Thanksgiving 2015

Lining up to skate with the high school team

Picking up the extra pucks

Finn wanted me to take his picture.  Its blurry but funny with his smile.

Luke and Liam are to the right of #20

National Anthem

Team cheer

Heading to hockey with Grandma and Grandpa Carrithers

I didn't do a very good job with taking lots of nice pictures, but we had a fun Thanksgiving break with Grandma and Grandpa Carrithers.  They came up to Minnesota to see the boys, the new house, and enjoy lots and lots of hockey.  On the day they arrived, Luke and Liam skated with one of the local high school teams.  It was really fun for the boys and a great way to promote the sport with younger kids.  Those high school hockey players are gigantic!!

The boys also enjoyed a U of M hockey game with Grandma and Grandpa while they were here.  Finn stayed home with Mom because the game lasted way past his bedtime, but the big boys had fun. Finn, however, went to his first movie while Grandma and Grandpa were here and enjoyed it for the most part.  He lost interest a bit towards the end, but he sat while he ate his popcorn.  We saw "The Good Dinosaur."  We originally intended to see "The Peanuts Movie" or as Finn calls him "Barley Brown", but when we arrived it was only in 3-D.  We were not sure Finn would wear the glasses during the movie so we opted to do something else.  The dinosaur movie was pretty good, but perhaps a bit intense for a two year old.  I should probably do a little more research next time!

Lastly, Grandma and Grandpa were able to see Luke, Liam, and Aiden skate and practice with their hockey teams this year.  That was fun for the boys and fun for them.  Luke enjoyed playing chess with Grandpa, Liam enjoyed having them here and sharing Thanksgiving, and Aiden enjoyed having them watch him play hockey.  All in all, it was a fun time, and the food turned out pretty good too!  

Daddy went to New York City this week...

I Love NYC t-shirts Take ONE

TWO:  Nice job, Finn and Liam.

THREE:  Decent picture

FOUR:  Falling apart

FIVE:  Done

SIX:  Jump Finn!

SEVEN:  And Tackle

Daddy took a business trip to NYC this week and Mom was too busy keeping up with school, after school activities, hockey,  and everything else to take any decent pictures during the week.  It rained all week long except for maybe one day so Mom was even busier keeping us busy.  We are happy to have Daddy back home and we love our new shirts!  Mom tried to get a picture of us and, as you can see, it was a little chaotic.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Week in November

Liam was a "brick wall" (i.e.goalie) this week at hockey.  Not sure he has a future as a goalie considering he is pretty small, but he had fun doing it so that's all that matters!

Finn and his Buddies (Left to Right: Cole, Landon, Andy, Finn) at playdate

Finn at Whole Foods lunch.  Mom loves to go here and Finn likes to play in the kitchen area they have for kids.  Finn's hair is losing some curl with having to wear winter hats and no humidity in the air.

Handing screws to Daddy for the hockey rink

Its that time of year again....

More work to do to build the rink

Luke and Liam at Crazy Hair Day for school.  Luke's hair has blue dye, but its hard to see.

Crazy boys on a special bench

John's running group had a bench made at one of Greg's favorite parks.  

We had a busy week of school, hockey, friends, etc...The pictures are a few of the highlights from this week.  Finn had another playdate at our house with a few of his close friends.  He talked about his "friends coming over" for several hours before they arrived and was very tired after they all left so I think the playdate was a success.

The big news this week is the hockey rink.  Yes, its that time of year again and the hockey rink construction is in full swing.  We had a fair amount more work to do this year since we were starting from scratch and we had to clear out an area of the yard in order to even begin the construction process.  In our new house, the previous owners had a small fire pit.  It was more of less thrown together without a lot of organization and it took up a large part of the yard.  John hired a young college age guy to help him revamp that area of the yard and level it as much as possible for the rink. We opted to go with a pre-made kit with all the supplies needed for the rink so that John's work would be slightly less, although still quite time-consuming!

We have had a warmer than normal fall so the ice rink won't be up and running quite as early as it has been in previous years.  The boys are counting down the days and are ready to skate.  Finn, especially, doesn't quite understand why we can't skate yet.

If you have been reading the blog for awhile, you are familiar with John's close friend who died suddenly last January and left behind a young wife and two young kids.  We continue to celebrate and remember Greg's legacy and this bench was a gift for his kids and wife to honor Greg.  The bench is situated in a beautiful area near a park where the boys and I visit frequently and near the running trails where John and Greg met frequently to run.  

