I Love Fall (LOTS of Pictures)

I love the fall. I love wearing sweaters and boots. Well, Samantha wears boots, I'm too cheap to buy any for myself so I guess I just love the idea of sweaters and boots. I love the cooler weather and just the feeling of change. We have been lucky and have been having beautiful weather. I really wanted to go to a pumpkin patch this year. Last year we decided it was too expensive and wouldn't be worth it, but despite that, I wanted to do it this year. Unfortunately the day we decided to go it was really windy and ended up being pretty cold. The kids were okay but Adam and I were freezing. It was still fun and I'm glad I went, but if we go next year I will avoid going if it is a really windy day. I really wanted to get a picture of all three kids. The last good one I have is from Easter...I can't seem to get them all looking at the same time...in fact I can't even get all three to be not crying at the same time. Maybe someday...

I got a fairly cute one of the the two bigs...

Then tried to get all three. It started out with Lily not happy and determined to get down, then...

Lily was on  her own and Paul was mad...

...and sad....

...and gone.

Samantha on a little (emphasis on the little) train ride. She didn't seem to mind that it was small.

There were these two goats that were fighting. The kids were really into watching them go at each other. I've never seen goats fight, but they go up on their back legs and then hop towards each other until they butt heads. They didn't fight the kids or Paul would have won. That kid has the hardest head in the world. Seriously. They liked the goats so much that later in the week Samantha and Paul were wrestling and Paul decided to be the Hulk. Rather than be superwoman or something, Samantha decided to be "Jewels the fighting goat." Really strikes fear in your heart when you hear that....Paul won.

Even with the weather getting cooler, it is still pretty warm most days and so we are spending a fair amount of time outside. Paul was busy doing tricks on the slide and was excited to show off for me (that's pretty typical).

Samantha did not want me to take her picture

Down at Great Granddad's house...I love that chair.

Enjoying Life

 We have tried to stay busy doing fun things even though school has started. I haven't let the kids start sports yet since once you start, things get SO busy.  This spring we will let both kids start one sport and see how it goes from there. Paul is really excited, Samantha has less interest. Since that hasn't started yet we've tried to get in some other fun activities and keep the kids from being bored. We decided last year to only allow TV from Friday after school until Saturday night. I have relented and allowed Paul to watch TV during rest time when Samantha is at school or I would not get a minute by myself. It has worked out really well, but it does mean that on days off of school we have to get out and be busy a good portion of the day or there is a lot of fighting. Here are some of the random things we've done since school started...

Trying swimming in the backyard (she didn't like it)

Making a lot of "chompers." A. LOT.

Wrestling with Daddy...and losing

 Taking down my parents deck

Being cute. Just really, really cute.

Going to the children's museum

Lots of reading...

...and "reading"

A First Grader and a Preschooler

I was actually kind of dreading the first day of school. I was not ready to have Samantha gone all day, at all. Last year she had a really hard time on the first day and mentally I was trying to prepare myself for a repeat of prying a crying child off my arm. Luckily it wasn't like that at all. We wrote "I © U" on each others hands just so we wouldn't forget. It was sweet. She also took a picture of Lily with her. It happened to be a picture of Lily when she had just gotten out of the bath and was playing peek-a-boo with her towel. I cropped it so it was waist up, but Samantha still thought it was funny that she was taking a naked picture of her baby sister. She was showing all of her friends from last year and could care less if I was there or not. She has an AWESOME teacher, seriously amazing, and I think that has made the transition pretty easy as well. So far she is loving school and is disappointed at the end of every day. At parent teacher conferences her teacher commented on how happy she was to be there. It is so nice to have her excited to go. I must admit, I don't mind having her gone as much as I thought I would. It is REALLY nice to not have the fighting between her and Paul. 

Paul's day went equally well. He was excited to go and told me as long as no one made a big deal about his cast, that it would be a good day. The only hitch is that he wouldn't wear his new shirt, he only wanted a "regular" shirt. He REALLY didn't want anyone telling him he was handsome. He walked in with no tears and has loved it ever since. He too asks if it's a school day and cheers when I tell him yes. He is just loving it.

They always have to take a silly picture and they think it's really funny to pretend fight.

 

With my Dad at the school, waiting for their teachers to come out and get them

Lily's First Birthday

This was by far the hardest first birthday for me. It was really bittersweet to watch Lily and know that she really is no longer a baby. She was the sweetest newborn and it was so fun having a baby in the house, it's sad to think that it is over. Her birthday was fun and she is still the sweetest little thing around. She is still a great sleeper and is easy and fun to have around. At her first year checkup she only weighed 18 lbs 2 oz. That was only a gain of like 3 oz. from her 9 month check up. I am pretty sure it's because she started crawling so she was burning a lot more calories. For her birthday we just had Adam's family come down and have dinner at our house. It was nice and low key.

She's stopped doing it now, but this is the smile she used to give when you'd ask her to, it was pretty funny.

Her cupcakes, not quite the way I'd pictured, but they were okay.

Cousin Pictures

We were able to have all the cousins from Adam's side of the family together for some pictures, it was the first time they were all together in quite awhile

All the Boys (p.s. I love Max's face)