My three little loves

• I love pulling out hand-me-downs at the beginning of each season and putting them on little brother.  This jack-o-lantern shirt was one of Carter's favorites, and it's hard to believe he was ever this little!
• Dawson has been discussing fire safety at school, and it amazes me all the little facts that he retains.  He has been telling me about stop, drop and roll, getting out of the house in the case of a fire, and how he will never hide from a fireman under his bed or in a closet.  But then he told me "matches are for burning the place up."  
• This kid is pumped for his birthday, trouble is we still have two months to go!  He has asked me several times to bake his birthday cake (um buddy, it won't last for two months) and to clean the house for his birthday party.  He also has big plans to go to skymax, Chuck E. Cheese's and to the movies.  All in one day.  Well, why don't we pick one activity, this birthday is sounding pretty pricey!!

• I took this picture of Carter huddled under blankets and sleeping on the couch after we came home from Grandma and Bo's house.  This poor kid was wiped out!
• Last night was Carter's first cub scout den meeting.  He was so excited and really just wanted to have fun with his friends.  Let me tell you, classroom management is much easier than cub scout management.  The boys just want to have fun and they've been in school all day!!  
• I asked all the boys to draw a picture of what they really want to do this year in cub scouts.  I loved Carter's picture, he really wants to shoot BeBe guns and bows and arrows this year.

• Ava makes me laugh, she comes home from a long day at school and proceeds to play......school.  She will line up stuffed animals to read them stories and sit at the table working on workbooks for an hour.
• My favorite time of the day?  4 pm.  Ava has gotten home from school and had her snack.  Then she proceeds to sit on my lap and tell me the entire minutiae of her day.  I love hearing about it all!
• Getting on the bus can still be hard.  She holds my hand and hugs on me at the bus stop until the bus comes.  Then she gets on the bus, sometimes with tears in her eyes because "she misses me so much when she is at school."  Then we have to wave and blow kisses until the bus leaves.  I miss you too, baby girl.

Football

Carter has been playing flag football this fall.  Unfortunately it is at the same time as a dance/gymnastics class that Ava is taking, so I haven't seen more than 10-15 minutes of any game.  Well, that changed this week because his game was rescheduled for Wednesday night.

I have to say, I'm going to be sad when football ends.  It's nice because it's so active, he is running around for the entire hour.  He liked baseball, but it was hard because there was so much waiting.  He spends the entire hour running around with a huge smile on his face.

Next up?  Basketball!!  He tells me all the time that basketball is his best sport, so we will see!

Latest and Greatest in Pictures

We were BOOED!!  Apparently we didn't hear the doorbell or knock, and as we were waking to the bus in the morning I saw a bag on the doorstep.  It definitely added a fun surprise to the morning.  The also had a ball sneaking down the street in the dark in their pajamas to deliver our Boo Bags to friends.  What a fun fall tradition!

Ava's front tooth fell out, which leaves her with this big gap!  All she will want for Christmas is her two front teeth!  She lost her tooth at school and she was happy because she was the first person on the "I lost a tooth" board.  It's funny because she will occasionally make a whistling sound while she is talking.

My buddy.  Have I mentioned that all three kids are going through a very picky stage right now?  Tonight he had three servings of broccoli for dinner because lasagna is DISGUSTING.  Well, sorry about that, everyone else likes it!

Last friday was the fall kick off party and the kids got their picture taken with the polar bear.

I did a mini-triathlon this past weekend with my friend Amber.  There was a five mile bike ride, 2.5 mile canoe and 2.5 mile run.  It was the perfect length and I had a blast!  I would love to find another one in the spring!

Jason's 30th Birthday

This weekend we visited Bo, Grandma, Uncle Jason, Aunt Tiffany and cousin Andrew to celebrate Uncle Jason's 30th birthday.  It was a fun weekend and we got to spend lots of time with family!  Lots of pictures ahead!

Hiking with Bo.  Can you believe how cold it was this weekend!  It's October and we were wearing hats, gloves and coats.

Happy Birthday Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Jason!!  Don't you love his hair?  He shaved it in honor of his 30th!

We really wanted to do something for Uncle Jason's birthday, so we made t-shirts for everyone with pictures of the birthday boy with us and funny memories/ things we love about him/ or embarrassing moments.

