Fall Fun

We went on a little fall outing together over the weekend. Some friends had tickets to ride the on the historic Snoqualmie Railway that they couldn't use, so we were able to go in their place. The boys LOVE trains, so this was a super exciting trip for them.

 Waiting for our train ride, the boys checked out some of the other old trains near the station.

 Army medical train!

"How does this work?"

Here comes the conductor, we're ready to board!

The train travels pretty slowly to North Bend, then back up to Snoqualmie Falls before returning to the station. It was such a fun ride!

Afterward, we drove into North Bend to visit the town bakery for a treat.

The fun times didn't stop there. We were already way past naptime, why don't we continue on to the pumpkin patch? Matthew found this awesome old firetruck there.

 Aaron has an eye for the big ones.

 Daniel found his pretty quickly.

 Matthew tried out a few and finally settled on this one.

 What a fun day!

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel is seven.

Where does the time go??! He is such a joy to have in our lives... He is a wonderful big brother. He's incredibly bright and he's really loving his first grade class at St. Alphonsus. Daniel is affectionately known as our little engineer, as he loves to invent and build all sorts of structures and contraptions. He really enjoys playing soccer, and can often be found practicing his kicks in the back yard (one of which actually broke a board in the fence...). He's an avid bike rider--he wishes we lived closer to school so he could ride his bike there. Best of all, he is caring and compassionate, always looking to make sure people are taken care of. We love this guy!

Daniel's birthday weekend was a bit overshadowed by some other family events, so his birthday celebrations were drawn out over the next week or so. Here are the highlights:

Birthday pancake, the morning of.

The following weekend we had a birthday party at the park for his classmates. Daniel announced a few days before the party that he wanted it to be "Messi" themed...

We had lots of light blue and white Argentina decorations.

Hooray for friends and cupcakes!

Presents!

A couple days later we had a little birthday dinner with the extended family.

It's starting to take some real effort to blow all the candles out.

Can't believe this goofy guy is seven already. Love you, Daniel!

Dinosaur battle

Matthew likes "set-ups." His usual method of play is lining things up in a particular order and then staring at them. This applies to cars, airplanes, train tracks, even his blankets and stuffed animals on his bed. Recently we had the dinosaurs out. He created a set up of different dinosaur "teams," then they had an epic battle.

 Setting up the teams.

 Team one.

 Team two.

 The battle begins.

 There was lots of roaring.

 And falling on the ground.

 Deciding his next move.

 Tiger shark gets thrown into battle.

 Regrouping the teams.

 Team one took the high ground. But team two quickly took over.

 They were left like this...ominously staring at us for the rest of the day.

Back to school

It's that time again...  I can't believe the summer is officially over and the big boys are back in school. Daniel is really excited to be in first grade this year. Matthew isn't as excited about going back to preschool. He was really hoping to be in kindergarten this year, with a new teacher in a new classroom. Hopefully he'll still have fun. We love the preschool at St. Alphonsus and think it'll be really good for Matthew.

Before school started, Mr. S hosted an "open gym" for the first graders and their siblings. That place was crazy! The kids all had a great time, and it really got Daniel excited for school to start again.

Daniel and his friends created a hurdling game out of the gym mats. Daniel can really jump!

Matthew tried too. Not quite how it's supposed to turn out, but he had a ball anyhow. :)

 First day of afternoon preschool for Matthew!

 Aaron wanted his picture taken, too. (And we had plenty of time, since I locked us out of the house on the way to school and we had to wait for Daddy to come save us.)

After school on their first full day of class. :)

Last days of summer

I was looking through a few photos on the computer and saw a few that hadn't been shared of what we've been up to for the past few weeks.  Here's how our last bit of summer vacation went down.

Some friends of ours live in the Blue Ridge neighborhood and invited us to spend time down at the beach with them. It was a beautiful evening spent with lovely friends.

 Cleaning their feet.

 We signed up Daniel for a week-long swimming lesson session. He had a great time, as usual.

Barbecue down at Nana and Papa's house with the cousins!

 Five of the six local cousins with Great Grandpa Milt on his birthday.

 Riding bikes up and down the block is getting pretty boring (for Daniel, especially), so we packed the bikes up one day and took them to the cemetery to practice riding. It went really well, however we chose one of the hottest days of summer to go, and we didn't last long.

 These two spent an incredible amount of time in the pool this summer. Toward the end of the summer we ended up being a "clothing optional" operation. They loved it. :)

 For whatever reason, we never made it down to the wading pool down at greenlake until last week.  We went a few days in a row and the boys had such a great time floating and splashing around.

Daniel was very kind and gave his brothers rides.

 Nothing beats a little poolside snack. 

Aaron learned to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" this summer. This is his goofy rendition.

 So long, summer! We had a wonderful time filled with water play, friends and lots of cool treats. Can't wait for another fun summer next year!

Reader

Daniel has always enjoyed being read to, and we've read quite a few chapter books together over the past couple years. Last week I decided to introduce him to one of my childhood favorites, The Boxcar Children. We read almost half of the first book together, then Daniel decided he couldn't wait for me to read it to him again so he finished it himself! Since then, he has been reading them non-stop. He's nearly done with the fourth book in the series already. I love that he's enjoying them so much, and because he's so interested, I've been following along, reading them myself after he's finished. :)

 I love my little reader!