Happy Halloween! (updated)

 

Happy Halloween everyone. This picture was taken last Friday, on our way to the Halloween walk in town.

I love letting my kids dress up in costumes, eat too much candy, and just enjoy being young. These days will be over before we know it.

This is the group shot of those of us who dressed up last night.

Upper Case Letters

Yesterday Marshall completed his first book in the phonics program: Upper Case Letters.
For review, we practiced writing the letters and a couple of familiar names.
We also reviewed with his beloved flashcards (I have no idea why kids love flashcards SO much, but all of mine sure have!).

 

On Thursday, we'll begin the Lower Case Letters---stay tuned :).

I also wanted to add that I wish I had a video of Logan reading. He has made such major gains in his reading ability and I would LOVE to share it on my blog.

The View From Here



10-28-2013

This is the view from Brady and Logan's bedroom window today.

Beautiful!

Florida 2013

We are back from Florida, after extending our trip one extra day. We arrived home on Sunday evening, and we were welcomed with some freezing cold rain and the reality of MN fall heading soon to be winter.

This was my 5th trip to Florida, and my 3rd trip in 3 years, all during the month of October--what a great time to visit!
In case you didn't know, Peter and I purchased a time share in 2011, which is why we have been taking so many trips in the past 2 years--it was an amazingly wonderful decision! If you're ever interested in hearing more about the time share, we'd be more than happy to share.

The highlights of this year's trip were:

Finding 45 different license plates
Watching every movie that we brought along on the trip down
The beautiful scenery, especially through Tennessee and Kentucky
2 very spacious and clean hotels for our traveling nights (in Nashville, TN and O'Fallon, IL)

Plentiful sunshine and warmth (temps between 80-90 degrees all week)
LOTS of time in the swimming pools and hot tubs
Swimming in the ocean
Sandcastle building
Drawing pictures and letters in the sand with sticks
Downtown Disney and Disney's Boardwalk
Our "fancy" dinner out at Kobe
Riding scooters and playing basketball
Playing games at the arcade
Being together as a family for 9 completely uninterrupted days!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip (choosing 30 pictures out of 161 was tough, but these ones were pretty good)....

Brady reading books to his brothers before bed the first night in Nashville

 



Burger King in Macon, GA at outside play place

 



Palm trees at the front door of our villa

 



Playing in the Kid's Club area at the resort

 



 



Homemade dinner in our villa

 



Daddy reading bedtime stories on Monday night

 



At Disney's Boardwalk

 



Daddy's cupcake at the Boardwalk (he missed out on one last year)

 



Poolside Kid's Bingo. Marshall won twice and he shared his prizes.

 



Downtown Disney group shot

 



Downtown Disney

 



Updated picture in the shirts (Downtown Disney)

 



Air Hockey at the arcade

 



River Island (one of the pools at our resort)

 



Water squirter fight with Mommy

 



Relaxing in the sun while Marshall pushed us

 



New Smyrna Beach. Playing in the sand.

 



Picnic at the ocean

 



Basketball with Daddy on Friday morning at the resort

 



Ready to leave the North Village pool and head back for lunch

 



 

In Iowa City, on our way back home on Sunday morning.

Getting Ready To Hit The Road

This week has been primarily about getting the house clean, the yard ready for winter, attending Brady's last 2 football games, and getting all packed up and ready to hit the open road once again.
We are leaving for Florida on Saturday morning!

We're in the middle of one of the greatest fall seasons that I can remember, and although I love that, I'm still longing for a few more days with temps in the upper 80s, so we can swim and sunbathe once more before winter hits.

For this trip, we'll be gone for 8 days. Of those 8 days, 4 of them will be travel days. Sound awful? Not for us. We all enjoy our travel days--seeing the scenery (especially this time of year with all the beautiful fall colors), stopping for gas and food in new places, and just spending a ton of time together as a family.
Since we'll be traveling for 24 hours each way, I try hard to pack accordingly. Each kid gets to bring along a backpack with fun things to do in the car, and they all love having them as we travel.
Since we are in the car for SO long, we also bring along the portable DVD player and Nexus 7 tablets. After all, they do get tired eventually and need something more relaxing.

Here are some pictures of the boys' backpacks almost ready to go.

 

Brady's backpack



Logan's backpack

 

Marshall's backpack

I had to include this last picture too. This was Logan and Marshall playing ships (colanders) and tug boats (measuring cups), with rubber spatula railroad crossings, and wooden numbers for freight. I came upstairs after cleaning in the basement to find them doing this :).

The Simple Things

Marshall with Big Bear at the MN zoo.



Merry-Go-Round riding

Brady, Logan, and Marshall created this block town last week, using every block from the box. Normally these creations don't stay together this long, but every morning and every afternoon, all 3 of them come together to play with their creation. I love it! The group of blocks nearest to the bottom is Marshall's house, the one in the center left is Logan's house, and the one on top, near the wall, is Brady's house.



 

Sharing a drink during Brady's football game. 10-1-13.

Thanks to Grandma for bringing along something other than water and for remembering to bring 2 straws :).