October is a busy one!

As usual, the month seems to be speeding by so quickly!  Our cute kitty Molly, is getting along as a solo cat pretty well.  We are excited for her to turn 1 on Halloween! 

 We celebrated some more 40th birthdays over the last month!  Erin turned 40 at the end of September and we had a rare night with us 4 all together!

 The boys have been doing great at school, they had the annual fun run recently.

 We also got to have Ari and Hugo over for a sleepover.  Pretty simple: pizza and video games!

 I went to the Closing the Gap conference with some awesome coworkers.

 We gathered with the Rodriguez family to celebrate Frank!

 Happy 60th dude!

 And my BFF Philie turned 40!  We started out by surprise decoration of her yard with all things pumpkin the night before her birthday.

 It was a fun group of neighbors and friends!

The decorations are even more impressive by the light of day!

 Noah began the LONG process of braces - for him it's going to last 22 months.

 He was so tired after getting them on, he fell asleep that night with his light on and his foot propped up like this.  He was OUT!

 The weekend after her big birthday, I took Philie out for the day to celebrate.  We found a creepy antique store to explore while waiting for a guest to arrive.

 The woman at the store, "oh that can be a shirt OR a tablecloth!"  Oh my.

 Molly rode the train and met us for some delicious crepes for lunch!

 Matching hats at the ready, we headed to the St. Charles Scarecrow festival and art show for some fall/pumpkin fun.

 It was a gorgeous day on the Fox River.

 That night we gathered for a great meal with some amazing friends.  Happy Birthday dear Philie!

 My Cher mug, courtesy of Kelly & Ginger makes me smile!

 Homework supervision.

 Since I went on and on about the crepe place I had been to, and because it's a couple blocks away from where karate black belt screening is - we went back for some nutella/banana action.  Amazing!

 School pictures turned out great!  Noah - 6th grade

 Sam - 3rd grade

 Isaac - 1st grade

 So excited for fall and Halloween!

Rodeo 2019!

We had our usual awesome time at the annual TriState Rodeo in Fort Madison Iowa last weekend.  The kids are master candy catchers at the parade!

And I got plenty of baby time with our newest member, Maryn!  She's just a love and got spoiled by everyone around her for the weekend!

 It's official, both Noah and Ayla are taller than Aunt Michelle now!

 The boys are a lot of fun to travel with these days: not teeny babies that need naps and not teenagers that are too cool.  It's a great time!

 It was a beautiful night for the rodeo, until the rain moved in.  But fortunately we had a pretty good time before that!

Noah, master of the photo bomb.

 Everyone got their treats.  Isaac enjoyed kettle corn and cotton candy.

 Sam LOVES his cotton candy, and Noah even sneaked in his funnel cake before the showers started.

 The annual line up of all the kids, can't believe how many we have now from newborn - 11 years old!

 The kids found a pretty interesting bug while playing in Dale & Becky's yard, always something fun to do with these great friends.

 Back at home, the big news is that we have a black belt candidate!  He signed all his paperwork and the intense training has begun.  If he passes all his screenings, he should have that belt at the end of January!

 We have squeezed in a couple visits to Papa's house too, recently.  This last time, Auntie Kim and Daddy showed the boys how to play some handball. 

 Sam just being Sam, constant joker!

 And Miss Molly is doing well and preparing for her big Halloween birthday!  She's just thrilled about her costume.

So now we head in to fall and look forward to fun times with Halloween!

Back to school 2019

Summer had to come to an end, like it always does.  Phooey!  Noah really enjoyed his last week of karate camp, they had great weather to be outside most of the time.

In very sad news, we had to put our sweet girl, Lily to sleep.  She kept having seizures despite our best attempts to control them with medicine.  She made it very clear she was ready, and we sadly said our goodbyes on August 15th.  Molly seems to be doing ok without her sister.  She is getting plenty of extra love from all of the boys now.

The boys began their first days with much anticipation!  Isaac is in first grade in Mrs. Sheahan's class!

 Noah is in 6th grade in Miss Spain's class, his last year at Nerge!

 And Sam is off to 3rd grade with Miss Flannery!

 And while this is not my first day, it IS my first day FULL TIME in 11 years.  I was anxious, but everything seems to be working well with Mike doing before school drop off and me able to get home to meet them after school.

 Isaac brought home a great first day pic from school!

 Sunset Park, which is right across the street, was redone this summer.  It finally opened back up the first Friday of the school week, it's been busy ever since!

 We've been enjoying cousin time with Addison and Xavier.  Addison is getting so big!

 At work I have some fun new duties, one of them includes a preschool classroom.  I have a student using a device with eye gaze this year, pretty cool stuff!

 As I have returned to full time, we re-distributed all the household tasks.  The boys have really taken it all in stride with little complaining.  Sam loves feeding Molly!

 Our Labor Day weekend has been great!  Last night, we tried out a projector outside on the garage, it was a perfect night and lots of fun!

 And we were able to watch the Schaumburg Septemberfest fireworks right from our front yard!

 Today was the parade with LOTS of candy and some good marching band action!

 Noah was a bit "too cool" for candy when it started, but eventually he came around and was out there catching loads of it!

Pretty decent start to the school year, I'd say!  Next week we have our annual Rodeo trip! Can't wait!