wagon

We spent several afternoons in the wagon this fall too.  I'm not sure why we haven't had more fun with the wagon before, but the boys loved pulling each other up and down our street.  It was so cute to watch them - with a little editing I think I could make a beautiful collage of pictures to hang on our wall - maybe someday :)

leaves

The leaves this year were absolutely gorgeous.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older and paying more attention to things like this or if they truly were more colorful than years past, but I did find myself just marveling in the beauty of all the leaves this year.  We have leaves galore in our yard and always take full advantage of the yard waste pick up each week during the fall, plus the 2 full weeks of daily pick up.  Levi was my leaf partner this year.

 It often seemed to workout to do some yard work while Isaiah was at school and baby was napping.  Levi didn't mind coming out to make huge piles with me or to keep me company doing one thing or another while I filled up the bin.  

Titus made it out in the leaves plenty too.  He was still pretty content playing in one spot for much of early fall so he would sit and hold and look at the beautiful leaves.  This red tree in our backyard is the most beautiful by far.  Levi and I even picked some leaves and sent them to family to share it with us!

 Unfortunately Isaiah wasn't out in the leaves quite as much with us - kindergarten just gets in the way! :)  But he did spend his fair share of time INSIDE the yard waste bin - his new favorite spot - he begged me to give him rides all around in it.  He loved to try to guess where I was pushing them to.  I tried to trick him, but he was a pretty good guesser about where he ended up. 

I love these days with my boys!

favorite spot.

Starting in October, Titus found another favorite spot in our house - on the dishwasher door.  If he hears the door open - he's there -- and FAST!  As the months have gone by, he's gotten better and faster at getting there.  I'm not sure why because every time he gets up there, he gets taken right down - mainly because his 24 pounds is not good for that door!  :)  He has managed to get on it several times because if the door doesn't get shut just tight, he can open it himself, crawl up, and have a party!  He also is fond of taking out the silverware and throwing them all over the kitchen and pulling the bottom basket all the way out of the dishwasher so he can try to crawl all the way into it.  Yikes - he's tough to keep up with!

And another related thing he likes now that the baby lock on the door right next to the dishwasher has been broken (probably by him pulling on it over and over again) is to take out the box of dishwasher tablets and throw them all around - however, this activity has been stopped because one day he decided he wanted a snack and managed to break one open and get soap in his mouth (he screamed for awhile - must not have tasted so good!).  We now keep the dishwasher soap on the kitchen counter.  Gotta love life with a toddler!

fire safety

Isaiah's class spent a week in October talking about fire safety. He brought home a checklist to work on with the family, projects that talked about firetrucks, fires, etc, they brought home a paper sack to decorate in any way they wanted to to represent fire safety - Isaiah all on his own drew and painted a house on fire with a fire fighter and fire truck.  The final part of the week was a open house at the fire station one afternoon after school.  Isaiah was excited to turn in his bag and the boys loved getting a fire rescue tattoo put on by a "real" fire fighter.  We got to see all the fire fighter's lockers with their fire gear, take a close look at the fire truck and even get in it, and check out a police car and ambulance.  

The boys really had a good time, even Titus loved just looking around and seeing all the people.  I think Levi's favorite part was the big plate of cookies - he may have taken like 6 - but I tried not to watch :)  I love it that the school puts on fun events like this to help the kids learn the importance of safety.  It was also a great week for us to talk to the kids about fire safety, remind them of our plan to meet out back by the huge tree if we ever have to get out of the house in a fire, and really encouraged me to consider getting a few more fire alarms installed in our house.  

Happy Fire Safety Week - a few months late! :)

best buddies

Isaiah and Levi adore their buddy Caiden.  Now that he no longer comes to our house daily (unfortunately there is no way to get 2 kindergartners to and from school at the same time at different schools) they miss him terribly all . the . time . !! Luckily we are great friends with his mom and get together as often as we can (usually about every other week).  She still bails us out of binds by watching our boys at a moments notice more than I'd like to admit and so much more -- and we try to repay the favors when we can.  But these boys just LOVE to be together!  

We love you Caiden and LeAnna!!

By the way - It's Caiden who got Levi started on the shorts all the time habit - can you tell? - and my boys just can never keep their shirts on... :)  

baby wants to color too.

One day Titus found the box of baby "markers" or whatever they are called - the big balls with markers on the end.  I got these for Isaiah thinking they were a great idea but quickly found out that all they do is make huge messes....for some reason they are still in the closest and all three boys have ended up with marker all over themselves because of them.  But oh well, they do have fun for the few minutes they do play with them! :)

daddy date at the Black Hawks

Mark decided it was time to take the big boys out on the town one Friday night.  He bought tickets to the Waterloo Black Hawks hockey game and invited our friends Chad and Caleb to join them.  As you probably know, Mark likes to go all out when he does things so the boys spent quite a while in the bathroom getting ready to go...

