. With it being just her and Keaten, she is now the sole focus of his play date adventures, which typically involve trains, tools, cars, or building something. I'm sure she is treasuring these moments as all too soon, we'll be shipping him off to school with his sister... and what will she do then?
Keaten has recently been getting into board games lately too. Right now his favorite game is break the ice, simply because it involves a hammer and smashing ice blocks. Yeah, I know. Surprisingly! However, he also has been interested in Guess Who, and Frozen's Surprise Slides, a combination of candy land and chutes and ladders.
Then came Halloween. For anyone who remembers last year, Keaten hated Halloween. People with masks scared him even though they didn't do anything scary, they simply walked up to the front door to collect candy. This year was a different story, occasionally a mask would freak him out, but more often than not, he was enthusiastic to hand out treats to our visitors. So much so, that our "3 per person" was more like "5 or 6", or what his little hands could grasp firmly.
Of course, with Halloween and the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays, we've had a lot of fall yard work to do. We laid new grass in the front yard, we had leaves to rake and the garden to take down. Keaten was out there each time we had something to do. His favorite part was to rake leaves and bag them up. So much so, he was invited to Tennessee to help PawPaw with his leaves. However, Keaten declined, but a few days later, he called PawPaw back to tell him he was available now (on his imaginary phone).
Like Father like son, Keaten isn't far from his roots. While out shopping the other day, he noticed that the store was decorated for Christmas, and loudly proclaimed, "It is not Christmas yet, we haven't even had Thanksgiving!", multiple times, I might add. He later followed it up with "They need to take those down!" Love it! However, he and Mommy (and Brianne) did make homemade wrapping paper already that is Christmas themed, which I guess is "OK before Thanksgiving". :)
Well that is the past 6 weeks and boy did that time fly! I'm sure the next 6 will continue to involve trains, counting, colors, and everything in between. While that plays out, enjoy these photos from the adventures above.
Love,
Matt, Kami, Brianne and Keaten