fall

With the start of school, I'm always a bit excited for some extra free time once the kids go back to school.  However, with fall, I always mourn the loss of Justin as college football season starts.  That guy could watch any game thats on and be interested.  Seriously, any game.  So with football in session, this has been flying in front of my house, and I've been trying to hold back my eye roll (you all know how hard that is for me!) The good news is the flag also alternates with USC, and that, I'm ok with.

 We got to go to a couple concerts this month, we went to Fun, Imagine Dragons and Justin and Rob got to go see Mumford and Sons, and had amazing tickets!!

 Since it's still warm we made a few stops out for frozen yogurt!  We finally found a dessert place we all can enjoy!  Kade can be a bit particular in his food choices, so while the rest of us fill up on yogurt with toppings, he simply loads his cup with brownies!  Everyone's happy!

You know, these yogurt places have fun poppy music playing, and once you've downed some yogurt and sugary toppings, things can get interesting pretty quick:

Yup, yogurt dancing at it's best!

 The twins came home to these awesome new chairs I found on clearance!  You can probably guess who called dibs on Vader.

One of Justin's patients gave him race tickets again, so this time he took Crew and Kade.  I tell ya, all those years of watching the movie Cars has really paid off!  

Walking around, they look so big in this picture!

At the raceway.

These guys were all signed up for Running Club this fall!  Every time we go I'm still a little amazed at the fact that kids will run for 45 minutes with the sole promise of a dum dum sucker at the end!  Amazing!

So far fall has started off quite busy, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon! 

november

Well baseball ended so we're off to the next thing!  Brody has been asking to start piano lessons and here he is practicing his daily assignment!  His teacher is great and he's loving it!  His little mathematically perfectionist mind is wrapping right around all there is to know about piano!  I knew this would be right up his alley.  Currently he's two months in and still excited about it!  

I met these two in San Francisco!  We missed Katelin and Wendy, and hope we can catch everyone soon!  We took a chilly bus tour of the city:

 went over the golden gate bridge:

 Ate some delicious food on the pier

 and being that we're our mother's daughters, we sought out Ghirardelli and quickly fell in love!

We did some lots of eating, talking and shopping, it was a great break!

I came home and got these:

Yup, braces.  A nearly full mouth of brackets!  Thankfully they're free and I'm on a fast track- like about 6 months.  So far they're really sore and I still can't bit into stuff.  But they're just for a short time and soon I won't have to be self-conscious of my smile when I tell people my husband is a dentist.  

The following week was the twins' thanksgiving feast at preschool.  

Here's Crew, he came as a Native American (or Indian as he called it) named "Kicking Bear."  Aptly named!

Kade came as a pilgrim.  He was excited there was applesauce to eat- or else he could have left the feast feeling pretty hungry.

Despite being in separate classes, the feast is for all the kids at once so I tried my best to get both my pilgrim and indian together for a pic:

For actual Thanksgiving we went up to Rob and Jana's and had quite the feast.  This year I'm thankful for soft mashed potatoes that don't make my teeth hurt- and naturally for Justin and the boys! 

halloween

This was definitely a Star Wars Halloween!  It started off with with the costume parade at preschool, which is always so fun to watch! 

 Here's Crew with one of his teachers:

And here's Kade with both his teachers:

That afternoon I helped in this guy's class party:

Where he made one of my favorite preschool hats ever!

That night we met at a friend's house for dinner and trick or treating.  The dad's took the kids out to get candy and the mom's stayed home and passed it out, it was great!

Here's the official pic of the boys' costumes:

Crew is Obi Wan Kenobi (with a Jedi robe made by Justin!), Kade is Darth Vader (who else?) and Brody is X-wing pilot Luke Skywalker (a little specific, but glad I was able to find the costume!)

It's funny, Kade is loving this costume!!  That little guy thinks Vader is the coolest being to exist in this galaxy since the point of existence! No seriously, at bedtime he prefers to have us hum Darth Vaders theme music, and thats what makes him snuggle in his bed with a smile on his face!  Justin got him a little remote breathing box so he sounds like Vader and that kid is in heaven!  I love seeing that sweet little guy soo happy!

And finally ending up at home and sorting the loot!  I used to love this part as a kid.  

I love Halloween with these little guys!

baseball ready

Well this season we thought we'd try something new and give baseball a whirl.  It was a little crazy as naturally both teams wanted to practice at the same time on different sides of town, but we made it through the (possibly one and only) season!  

Here's Brody on game day:

 Brody's coach was great, you can tell he's definitely in the zone!  His team was the Dodgers, so that was easy enough to cheer for.  He's in the age group to get a couple slow coach-pitched balls, and if all else fails, they hit off the tee.  Hitting-wise he usually got a hit off the coaches pitch.  Catching-wise... well, I think we can agree he has some great talents in other areas.  Here they are saying their pledge before the game:

and a little in game action:

The twins were on the Cubs and were in a tee-ball league.

All in all, it was on ok season for the twins, they had a couple great coaches who were really patient and encouraging, not an easy task with a bunch of 4 year olds.  These two always seem to get a bit wild when nearby one another, but once we consistently kept them on opposite sides of the field they did much better.  And for the in game action: 

 Here's Kade running home:

 And Crew catching a grounder:

I would have to say that I did love the way the coaches yell to the outfield "get baseball ready!"  And then all the kids (including those tiny little 4 year olds) all immediately move their hands to their knees like this:

so cute!
As always it was great to try something new for a season, but I sure can't wait to get back to swimming in the spring!