Finn Gretzky

This is the newest post school and dinner activity for the boys.  It gets dark early right now, so we hook up the light from the hockey rink and the boys rollerblade on the driveway and play hockey.  It makes me dizzy just watching....

Finn trying on Aiden's hockey gear

Finn and his gear

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Finn loves hockey.  Actually, he is borderline obsessed with hockey.  Considering Finn spends so much of his time at the hockey rink watching his brothers or in the driveway playing street hockey with his brothers (see above picture), he is exposed to the sport of hockey a lot.  If you ask him how to sharpen skates, he will walk you through the process of sharpening from start to finish including the sound effects and where you need to go to sharpen skates (John has a sharpener in our basement).  For months, he has been talking about the ice rink that Daddy is going to build in the backyard and he even makes ice rinks from lego blocks and other miscellaneous items.  I have a feeling that he will be asking to go on the ice a lot this winter so he may learn to skate before his third birthday.

During one of our recent trips to the ice rink, Finn continually asked me to see the "coonie" (i.e. like raccoon without the ra)  He didn't ask once or twice, he literally repeated the words "coonie" over and over and over again until he was basically in tears asking for...the coonie.  I had no clue what he was talking about until the end of practice when the zamboni came out to clean the ice.  Yes...Zamboni=Coonie.  And believe me, we all know that now.

Halloween 2015 and The Tigers

Our annual Halloween picture with the firetruck.  Left to Right:  Mom, Mirror Ninja Aiden, Football player Finn, Dragon Ninja Liam, and Skeleton Luke with Daddy

The gang with Melissa and Jack

Finn isn't sure about all this

Walking the parade with Aiden and Finn

The kids and costumes in our old neighborhood

Aiden and Finn

The boys

Finn and his best friend, Maddie

Checking out the loot!!

Aiden is playing hockey for the first time this year on the Tigers team

Aiden and his buddy Keaton getting ready for hockey

Liam in the corn pit

Getting ready to ride the peddle cars

Aiden

Liam and Jack

Trying to hit the bus with potatoes and corn

Finn and his buddy Landon

Laying at bottom of jumping pillow

Luke really wanted to hold Finn on the train ride

Liam and his buddy Jack (these two could be twins, they are a lot alike!)

We had a big weekend with the start of hockey for Aiden and Halloween.  For the first time, I let the boys completely pick out their costumes this year.  They really wanted something "spooky or scary" so if the ones they picked look scary then trust me that they look pretty good compared to what they really wanted.  It's all about compromise.  Aiden and Liam both wanted to be a ninja again this year.  I suggested we use the costumes from last year, but apparently these ninjas (mirror and dragon ninja) are much different than the ones we picked last year.  Luke decided to be a skeleton.  Finn was given an Iowa Hawkeye football uniform by a close friend so we went with that.  He wouldn't wear a helmet, but we did manage to get him to wear eye black.
We spent a portion of Halloween night in our old neighborhood and the rest in our new neighborhood.  Thankfully, the two areas are about a half mile apart so this wasn't too difficult.  We went down for the annual parade and potluck in our old neighborhood and did some trick or treating before heading home to trick or treat in the new neighborhood.  The boys got way too much candy and I am not sure what we will do with all of it.  

Aiden began his first weekend of hockey and was super excited about it.  He has been counting down the days all week long so when it finally came, he was literally bouncing off the walls.  Ironically, he was given #7 which is funny because his brother Liam is #8 and Luke is #9.  I told them that if we could keep those numbers, then I might be able to keep everyone straight.  Aiden is playing on the Tigers and their colors are a bit like the Iowa Hawkeyes (Black and Yellow/Gold), which is Daddy's and Grandma and Grandpa Carrithers favorite team.  He has a good group of kids on his team and gets to play with one of his best friends that he is in kindergarten with (Keaton).  Should be a fun year for Aiden!  John, on the other hand, may learn a lot of patience.  Aiden is beginning hockey a year earlier than Luke and Liam began and John said there was quite a difference in the abilities, attention span, desire, etc...of the kids.  

Lastly, the big boys had a day off school last week so we made one final trip to a fall orchard.  This one was different than the others because it really isn't for pumpkin or apple picking.  It is more games and fun stuff.  The boys spent the day playing in the corn pit, riding go carts, jumping on the pillow, doing the sling shot, and riding the animal train.  It was a fun day off from school!