Trip to Iowa

Two funny pictures of AJ (not from Iowa) but I wanted to post....Who's digging in the drawer?

You can run, but you can't hide!

Luke and Charlene looking at a book

Liam with Savannah doing his favorite flashcards

Meeting with lots of John's extended family members in Iowa

Charlene (left) and Grandma Carrithers enjoying green eggs and ham

AJ on the move

Luke "fixing" the house

Liam with the goggles and jack hammer toy they loved

Over the weekend, we took a short trip to Iowa to visit some of John's family as well as for John and his dad to attend the Hawkeye football game. It is my understanding (since I didn't watch much of the game) that the Hawks played decent but kinda lost the game by a point at the end due to some silly mistakes. Anyway, that was the only disapointing part of the whole weekend. We had a great time visiting with family and are so grateful to Tom and Charlene for having us over to eat and entertain the boys. I am hoping her house has recovered from our quick visit, but she may still be finding things a little misplaced. Charlene made lots of special things for the boys including green eggs and ham for breakfast one morning. I wish I could say they were appreciative of all the work she put into the weekend, but unfortunately I guess they are only 2.5 years old and 10 months so we are probably not the most grateful at times. The boys were so excited about this trip. Luke was packing his suitcase like Daddy does for his trips several days in advance. Liam wanted "to go home" when it was time to go to bed the first night, but he quickly adapted when we reminded him about all the candy from Grandma and Grandpa and the Charlene's toys that were waiting for him over at Charlene's. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone and sincerely appreciate the work that Tom and Charlene put into the weekend to make it so much fun.

Little Things

Children's Museum with friends Jack and Charlie. Oddly enough, Kirsten (Jack and Charlie's mom) and I bought the exact same shirts at the Gap in the exact same colors. Crazy, considering there were probably 10 different colors to pick from.
Luke on slide at Museum

Checking out the tree trunk

Aiden is ice fishing

Aiden has learned to stand up in his crib, but has not yet figured out how to get back down

There are lots of little things I want to remember about all three boys, but never seem to have the time to write down. Two year olds, particularly, say and do some hilarious things. Here are a few recent ones for us....

Luke and Liam love to point things out when we are driving in the car. If only everyone had the amount of excitement that a two year old has about seeing a truck, a horse, or a duck. They always point out whose side of the car the object is on. Luke loves to say with lots of enthusiasm, "Look Mommy, there is a horse over there on LeeLee's side." Or Liam will say, "Horses on Liam's side standing and eating grass over there." They always say that if the horses are "on Luke's side on the way there" then they will be "on Liam's side on the way back." Pretty clever.

When the boys play hockey outside, they always lay down on the ground and say that they have "fallen down on the ice."

The other night at dinner, John gave Liam a "high five" for eating well and then tried to give him a "fist bump." Liam looked at John and said, "Denied." Sounds like something John would do, wonder where he got it from?

Aiden loves to follow his brothers and always makes noises and squeals at dinner and I am guessing it is to squeeze in a word between his brothers.

We were walking around the circle at our house the other day and I was pulling the wagon with Aiden and pushing the bicycle that Luke was riding. Liam came up to try to help me and when I told him thanks for helping, he looked at me and said "I have my hands full right now."

On the Move

Aiden trying to climb the stairs after the cat

Liam giving Aiden a little ride

Aiden's newest toy that he loves


Luke Playing in the corn pit

Liam with a baby chick

All three boys checking out the goats

Aiden (mostly trying to eat the corn and dirt)

Aiden holding a baby chick (for long enough to take this picture)

Aiden is most definitely on the move. He went from scooting a little on the floor to crawling on all fours in a week. John and I have both said that he is highly motivated to get things off the floor, perhaps more so than his brothers; however, maybe that is because there is more "stuff" on the floor to pick from. Either way, he is fast and has recently tried to climb the stairs, stand up in his crib, and climb the small plastic slide in the bonus room. I can no longer depend on one of the boys to be stationary and stay in one spot for two seconds!

We made our third trip to an apple/pumpkin orchard over the weekend. We are having an unseasonably warm October and we have really enjoyed being able to do a lot outside. This time last year we already had a small snowfall! We had temps in the 80's over the weekend so we made a trip out to another orchard that has lots and lots of animals to pet, feed, hold, etc...The boys (including Aiden) loved it except maybe the cows. Aiden screamed his head off when the cow mooed at him and apparently terrified him. Even the thought of going near the cows again was enough to put him in tears for awhile. Pretty funny to John and I...

Boston Bound

Twelve Two Year olds trying to Climb several old tires

Luke with all of the girls in our Twins Group (Kenzie, Olivia, Halle, and Luke)

Feeding the Chickens

Checking out the Baby pigs

Eating Lunch

Riding on the Tractor

Happy 9 months Aiden!

This was a big week for us on many accounts. Aiden turned 9 months old on Oct. 2, 2010 and is weighing in at 22lbs. 14 oz and already above the 97th% for height/length. On Oct. 3rd, John and I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. This was John's third time to run this marathon and my first time. It was the 5th marathon for both of us. The course was beautiful and the weather could not have been better. We started training for it back in July and I really did not mention it to many people because I honestly was not sure it would be possible considering our daily lives are so busy without adding a marathon to the mix. We were fortunate, however, to find several good babysitters and each Saturday we went on our long runs with a great running group in various locations near downtown Minneapolis. The goal for this marathon was for me to qualify for Boston so that John and I could run Boston together in the spring of 2011. I am happy to say we achieved that goal and we both finished the marathon after several months of training together.

The boys and I made another trip to a local pumpkin patch and apple orchard this week. This one was a working farm with lots of animals that the boys could pet and feed. We went with our "Twins Group" including 12 little 2.5 year olds plus Aiden. The boys loved it and said they wanted to "do it again" as soon as we got in the car to drive home.