She is reading!

Or starting to anyways! She is so excited and its fun ( and sometimes frustrating) to see the progress! Saint Benedict Academy rocks!

Mike's parents 40th anniversary party

Congrats to Mike's parents for 40 years of love and faithfulness! This party was a year of planning in the making and all went well minus the fact that the Manchester marathon made getting to the restaurant impossible. Both roads leading to it were closed!

Our big preschooler the landscaper

He is settling in to preschool nicely and enjoys his two mornings a week of painting and play dough and every other kind of preschool fun. His teacher told me today when he came in and sat on the rug he told his friend " Hey Brady!! I saw a landscaper last night.!"  Someday I will want to remember how he says last night for EVERYTHING. He was born last night, we went camping last night, his birthday was last night, we went to the beach last night. Its hilarious. Every time he says it Mike and I exchange looks and try not to laugh. He says it so seriously. He is also still so much in to mowers. He will be outside and mow with our neighbors landscapers for over an hour imitating their every move from perfect lines with his mower to turning the corner just like you would with a mower so as to not miss a spot. He holds his weed whacker just like the professionals do.  When we go for walks he points out to me which neighbors need to mow their lawns because their grass is " getting too long" or which neighbors " missed that spot right there!!" Now that its getting dark so early he "mows" with Nairi's doll stroller in the family room making perfectly straight lines with the stroller in the carpet. He gets upset if someone messes up his "lines" and will pretend to pull the starter on the stroller just like you would with a mower.  I can't see this kid with an office job. He is all worker bee. He likes tools and machines all the way.

Got leaves???

Since you can't see the first row... that is 23 bags of leaves from our backyard waiting by the curb for the yard waste truck. There is at least another 10 still to be filled.  Sorry for the darkness... it was before 7 am when I took this pic.

Hurricane Sandy

Thankfully despite scary 40-50 MPH winds we survived just fine. We brought all the outdoor chairs and furniture inside. Put the toys in the shed, stocked the woodpile, filled the flashlights with fresh batteries, and made sure we had plenty of wood for the fireplace. And amazing ( and thankfully) enough we didn't even lose power.  I think its because Mike told me that if we did lose power he was buying a generator ( it would be the third extended power outage in the 1.5 years we have been in this house) and frankly I would much rather put $400 in my hardwood floor fund than to buy a generator. Schools were closed for 2 days and other than the 200 something sticks I just picked up in the backyard and the piles of leaves everywhere life continues on as normal.

Trick or Treat 2012

 No snowstorm this year!! Woohoo!! It was a beautiful mild night...  ( the calm before the storm? Hurricane Sandy is headed our way!)

 The family angel ( cough cough!)

 Care Bear

 Little Monster

Trick or treat with friends and cousins

Ultra Sound of baby #4 in 3D

 Kinda blurry because he ( yes its a boy!!!!!!!!) was moving like crazy but his hand is in his mouth ( like he is chewing his fingers ) Also 3D is is not that great with a baby of this age ( 18 weeks gestation) but I think it came out pretty decent.

 The must have proof of the gender.

Profile ( not in 3D obviously!)

Our professional photo shoot

The plan was to take beautiful pictures outside with the foliage but the temp was in the 20's so we opted instead to do them at our house so we could run inside afterwards to warm up. This the first time we have had professional pictures since our wedding. It was fun and tiring and definitely not something we want to do every year. I love the expressions on the kids faces in alot of these pics. These are unedited, rough drafts of the pictures.

The joys of an older sister

 notice the stickers on her belly and cheeks.

 Add a wand and some glasses and voila... the 1 year old diva.

Israel's John Deere 3rd birthday

 Israel wanted a riding mower cake and plates etc. This was as close as we could get. He loves mowers and John Deere.

 The internet is great for finding odd birthday stuff!

 Cake topper John Deere hats courtesy of Ebay. Riding Mower on cake and Tractor also from Ebay. Cake decorating skills all Mike's handy work.

One happy little 3 year old!!!