Dominoes

Aidan has been having fun with dominoes.

Ethan won a prize through the summer reading program at the Ames Public Library - he got to ride in the Bookmobile to get ice cream.

Kaitlyn Got an Owie

And she's showing it to Christian.

Halloween

The kids had a lot of fun trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Kaitlyn can't smile a normal smile when a camera is pointed at her.

Kaitlyn's New Bed

Do you think maybe it's time to get rid of a few stuffed animals?  (According to the kids, absolutely not.)

Last night, Christian put together Kaitlyn's toddler bed and took her crib out of her room. She stayed in it all night, and is pretty much in love with it. We'll see how long it takes her to figure out that she doesn't have to stay in her bed if she doesn't want to anymore.

School Pictures

They don't do the cool pictures-on-cd here, where I can easily mail the original jpgs to people.  So I had to just scan them in.

Aidan & Zak

Over the weekend, Aidan went to his best friend Zak's birthday party.  They went to a gymnastics place on campus in Ames, jumped around and had a great time for an hour, and then had cake and presents in another room.  Aidan and Zak sure do like hanging out and playing together.  This is the only picture I took.

(P.S. They are both on the same soccer team this fall, and they are loving playing soccer.)

Blankie Bait and Switch (Sort Of)

We successfully switched out Kaitlyn's "favorite" blankie.  She has had the purple one since birth, and has loved it into a tattered mess.

One day, she asked for the brown blankie, and took it to bed.  I hid the purple blankie, and she asked about it once or twice, but would bring out her brown blankie when she would say anything about the purple blankie.  She hasn't asked about the purple blankie in over two weeks now.  Whew!

Kaitlyn LOVES to draw, color and paint.  She was doing this all by herself when I started recording.

E.B. White

On Friday, Ethan's class had a Living Wax Museum.  All of the students chose an important person from history, and they wrote a report about that person.  Then, they all spread out in the gym and were dressed up as their famous person.  They each had a green sticker on their right hand.  When you touched the hand, they would "come alive" and read (or have memorized) their report about that person.  Ethan chose E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web.  He did a fabulous job, if I do say so myself.

Since I didn't record him saying it at the museum, I just recorded him right now sitting on our couch:

A New Show to Kaitlyn

A few days ago, I turned on Netflix and had Kaitlyn watch one episode of Blue's Clues while I cleaned. She had never seen it before, but she was quite the entire 24 minutes.  Two days later, she spontaneously came up to me and asked me this:

Anniversary Gift

Woo hoo!  No more blue living room!

Our living room has been a baby blue color ever since we moved here, and I just hated it.  It clashed with the bricks in the fireplace. The color is also in the kitchen, up the stairs, and in Aidan's bedroom too, and it's not my type of color at all.  So, for our anniversary last weekend, Christian painted the living room.  We chose the color together, which is called Carrington Beige - it has just the slightest hint of green in it, in certain light.  It feels so much brighter, so much more open, and soooo much better in our living room now.

Kaitlyn also learned a new thing yesterday.  So cute.

Ponytail

I put Kaitlyn's hair into a ponytail for the first time yesterday.  She refuses to use barettes or headbands.  It was cute for a while, and then it started falling out.  Maybe one day she will actually let me do her hair.

First Day of School

Well, I've been terrible about keeping the blog updated during the summer.  But today is the first day of school, and I actually took pictures!!

Aidan felt a little nervous this morning.  He said his stomach was a little bit nervous, but he was excited to go to school.  He has a new backpack with a matching lunchbox. (Thank you, The Children's Place sale plus free shipping!)

 Ethan was so excited to wear his new Nike shoes, and these comfy clothes.  He couldn't wait for school to start just so he could wear this outfit.

 Then, Kaitlyn decided she wanted in on the picture taking.  I got a cute picture of her...

 But this is the face she has started pulling when I take out the camera.  Cute in its own right!