They all looked like big Black Hawk fans by the time all was said and done!  (Levi opted to not get facepaint on but gladly had his hair spiked!)

It sounds like "a great time" is an understatement for the fun that was had at the game.  The boys got to meet and play around with the mascot, Tony Hawk, and sat up close to the rink.  Isaiah was super excited to find his classmate Heaton at the game too.  Other than a pop spilled all over their seats, it was a perfect night for all 3 of them!

I love it that Mark is such a great dad and gets excited to do fun things with his boys!

tooth #2

On October 3 tooth number 2 popped out!  It was loose after the first one came out and got even looser once it was gone.  Isaiah had been wiggling it here and there and then one day it just popped right out.  The pictures are right after it came out (obviously - sorry for the blood!) and I think it came out because someone was avoiding bedtime.  He had already been put to bed but then had to come out of his room for this and that and then finally it was his tooth.  He was so excited (as you can see best in the blurry bottom left picture) and the tooth fairy had to work quick as it was an unexpected event! :)  

Isaiah's favorite part about this is that his tongue will fit in the big hole.  

As I'm writing this way behind on posts in mid-December the new bottom two teeth are about 1/3 of the way through and we have no sign of any other loose teeth. 

homecoming week...

Like I mentioned before, Isaiah has all kinds of wear this or that to school days...One week in early October he had a pajama day and a miss-match day.  I had to work the morning of miss-match day but Isaiah and Mark had a lot of fun putting together an outfit that didn't match a bit - a polo with athletic pants, a sketcher and a slip on shoe and a long batman sock and a short white one.  What a miss-matched day!

Another day that week was crazy hair day which Isaiah decided he wanted to go Panther style.

 And on Friday was school spirit day.  With a dad like Isaiah's - its all or nothing - take a look what these two came up with!  (and yes, those are football pants that he is wearing!)

The other themed day for the week was Disney day - nothing to be excited about at our house - I suggested the Woody costume, but he was fine with just wearing a Disneyland T-shirt that Grandpa gave him several years back -- good thing it still fits! (barely! -- which by the way he wore again when they had to dress up for Mickey Mouse's birthday!).

Hallie's bday at the pool!

Our friend Hallie turned 3 this fall and had a super fun birthday party at the W in Waverly.  What an amazing facility!  The boys talked for days about when we got to go swimming and couldn't wait when the day finally arrived!  

 The whirlpool pool (the big circle in the middle) was lots of fun (I'm not sure exactly what the purpose of that pool is) and the kids had fun swirling around until an adult helped them out!  This pool was a good distraction since they wouldn't let the kids go down the big slide (not even with an adult - bummer!).  Titus loved the water too.  He splashed and laughed and had all kinds of fun.

The boys had lots of fun playing with our other friends and did NOT want to get out when the party was over.  What a great way to spend a Sunday night!  Thanks Knut and Molly!!  Happy Birthday Hallie!

tag-a-long

Isaiah loves to ride his bike; he has gotten so good at riding without training wheels and can ride really fast!  He also love to ride on the tag-a-long bike with both Mark and my dad.  It really is a great way for both riders to get exercise and spend some time just the 2 of them. 

My dad rides RAGBRI and likes to take really long rides so I wasn't surprised that he took Isaiah on some pretty long rides! But he makes sure to stop for a treat or a park (or both!) along the way!

I bet next year Levi's legs will have grown just enough that he can get in on the action too! 

happy birthday Aunt Nichole!

My sister's birthday is October 5 so we went to celebrate her the weekend before.  The boys always love, love, love to go to Aunt Nikki and Uncle Jay's house.  There's nothing like an after new with your cousins and a house full of different toys (even if they are girl toys).  We spent the day just hanging out and having fun together. Like most get togethers, a cousin bath was taken and lots of baby cuddling was done - especially since baby was just a couple weeks old!

And of course we had to get our first ever SIX cousins photo!  Turned out pretty good with a typical Levi smile along with 5 other sweet faces!

Happy Birthday Aunt Nikki! 

teddy bear day.

Let's just say I think that kindergarten seems to be a lot of work -- lots for Isaiah to learn and lots for mom and dad to keep track of, yikes!  I think he's had a wear something special, bring something special, or do something special day just about every single week if not multiple days per week - I will admit it's fun for Isaiah and it does give him things to look forward to which I especially appreciated the weeks we were having such trouble getting him to school, but some days it just feels like so much to keep up with.  Anyway ... one day was bring a teddy bear to school day.  Stuffed animals are just not played with around here, in fact I've pretty much gotten rid of all of our stuffed animals, but we do have a couple teddy bears - a few cute little brown bears that were given to my babies in the hospital - one that my dad even bought on behalf of Isaiah to give to his new baby brother Levi.  And we have one HUGE teddy bear too a first (or maybe second) Christmas give from grandpa and grandma ... so I'm sure you can guess which one Isaiah picked for his bring a teddy to school day....and don't worry he was safe in the van all the way there :)