Fishing with Papa

William and Hudson love to go fishing with my dad. They usually catch 1 or 2, if they're lucky, but they have always thrown them back. But, a few weeks ago, the caught lots, and they kept them to fry up for their dinner.

There wasn't much meat on those little guys, but they still enjoyed it!

Take me out to the Ballgame!

William and Hudson started fall tball this weekend. I'm actually not dreading it this season because 1)I'm not insanely huge, pregnant, so sitting for an hour isn't pure torture and 2)they are on the same team, so we don't have to worry about games taking up our whole Saturday. The Y allows kids to play up, and since Hudson isn't exactly scrawny, we figured he'd be fine to play with the 5/6yr olds. And we were right. He's definitely big enough.

Here's Hudson at his first at-bat:

William hit a HUGE one out into the outfield at his first time up to bat:

Hudson:

William:

Photo Dump

I would like to apologize and warn you for the ridiculously cute children/babies you are about to see! Also, these are all very random...no theme at all!

This is my friend, Laura's, little girl, Libby. She tiny and sweet, and I love hanging out with her and her brother Luke.

 We went to a Rangers game a few weeks back. The boys had fun, albeit the far away seats, and it was a surprisingly cool August evening:

We have so much fun with our sweet little friend, Naomi:

 We had a couples only outing the day after Garrett and Lauren got back from their honeymoon. We went out for Indian food (my FAVORITE), and then an evening of Whirlyball. So fun to get to hang out with family and not juggle all 5 kids!

my mom and dad were here too...

Weirdos!

super happy baby!

 I like this picture for various reasons. 1)Crew loves his big brothers. 2)Hudson doesn't mind being tortured by his baby brother and 3)Hudson has socks on his hands. I have no idea why, but I love how 4 yr olds use their imaginations!!!

sorry for the blur, they were ON THE GO

Crew is loving that he can join in on Friday pizza/movie night!

Here, William is trying to teach Hudson how to read. Crew is trying to kill himself.

one of the spectators of William's puppet show

another spectator

It's all fun and games around here! Life is super busy with 2 different schools, early bedtimes, playdates, lunches, building train tracks, dividing playing time between Transformers, Avengers, and Star Wars. We rarely stop moving...hence all the iPhone pics. Who has time to grab, focus, and shoot with a "real" camera?

Pre-K

Hudson started Pre-K today! It's going to be quiet around here...and Crew is already loving that he gets the run of the house. No brothers tackling, tickling, taking things away, carrying him around. Mommy, all to himself! What more could a little guy want?

Anyway, Hudson is in the monkey class this year. William was sad that Hudson doesn't have the teachers that William had in his 4 yr old class. But, I think we're going to like Ms. Robin and Ms. Margorie. Hudson has lots of friends in his class from last year (although his favorite friend, Reid, is at a different school this year. :-( ). He waltzed in this morning, and never looked back. My little guy is getting big.

Crew was feeling left out. He wanted to be in the first day of school pic!

He didn't really want me to take this. He's WAY too cool.

and he's off!

11 Months

Well, the invites are being printed! We are on countdown to this little man's FIRST BIRTHDAY!

Our little 11 month old. I wish I could freeze time. He is SO.MUCH.FUN!

What the heck is on my head, mom???

- Crew is always up to no good. He's been caught unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper, playing in the toilet, climbing the stairs when the gate is left open, trying to open white board markers, eating the smallest of toys that he can find, chewing on my iPhone, pressing buttons on the computer, wrestling with his brothers, or tackling mommy and daddy
- He is walking more and more every day. He still doesn't prefer walking, but he's getting very steady.
- I've pretty much cut out his daytime bottles. He drinks a bottle in the morning and a bottle when he goes to bed...and water with lunch and dinner.
- He has 5 teeth now, but his 6th tooth looks like it's going to pop out any day.
- He continues to be a happy and content baby. He spends LOTS of time in the car because of carpool everyday...He rarely makes a peep! We couldn't be happier to have this little man in our family.

William, at 11 months:

Hudson, at 11 months:

I sort of think that Crew is becoming a blend between William and Hudson. What do you think?

15 minutes

You know how "they" say that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame? Well, I really hope this wasn't mine!!!

On Thursday my friend Jen and I took the "little" kids to the zoo, and we brought along my niece Emery since Tasha was homeschooling Keira that morning (not sure how much longer we can call our 4 yr olds the "little" kids...esp since Crew is really the little kid now). Anyway, we were looking forward to going because the weather has been much cooler in the mornings, and there was a month old baby giraffe that we wanted to see. Who isn't a sucker for a baby animal? We saw the baby giraffe (super cute), and we started making our way to the big cat area. The rhinos are on the way...and we don't usually do much more than swing by and take a quick peek. BUT, Thursday we noticed a teeny tiny baby rhino. Not sure if you've ever seen a baby rhino, but it's one of those so.ugly.it's.cute sort of things. Anyway, as we and the kids were ooo-ing and aahh-ing over the cute/ugly little thing, a mass group of cameramen/photographers/directors of the zoo came up behind us. We sort of were asked to shift off to the side. As we found out, that day was the first day the 9 day old baby rhino was out for the public to see. 

As we were walking away, the local NBC station asked me if we'd be willing to be on camera talking about the baby rhino. Sure, why not. They hooked me up to a mic, and off we went. The problem was, he didn't really ask us any questions, so it was a little awkward. I mean, what can you say, unprompted, about a baby rhino? Cute. Fun. Neat. I mean, seeing the rhinos is barely a blip on our zoo radar!

Anyway, he told us we'd be on the 4, 5, or 6 o'clock news. We figured it would be the 4 o'clock since it didn't seem like a very big headliner. It seems that Thursdays news was pretty slow because we were on the 6 o'clock news!!!!!! 

Here are a few pics I snapped while we were watching it:

If you're interested in watching the clip, click HERE.

So, while it was kinda cool to be on the news, and the boys thought it was a blast...I really hope that's not my 15 minutes. Because if it is, that's pretty lame.

Vietnamese Eggrolls

My friend Cindy is 1/2 Vietnamese, and when her mom comes to town, MMMMMMM. I always get spoiled by her super yummy cooking. 

This visit she decided to have us over for an eggroll cooking class. She taught us how to make them, then we each got to make and roll up 60 eggrolls each for our freezer! She even fried up a few for us to eat while we were rolling. SO YUMMY!!!