Thanksgiving Week

Mom, take a picture of me!

Aiden lost his two front teeth last week!  He was super excited!

We had another snow this week right before Thanksgiving

We put the tree together over the Thanksgiving holiday and the boys thought it needed a little "work."  Aiden and Finn are under the tree with goggles on trying to "fix" it.

Putting on the top of the tree (yes, we have an artificial tree)

Luke really has very little personality

Picture perfect!

We had a nice Thanksgiving here in Minnesota.  We originally planned to make our traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but at the last minute we were invited to join our good friends (Finn's godparents), the Weigel's.  They decided to stay in MN as well for the first time in 10 years so we joined them and a few of their family members.  We had a wonderful meal and a great time hanging out with them.

We received a bit of snow a few days before Thanksgiving and the boys enjoyed playing and building forts each day.  Much of the snow has melted for a few days as we had some warmer temps and rain.  It will be back soon enough!  John had the week off over Thanksgiving so it was fun to have him home and we were able to do a few things that don't usually get done on a normal week.

We serviced the cars, finished the hockey rink building (except the outdoor lights), hung Christmas decorations and lights, and enjoyed some extra time with the boys.

Happy Thanksgiving!  

The Hockey Rink and Basketball

John's backyard rink is well underway!

Liam at his basketball game with the Blackhawk team spirit award from hockey.  We have the award for a week and needed a picture with him somewhere.  

Aiden's final basketball game!  Fun group of 1st grade boys!

Finn was exhausted after a super long day of hockey and basketball

Luke and Liam's latest hobby...Domino building

We had our first snow this week.  It was a wet and messy 3 inches.

Luke and Liam's basketball game.  This was my first chance to see them play and both have really improved this year.  We started in first grade (Aiden's age) and they can finally dribble down the court.

It's that time of year again in Minnesota....And by that, I am referring to John's hockey rink.  We brought the boards for the rink home from the storage facility a couple weeks ago and John has started building the rink.  Finn keeps asking when he's going to bring in the "ice."  It won't be long with temps dipping into the teens and snow in the forecast.

We had a busy weekend of basketball and hockey.  The big boys are all enjoying basketball, but having basketball and hockey overlap is a lot of schedules to handle.  We started our morning on Saturday with hockey for Luke and Liam at 7:50 am and ended the day with a college hockey game with Aiden's hockey team.  In between, Luke and Liam had two basketball games and Aiden had hockey practice as well as his final basketball game.  Finn attended about 50% of the events, but he (and I ) were exhausted by the end of the day.

Luke as Goalie, Crazy Hair, and Finn

Crazy Hair Day at school.  The hair dye didn't show up very well in Luke's hair so we had a last second rearranging.  Aiden opted to wear a wig rather than mess with the dye which felt like gum in their hair!  

Liam as a red head

Finn enjoying some time outside

Finn and his cheesy smile

Luke was so excited to be a goalie in the fist game of their team scrimmage.  Finn enjoyed handing Luke his equipment piece by piece.

Although John and I are not sure we are ready to sign Luke up to be a full-time goalie at the age of eight, he does enjoy it and he is very good at it.  There are only a handful of kids who like to play goalie at Luke's age so teams are always recruiting someone.  It is certainly not an easy job on many levels, but Luke has the clear advantage of being quite a bit taller and bigger than most of his peers.  He practice playing goalie all the time in the driveway and is always eager to volunteer to put on the pads for games.  He played over the weekend for his teams first scrimmage and did very well and also had a lot of fun.  Way to go Luke!

Looks like we may get some pretty cold weather this weekend, but until then we are still enjoying the lack of snow and the warmer than average temperatures in November.  

The Badgers

First day of hockey practice as a Mite 2 Badger...it was bright and early on a Saturday morning!

Ready to skate!

Finn is super proud and excited to watch

Raking leaves in the neighbors yard

Playing in the leaves

More of Finn

Aiden began his hockey season over the weekend.  He is playing as a Mite 2 on the Badgers team.  This is his second season of hockey and he is now at the same age that Luke and Liam were when they began playing hockey.  He is excited to be #7 again this year and even more excited that his good friend, Anders, is on his team.  The cool part for Aiden (and for us) is that Anders' dad is the coach and they live directly across the street from us so Aiden and Anders are great friends and play together all the time after school.   Should be a fun season for Aiden!

We had a gorgeous fall weekend in Minnesota.  We have had an extended fall and the weather has been warm and beautiful.  We have had a fair amount of rain, but over the last week the temps have made up for that.  We enjoyed jumping in the leaves at the neighbors house and spending lots of time outside.   I heard on the radio that we will have the latest freeze in Minnesota since 1900 this year.  I am surely not complaining.

Halloween 2016

Saturday was the start of Luke and Liam's third hockey season

They are the Blackhawks (and yes Luke is A LOT taller than his twin brother!)

Funny story....Someone (Liam) threw a very sticky Halloween eyeball up in the air and it got stuck on the ceiling.  This is John throwing Aiden's dog in the air several times to get the eyeball to fall down.  The boys thought it was hilariously funny.

Carving pumpkins!

Finn did very well pulling out the seeds in his pumpkin this year 

Aiden and Finn

Luke worked very hard on his pumpkin

Liam also scooped out his entire pumpkin

Luke with his pumpkin, Liam's bat, Aiden's skeleton with fire, and Finn's pumpkin

Getting ready to trick or treat with our neighbors.  Notice the cute lion in the front.  That is the same lion costume that Luke, Liam, Aiden, and Finn all wore as well as a few neighbors in our old neighborhood (we have two of the same costume).

Trick or treating in our old neighborhood with several fun friends.

Check out all the candy and the organization

We had a lego guy Aiden, Howling ghost Liam, Luke the wizard, and Finn the shark

John dressed up as a beat up hockey player with a puck stuck to his forehead

Luke and Liam began their third season of hockey over the weekend.  They are playing for the Blackhawks.  Liam is really happy to be #8 again and Luke resided himself to being Sidney Crosby's number because all the bigger kids had to take the bigger numbers on the larger jerseys.  Luke's previous number was #9.  The boys are very excited about the upcoming season.

We spent the rest of the weekend and part of this week celebrating Halloween.  We carved pumpkins on Sunday afternoon.  The boys really got into the carving this year.  Luke and Liam actually did most of the cutting on their pumpkins and they turned out quite well.

We had a super fun night of trick or treating.  We started in our new neighborhood and walked (or ran after the boys) while they went door to door.   Then, we headed down to our old neighborhood and ran into several friends and old neighbors.  The boys had a blast with everyone.  It was a fun and memorable Halloween 2016!