I love Dawson's happy face!!

Uncle Jason could totally pass as a gas station attendant in this get-up!

We also got out a bow and arrow.  Ava gave it a whirl, but didn't show a lot of interest.  She got upset that she couldn't do it perfectly on the first try, and eventually became interested in tractor rides instead.

But she does make an adorable Merida.

But Carter was a different story.  

He started out a little something like this.

But practice made perfect and he really got the hang of it!!  He practiced archery for most of the morning and really enjoyed it!

Tractor rides with the sled

Ava's little sense of humor made me laugh so hard, she pretended to be a headless monster.

Bo and Grandma built us our very own log playground, and the kids had a blast playing on it (in reality they had a tree cut down.)

Swinging Smiles!

Thank you everyone for a beautifully fun weekend!

Heard around the House

Now that Ava and Carter are in school full time, I foresee many of these posts from Dawson.  Although they say hilarious things too, I'm just around little guy the most right now.  So here are some of the latest funnies:

Dawson was explaining an amazing dump truck that has two levels in the cab for sleeping and playing.  He was going in to incredible detail about this truck he was going to design and I asked him if he wanted to be a person that designed trucks when he grew up.  He said no, he wants to be a construction boss.  Then he asked me "When you send us off to be real people, what are you going to do Mommy?"

Ava has gotten really excited about reading since starting school, and she is reading aloud from the Dick and Jane series.  Now everyone knows the kind of simplistic, halting style of Dick and Jane.  Dawson started to mimic this, and it took a dark turn:

No no baby.  Don't jump baby.  Don't jump in the deep deep pool baby.

Um, Dawson that sounds a little scary!?!?!?

Well whether its singing songs and dancing about not wanting underwear (true story) to crying his little heart out when I leave him a preschool (another true story) this kid knows how to keep our life spicy!!

(Although in his defense he had his second preschool drop off today with no crying.  Unfortunately it's only been the second one in the first month of school.  So we shall see if this phase is over or not.......to be continued.   

Cricket in Times Square Dinner

Today we had our Family Book Club Dinner for The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden.  First we made crickets, the kids had a lot of fun with this.

Carter Cricket and Dawson cricket

Boy, were we spoiled with treats!  We had Italian deserts in honor of the Bellini's:  pizelles, biscotti and gelato.  The kids liked all the deserts!

For our meal we had Strawberry soda pop (dye free, of course)  roast beef sandwiches (what trapped Chester the cricket) and some Chinese dishes: pork dumplings and veggie fried rice.  A weird mishmash of a meal, but tasty nonetheless.  The kids enjoyed the roast beef sandwiches and deserts the most.   

We had such a good discussion, and it became very clear that Ava really enjoyed and paid close attention to this book.  She was answering all the questions, which she made sure to point out to her brothers.  We also watched a you tube video of a boy buying tickets for the subway, riding the subway and going to Times Square.  This was helpful, because the kids really had no idea about these types of experiences.  Another fun afternoon with my favorite kiddos!!

Fun with Family

Wow, life has gotten busy with homework, chores, packing lunches, playing tag, football, scouts, gymnastics......and the list goes on and on.  But we've had two great weekends with our families so I have some pictures to share.  Last weekend we went to Sidney to visit Meme and Bob Bob.  

A morning trip to the farmers market and the kids got to watch a little parade of old cars.

Carter wore his boy scout uniform all weekend long.  He was so excited for his first meeting, and although it was pretty uneventful his excitement is still pretty high.

Ava and Riley enjoyed each other's company as usual.  Picnic was a pretty popular game this weekend.  It was so nice to see everyone, and poor little Ava ended the weekend with her usual sobbing.  She really does love our families so much, and her poor sensitive heart hates to be away from them!  

Ah!  What a cute picture, and I can't figure out how to flip it!  This weekend we had a visit from Grandma and Bo and the kids loved every second playing puppies, bad guys and three legged races, it looks like!  Daddy finished his second half marathon and we are so proud to report that he took almost 12 minutes off his first race!  Carter showed off his football skills at his game for Grandma and Bo.  Bo completed all my Honey-Do list including finishing off the bed in the front of the house, getting the rocket off the roof and fixing Carter's bike.  It was so nice getting to see everyone!