Fall Festivities

What a gorgeous time of year. The weather has been amazing lately, so we have been able to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Our Fall started out with a visit from our dear friends, the Edwards. I'm so glad the puppies feel right at home with us!

I'm not sure why all of my kids are ok with open mouth puppy kisses though!

Dave and Dave watched all the puppies and kids, so that Rachel and I could go out for lunch and do a little shopping in downtown Belmont. It was so refreshing and much needed for me!

It has been lovely to see the cousins catching up with eachother. I traded Drake for Carson one Friday night. I'm pretty sure I got the easier trade! I took the boys to the park, where they spent more time wrestling with eachother than playing on the playground. They had a great time playing with action figures and stayed up way way way too late talking!

Drake and Prmny got along well at BB's house. They even got to roast marshmallows on the outdoor fire pit. I love this picture of Penny singing and Dorothy just amazed by it!

The boys wanted me to make. Mummy recipe that was in their highlights magazine. They didn't turn out as cute as the recipe, but the Nutella and banana combination was pretty tasty.

Dave and I decided we needed to be better about spending one on one time with the kids. Drake was up first. We let him pick out where he wanted to go to breakfast and if he wanted mom or dad to take him. He chose me to take him to McDonald's. We had a great time together and he told me when he grows up he wants to be just like me. It made my entire day to hear those sweet words! 

Bear Bear came too, and Drake didn't want him to feel left out without his picture taken.

Dad was the only one who was able to cheer me on during my marathon 8 years ago. He loved the energy of the crowd and the atmosphere, so we said we would do a marathon together. 3 kids later and dad's 2 knee later, we decided to still check it off the bucket list, but with a big compromise; a 5k instead of a marathon. The race was mostly on a trail in Belmont. I'm pretty impressed with how we did for not doing any train race training. We finished middle of the pack with the 3 kids cheering us on. It was a fun race and a beautiful day, so I'm so glad we did it!

The next day, I needed to go on a walk to stretch my legs. Drake really wanted to come with me, but I really wanted him in the stroller so I could go at a normal pace ( not at a stop every 2 minutes and fix my shoe pace). I did stop when I saw a pretty leaf and when I found a feather, which he lived so much he said he wanted to keep it forever. A few minutes from home it got very quiet, and this is what I found...

I was shocked he fell asleep in the stroller, since he rarely naps anymore. I guess it had to do something with the fact he was still in his pajamas and had his bear bear. I think it's adorable that he fell asleep with the leaf in one hand and the feather in the other. 

The tooth fairy has stopped by 2 nights a week apart. This face is so stinking cute, even with 2 teeth missing! He thinks it's awesome that the hole looks like a batarang. 

He cracked me up/grossed me out last week. I asked him to grab 2 pairs of socks, one for him  and one for Drake. It took them a while, but finally they came downstairs. Link was wearing socks but Drake wasn't. Drake handed me the socks and they were wet.

Obviously the next question was, "Why are these socks wet?" Link said because they were in the toilet and he had to grab them out. I told Drake to go put them in the laundry room and I asked Link if he washed his hands. This answer is what cracked me up, especially with the hand motions he did: "No mom, I didn't need to. I reached arroouunnd the pee." 

Because Lincoln's teacher is in Raleigh, we had not met with her face to face until our first field trip. Both boys were really looking forward to meeting her. She is just as sweet and lovely in person as she is on the computer screen! She took lots of time talking to Lincoln and Drake about books, sports and video games.

The farm we went to had a great hay ride to the 25 acre pumpkin patch. There weren't anymore small pumpkins left, so we ended up with 3 large pumpkins. That was pretty fun to manage while keeping my eyes on all 3 kids! Lincoln had to roll his pumpkin, it was too heavy for him to carry.

We had our second annual dinner/ pumpkin carving night our our neighbors, the Sherills. I had sugar cookies for the kids to decorate after dinner. 

After all that sugar, they ran and played outside for a couple hours. It was already dark, but they had such a great time chasing eachother, yelling and acting like typical boys. I don't have pictures of the pumpkins, but Drake wanted a smiley face with a tongue sticking out (that's his signature face he makes for pictures.) and Link wanted a happy pumpkin. Dave got off easy this year!

Back to School

We played hard that last week before school started.

We visited the park with friends:

We had a water balloon fight with our neighbors:

And we co-hosted our 2nd annual back to school party with the Sherills:

"Back to school" is different for us this year. North Carolina approved Connections Academy to be part of their educational system. This means Lincoln does the same curriculum as other Borth Carolina students, but he gets to do it at home! He has a teacher, whom he gets to talk to frequently and 200 other children in our area to get together with.

Our first day looked like this:

Drake did ABC mouse, Dorothy was in baby jail and I helped Lincoln at the computer. It was a little tricky to keep everyone occupied, but by the end of the week, we had a good system. I would wake up Lincoln at 6, so we would get a good chunk of work done before the little ones woke up. It will get much easier when Drake starts preschool after Labor Day. 

Drake has been doing some school at home, although it's not his favorite thing. It takes a lot of convincing! He has been improving quite a bit with his handwriting. He can write his name, but I'm probably the only one that can read it.

They both helped me make this poster of what our day looks like:

Because Lincoln zips trough the lessons, we have to fill in our required time with other learning material. I asked him what else he wanted to learn about and he thought about it for a second and then rattled off," trains, I want to know more about trains. Wait, motorcycles, Cowboys, planets. I want to know how roller coasters work and how to make costumes." I adore how he loves to learn and has a thirst for figuring things out! This week, we learned more about robots. He made his own robot out of pipe cleaners.

One of the things about homeschooling that always held me back was the socialization. We see out homeschool friends a few times a week, and our neighborhood friends about every day. We also go to the library for story time and Lego club, also homeschool pe will start soon. The way kids can't talk much at school, I feel like he gets the same amount of socialization!

We met our friends at the bowling alley on Saturday, since Dave was busy building our bed. My kids had never been before, and they enjoyed it! 

Dorothy just enjoyed the company!

There is a 7 year old in my house!

I so, so cannot believe it, but there is a seven year old big boy at the house! Geeze, it's so cliche, but time does fly. We celebrated Lincoln's birthday with a food fight party. There were 21 kids, 2 babies and multiple parents at our house on a very rainy Saturday. It didn't stop the kids from having fun though!

Lincoln is one smart, kind, imaginative child. He is also a fabulous brother. For example, Drake has been scared of aliens and thinks they are around in the dark. He doesn't like to go to the bathroom by himself, because the light is turned off. He asks Lincoln to turn on the lights for him, which he usually does. One day, Drake was particularly scared and asked Lincoln to stay in the bathroom with him. Lincoln did and I overheard this conversation:

After a few minutes, L: Drake are you done yet?

D: Um, I guess so.

L: Ok buddy, you got to flush that down and wash your hands.

You wouldn't have ever seen me waiting In the bathroom when my little brother was going number 2!

School is still going well for Link. We are waking up at 6am every school day to get a good amount of work in before the other 2 wake up.

Drake hasn't been too fond of preschool lately. He tries to make me feel guilty when I drop him off and pick him up. He tells me he had a bad day, because he missed me too much. I was able to go on a field trip with his class to the fire station.  They are all so cute!

Dorothy is still as cute as ever! Her 2 new words are Drake and belly button. She loves to pester Drake and try to mother him. It's not as fun to mess with Lincoln, because he just doesn't care. She also loves to "pound it" and share drinks with me. I daydream about the day I can have my very own cup of something!