This IS The Boys

Forget all the cute posed pictures (not that I have any of those), this is my favorite picture of the boys as of late. Here they are together hanging out after a long day of school for the big boys. Its so THEM and our life right now. No one wants to take a picture, no one wants to look my general direction in fact. Sigh... its a good thing they are cute.

Help Around the House

Its a good thing that I have extra hands to "help" me around the house these days, because I sure have alot to do and any help is appreciated, or is it???

I love the look on Nathan's face as he topples the clean laundry in the basket, he KNOWS he is causing trouble and LOVES it...

Happy Ten Months Nathan!!!

Nathan with his doggy at 10 months old. We can barely believe that one year is just around the corner!!! What a wonderful 10 months it has been...

Nathan

Nathan is becoming quite the little character, with his own personality lately. His favorite thing is climbing into our fireplace. I have to find some type of baby proofing to keep him out. His other favorite thing is eating! He eats anything and everything (well except for anythign with milk or eggs because he is allergic and PEAS, he really doesnt like peas). Yesterday he all but demanded my apple I was eating! He gnawed and sucked on that giant apple in his little hands for close to a half hour!

We had a busy weekend, unpacking, projects, soccer, a birthday party for the older boys. Phew! The house is coming along fantastically. Its ALOT of work but its paying off, everything looks great.

Cruising

A short little clip of Nathan cruisng on the furniture. This boy does NOT want to be behind. He is trying everyday to do new and exciting things! He looks so little standing up walking next to things, our little peanut!

Nathan's First Word

Nathan learned to wave and say "bye bye" this week. Its very cute. I snapped some pictures of him in action saying bye and waving. You can definitely tell what he is saying. Ill try and catch a video of it too! PS- Thats fish and cantelope that he is eating for lunch, yummy.

Evan's First Day!

Evan had his first day of Pre Kindergarten today! He was VERY excited to go. Not even the least bit reluctant. He literally sprinted from the car when it was time for drop off. He did not even look back (slight sob). I posted some pictures of him, he was dancing with joy while I took his pictures before heading to school! What a difference from a year ago.

A Final Thought

Nathan really doesnt like baby gates:) Yes, thats his foot trying to CLIMB the gate - SIGH...

A Window, A Tooth, A Snake, The House

We said goodbye to our house this weekend, its a bit sad, because we have so many wonderful memories from there. We brought all three of our sons home through its doorsteps as babies. We literally grew into and out of its four walls, becoming a family of five over the ten years we were in the house.

One of the things Im sad about is that Nathan wont get to enjoy is our low bay window in the living room. He is just getting to the perfect age for the window, pulling himself up on it and cruising along the sill, gnawing on the window crank handle. All the boys did that! I took some pictures of him in front of it on our final day. Im quite sure I have hundreds of pictures of the boys in front of that window.

The first night in the new house everyone got to try out the giant tub! What fun! Evan and Nathan could literally swim in the thing its so deep and long. The older boys climbed into their beds for the first night of sleep slightly reluctantly. There were bad dreams and several calls in the middle of the night from both the older boys but we made it through and the second night went much better thankfully.

The kids are definitely confused a bit they keep asking which house we are going to when I say we are going home. But, every day they find new reasons to be excited about the new house - cable tv, then Internet, then discovering something cool outside like the snake Evan found! He is such a boy, he just loved handling it and playing with it for hours in the yard, catching it, letting it go, then catching it again.

Justin lost his third tooth today, at school. He is very excited, Im in hysterics over how he looks and talks with it missing, its quite silly.

Soccer!

This weekend kicked off soccer for Evan! This year G is assistant coaching, but, because of the move, I filled in for him as coach. It was SO MUCH FUN! The kids on the team are so cute and have tons of energy. Everyone did such a fantastic job and left smiling, which is what counts! Evan and his cousin Andrew are on the same team which is super fun! Thanks Scott for the pictures, I did not have the organizational skills to produce my camera the first week, seeing how we were in the middle of the move THAT DAY. More on that soon...

