Happy Halloween

We're not super huge on Halloween around here. We stay away from the blood and guts stuff, but we'll happily welcome the pounds and pounds of candy the boys come home with.

The boys tend to keep their costumes pretty low-key, and sure enough, this year was no different.

A repeat picture of our little vampire. This was a hand-me-down from our friend, Kari.

Adam got the Transfomers Bumblebee costume from Max & Anna for his birthday. He loves it and I love the efficiency of it.
This will be the 3rd or 4th consecutive year the skeleton has been used. $20 well spent several years ago. That's Matt in there.

Last year Ben decided to create his own costume, and he had so much fun doing it he decided to do it again this year. Our very own...iPad!

I Vant to Suck Your Blood!

He looks too stinkin' cute in this to wait until Halloween to post!

Birthday Recap

We had a fun and busy weekend celebrating Luke and Adam's birthdays. Uncle Rob and Grandma Marilyn were in town and Nana and Papa came over for cake and ice cream. Holly's family was down for the count with fevers and colds, but we managed to save some cake for them.

Earlier in the day I took Adam, Luke, and Adam's friend Dylan to McDs and then to a corn maze not far from our house. It was a beautiful fall day, and the boys had a great time running through the maze together. I love that we haven't set the precedent of big production birthday parties. Inviting a special friend over to do something a little different was a perfect way for Adam to spend his 5th birthday.

I'm not sure what we'll do in the future about celebrating together or separately with their birthdays just four days apart. This year we took advantage of the "free first birthday cake" from Byerly's, and went ahead and let Adam get the Transformers cake he so had his heart set on. We may not always have individual cakes, but for this year, we just had to do it!
I'm also not sure I'll schedule their yearly dr. visits at the same time ever again. I took both boys in with back-to-back appts, thinking I was being efficient. 2 hours and 7 shots later, we were on our way. Not real fun. BTW, our chunky monkey was 26# and 32" long!

Five!

Adam Charles is five today! Honestly, I don't remember him younger than about two. He's always been old for his age in terms of his wit and sarcasm. He is smart, funny, loving, mischievous, excited for kindergarten next year, a wonderful younger and older brother, and we love him so very much!

Happy "whole hand" buddy!

Hair Cuts

I really should learn how to cut the boys' hair. Great Clips makes a killing off of us!

One!

Baby Luke is ONE! How did the year go so fast, and where did my baby go? He is a blessing to our family and we can't imagine life without him. We can't wait to watch his little personality take off in this next year.

The official stats will come next week, but for now:

~26 pounds

3 teeth in, 4th is soon to appear

crawls up and down stairs no problem

walks behind push toys and cruises furniture

has stood for ~1 minute on own

dances, waves, claps and says "uh-oh" appropriately

still an inconsistent nighttime sleeper! (He's crying as I type this...11:30 pm)

will often sleep ~9:00 pm -7:00 am, but you just never know!

naps are usually predictable (9:30-11:00 and 2:00-3:30)

adjustment time at daycare seems to be over and he's doing great with drop-off & napping

moved out of high chair and sits in booster at the table

stopped pumping 2 weeks ago (the longest I'd gone with any of the boys)

LOVES his brothers and they adore him!

done with baby food

has really only been sick one time when he had a high fever for about a day

Leaving the hospital

Our baby is a big boy now!

Happy Birthday, Luke! We love you very, very much!

PS: he cried about 10 minutes and is quiet now. I couldn't let him cry too long as I'm typing his birthday post!

Luke Videos

I'm posting these simply because he's turning one in a couple of days, and I suddenly want to capture anything that's left of his "babyhood".

Tree Climbing

Ben has loved climbing trees this fall. He'll head out into the wooded area behind our house, aka as the "Hundred Acre Woods" as the boys call it, and spend a long time out there by himself.

Grandma was here a few weeks ago and snapped these cool shots of him in our neighbor's tree.

Golfing

Brian loves golf. HE. LOVES. GOLF! If he could play every day, I have no doubt in my mind he would. A couple of weeks ago he drove 5 1/2 hours after a full day of school to meet his 3 older brothers for a golf outing. He said he only slept 2 hours the night before they played because he was so excited. They got up early the next morning and went out for a round of 18. After grabbing some lunch, they repeated the course and played another round of 18. After saying some quick goodbyes, Brian hopped in the car and headed home, arriving around 11 p.m., and off to school he went the next day.

You've got to really love golf to handle a schedule like that!

I can't help but fast forward 40 years and imagine our 4 boys hanging out like this!

I don't know if they meant to stand in age order, but they are L-R:

John, Robert, Richard, Brian

Brian's request, "Please post a picture of the scorecard."

Playing in Leaves

It has just about become a tradition for the boys to head over to Nana's and Papa's in the fall to enjoy the huge leaf pile they get in their yard. The boys love doing it, and this year didn't disappoint. After giving myself an impromptu timeout and heading out to run some errands alone (it was one of those kinds of days), Brian packed up the boys and did a few errands of his own and then went to visit my parents with all 4 boys in tow.

We all returned home a couple of hours later, and all of us were in much better moods than when we left!

Photos courtesy of Nana & Papa

Getting old!

A former 6th grade student of mine was the sub in the classroom next door to me today.

I'm getting OLD!