the Royals

Since Joe grew up in Kansas City, he is a BIG Royals fan (actually I have given him quite a bit of grief that I didn't know he was such a big Royals fan until this season when they happened to do well. I think the words band-wagon-fan may have come out of my mouth. He says he has always been a fan, but they are never good and never on TV so he doesn't normally get to cheer them on...)

Anyway, baseball was on a lot at our house while the Royals made their way to the World Series. Joey also became quite the Royals fan. We let him stay up a few times to watch the late games. He loved it. 

A few times he didn't quite make it through the whole game. 

We watched Game 7 of the World Series at the Adair house. It was a fun night even though our Royals came up a little short!

 

Speaking of the Adair's...we are going to miss them while they are in Australia. My kids have already wondered aloud how they are ever going to last that many weeks without having their best friends around. We assured them that they would survive. And how awesome that they get to explore the world and then come tell us about it!

We will miss our Adair's though!

family time

Kylah has finally learned to ride her bike without training wheels! We are so proud of her! It took our best friends' four year old learning before Kylah actually got the urge to learn, but once she decided she wanted to learn, she did it very quickly!

On the last day before the weather turned cold, I took Joey and Kylah on a bike ride on the trails by our house. Kylah did awesome out on the trails for the first time. At first she would stop every time we came upon someone coming the opposite direction (I don't think she trusted that they weren't going to run into her!) But soon I got her to realize that if we stay on the right and they stay on the right, then there was room for everyone. :)

Fun times!

Soon after this warm day, the weather turned cold. We got about an inch of snow or less a few weeks ago. The kids were all over that. The best snow had accumulated on the trampoline, so they had a blast playing on that!

Poor little Norah had been sick, so she was stuck inside with me and Joe. She was so sad watching the big kids from the window and wanting to be outside with them.



Thankfully Norah was back to her normal (ornery) self after a few days.

 

I love that my kids love to play games. Norah loves being a "big" kid too, so she loved that Joey and Kylah played Memory with her and she got to do it all by herself. She held her own too!

We also love that the kids are getting big enough to play some adult board games with us. Joe taught Joey how to play Settlers (our favorite game right now!). Kylah was on my team. All she wanted to do was buy ore! Joey really got it, though, and loved knowing he was playing a game we loved. I think when Josh and Val are home next time there will be a big Settlers game!

Speaking of games... Joe took Joey to a birthday party a few weeks ago. Joe doesn't love taking our kids to other kids' birthday parties. But, he was surprised with how fun this laser tag birthday party was. He got to play the whole time too. Him and Joey had a blast!

Wedding bells

Joey got to be the ringbearer in a good friend's wedding this past month. He was so handsome and did a great job. He has been a ringbearer several times before, and wonders why he never gets to carry the actual ring on his pillow. Well, since he was older this time (and hopefully more responsible), he got to carry the ACTUAL wedding rings on his pillow this time. It was adorable to see him hand the rings to the groom and bride at just the right time during the ceremony.

It's always fun to get a family picture when we're all dressed up.

 

Love these three little munchkins.

And how do I get them to give me good smiles for the camera?????

I promise them I'll take a silly-face picture after the real picture. :)

Norah has this amazing ability to cross only one of her eyes (I think she inherited this ability from her Aunt Val...)

I'm BACK!!!

Well, due to our non-functioning and SUPER slow computer at home, I have slacked on the blogging lately. But, apparently we were missed, so I'm going to catch up! (Before the holidays when I'll have a lot more blogging to do!)

 

First I'll catch up on Halloween. Not my favorite holiday, but the kids enjoy dressing up and getting candy (and who are we kidding...I eat most of their candy after they go to bed at night...)

We had a fairy ballerina, Clark Kent, and Spider girl.

The people at Joe's office always dress up if Halloween falls on a work day, but they have a very hard time getting Joe to dress up. They finally got him to dress up. He was Clark Kent (thus the reason Joey wanted to be Clark Kent that night.)

 

After a yummy dinner, we headed out with the Adair's and Fox's to trick-or-treat. 

 

 

Thankfully we had six adults, because we had some fast big kids and some slower little kids to keep up with. But we didn't lose anyone, so that's a win for the night!

It had been warm all week, but of course it got cold on Halloween.

We were all bundled up.

These two little people are some of my favorite littles together. They are so cute.

I'm going to keep catching up, so you may even get more than one blog post in a day!!

being a mom

Being a mom definitely has its ups and downs. Disobeying kids, fighting kids, ungrateful kids...it all can leave a mom a little down.

But sometimes, we get those little pick-me-ups that moms need to keep going: when the kids are playing well together without fighting; when they say thank you without having to be told; when they obey right away without arguing.  We see glimpses that a little bit of our parenting is getting through...

And then they also do things that make us love them even more than we thought possible...

 

Like this...

cuddles from my 8 year old when he got out of his bed one night. He cuddled up to me like he did what he was a baby. Filled my love tank!

And like this...

a drawing that Kylah made me at school. It hangs proudly in my office at work now. I smile every time I look at it.

And this...

playing a game with my 3 year old. Letting her pick the game, the rules, and follow her lead. She was so happy and we had so much fun.



bunk beds

The girls have been working on earning bunk beds for the past month (we, of course, did a chart again, and they earned stickers by going to bed well---meaning, without calling us back in their room a million times...)

They have really done well since we started the chart, so we decided it was time for the bunk beds. They were so excited!

Daddy had a lot of little helpers.

The finished product. These are the same bunk beds that Joey and Kylah used to have. The girls are loving their new beds, and Kylah is enjoying having her own little space on the top bunk.

Papa and Gramma were here

This past weekend my parents came to visit. It was so fun to have a long weekend with them, and so fun to have both of them here!

There were a lot of games played...

Papa even got in on the game playing with Gramma and the kids.

The kids love Papa's Ipad and Gramma's Kindle (until mommy and daddy have decided they've had enough!) :)

On Friday the boys went golfing, so us girls headed to the local craft fair. It was beautiful weather outside, and the craft fair was really fun.

Gramma got the kids sunglasses, and the girls got to get their faces painted.

Joe of course made some fabulous meals on the Green Egg (well, the pizza didn't quite turn out as planned, and the deck almost caught fire...but other than that the meals were great!) :)

 

On Saturday we headed to the baseball fields for some fun. Joey was loving having Papa there for some pitching instruction.

And even Gramma played softball with us!

The Adair's met us at the field and we had a fun baseball/softball scrimmage. Gramma was impressive in her hitting! It was such a fun day and a fun weekend!