MY CAMERA!!!

My camera is BACK!!! Just in time for our move! It was out for service for what feels like forever and was actually about 2 months. Here are some cute new pictures of our baby boy snapped in celebration of my camera!!!

More Pictures

The entire upstairs is done!!!! The pictures posted are of the upstairs hall, walking into our bedroom and then our bedroom with curtains. Hooray!!!

Pictures of the House - Final Stages!

Picture 1 is of the living room. The carpet was installed on Friday. Mom hung the curtains for me (curtains courtesy of my friend Lauren who was redecorating - thank you!!!). The room has FIVE windows in it. Its so light and airy in there, I wanted to keep it light with sheer type curtains so these worked perfect! I adore this room. The fireplace isnt working currently. G and I would like to get a pellet stove or a wood burning stove for this space eventually, built right into the fireplace, for now its got some logs and Christmas lights that create the affect of fire, the kids think this is so cool.

Picture 2 is of the bathroom upstairs. Its so big compared to our current one! Love the new medicine cabinet we got and installed and the new shower curtain in rug done all in greys to match the tile and sink.

Pictures 3 and 4 are of the fourth bedroom which we are using as a playroom for the big boys until the playroom in the basement is done. The older boys will share a room - the rooms are alot bigger than our old house, which they were already sharing at, so it should be no issue. I love how the flooring came out, it looks so beautiful in person, it matches with the dark woodwork on the doors and windows so well.

UPDATE!

Despite our initial concerns about the flooring problems causing a delay in our move in date, we are happy to report that it looks like we will be able to move in next weekend as originally planned. I am so thrilled. This past week I did the drive to bring Justin to and from school and then the drive home so we could sleep at our "old" home. Lets just say Im not looking forward to doing the drive any more than I need to. Its far, its early, and everyone is cranky about it, to include mommy:)

The house is coming out fabulously!!! We got carpeting installed in our family room on Friday. It looks great. G and my dad have been working REALLY hard on the hardwood floors in the upstairs and they are nearly done! They look so beautiful. My mom and I (well mostly my mom since Ive been wrangling three kids) hung the shades and curtains in the boys rooms, and the living room. We have so much more room in our new home. Its just phenomenal. I didnt realize how cramped our quarters were! Im so excited if you couldnt already tell:) Pictures to come!

We have been slowly meeting our neighbors, everyone has been so friendly and nice and welcoming. We are so lucky to live in such a nice neighborhood. Surprisingly we have come to realize how many people we actually know in our area. In our neighborhood alone met two families that we already knew! One of the families is of a girl I grew up with and was friends with for many years of my early childhood! What a small world.

PS- The picture in the previous post was Justin in front of our NEW house. Even though we actually didnt have time to stop at our new house in the morning of his first day of school, because, well, like I said, its far and early. So, I staged the photo after he got out of school, and bribed him with a treat to take it.

Too Cool For School:)

Justin had his first day of first grade today!!! He did wonderful at his new school, he reported back to me that he loves his new school and teacher and made lots of new friends. He was especially excited that he has MORE GIRLS than boys in his class, 19 total which is nice and small. Last year he had 18 kids, 17 boys and one girl, so this year, he is in heaven, he loves girls his age and plays so well with them.

Justin rode the bus for the first time ever today! He loved that too, acted like such a big boy getting off the bus in front of everyone who was there to greet him (to include me, Nathan (sleeping), Evan and my mom) he didnt complain once about the long trek home from the bus stop (its seriously more than 0.2 mile up hill). I think he is in awe that mommy is letting him ride the bus at all, it was a big decision.

He told me how excited he was to go back tomorrow, so, thats great!!!

Danger, Will Robinson

Nathan has decided he likes life on the edge of danger...upright. Upon leaving the room for two minutes today, Nathan's laughter called me back into the room and I discovered this. Done all by himself. Sigh...