Monday, October 27, 2014

Fall

With the cold weather, wind, and crazy amount of leaves on the ground, there is no denying it: Fall!


Our morning rides to school have been CHILLY, but we'll be riding as long as we can - hopefully right up until the snow hits! I had to break out the winter coats last week though...brrrrr!

Sunday, October 26, 2014

The End

The The boys had their last soccer games! P & B finished with a win on Saturday, and Archher's last game was the week before. I was very ready for soccer to be over. I know it's a pretty short season, but having 3 boys playing makes it seem like never-ending soccer games. Add to it the fact that John was coaching Archer's team, and it felt like we were always at a soccer event (and if we weren't, it was cub scouts!). 

We had fun parties for the boys' teams at the pizza place down the street from our house. We discovered that they do 2 free large pizzas for the teams, so it was a no brainer for us! Of course we ended up buying gluten free pizza for Arch and me, but it still was a pretty nice deal for the team to be provided with pizza.

I'm glad to be done with soccer for sure, but the boys all had such a fun season, and we really couldn't have asked for better weather for a Fall soccer season! It was a little cold towards the end, but the games were never rained on which is amazing! I loved how much my boys all improved this season. P & B really took things pretty seriously and hustled like crazy on the field (but still did a great job at showing good sportsmanship, which made me happy!), and Arch managed to always have fun (or at least look like he was having fun, even if he was cold, or tired, or whatever else a 5 year old complains of!). So, I'm glad it's over, but I'm also glad we had another successful soccer season!


Friday, October 10, 2014

Just a Photo Dump

I realized how incredibly far behind I was on blogging as I was trying to delete pics off my phone. There are so many I want to keep, but they will only be kept if I blog them, and print a blog book. Because I'm such a great scrapbook-er, obviously. I still haven't gotten the rest of our trip pictures up, but since they aren't on my phone, it will have to wait for another day!

Biking home in a thunderstorm!

I found these Leappads on clearance at Target and got them for the little boys, thinking it would be great for our car trips. It was/is! They are a hit! We had a "sleepover" while watching a Word World episode. They loved it!

And then the car trip. Notice Leappad in hand. And puppy behind, who jumped over the seats 2 seconds later and caused a massive uproar.

John, surrounded by boys, sleeping. 

The boys helping Poppa on the farm

And while we were down at the farm, I decided to dress the boys up nicely and take some pictures (since I was too cheap to buy school pictures, but I really wanted some updated photos for our wall!). I think they turned out pretty well, for an amateur anyway. :)


So, the trip was good. Our freezer is stocked with beef. And we are back to a busy-busy-busy week. I'm ready for things to slow down a bit!

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

QOTD

While cuddling with Archer this morning...
A: Mom, what if you had never gotten married?
Me: well, then I wouldn't have you and that would be sad!
A: Oh, right, because Dad needs to be there to catch the babies.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Costa Maya & Cozumel

Just a few straggler pictures from our stops in Mexico. These were definitely our least favorite stops...Costa Maya seemed like such a touristy place that they kinda force you to do what they want you to do. We ended up at a nice little "beach club" place, with a decent beach and cabanas, but the bus didn't stop where it was supposed to so we had to hike there. If I hadn't done some research before hand, we probably would've ended up at a pricier place near the bus stop. We enjoyed a beach day, nonetheless...the kids especially!
I'm pretty sure I took most of the pics from Costa Maya on my phone!

By the time we got to Cozumel, we were all pretty tired. The kids begged to stay on the boat, so we checked them into the Kid's Club and headed out. We were totally not impressed. It seemed nice enough, and we ate at a delicious restaurant, but it was all shopping. Blah. So we spent a total of probably 3 hours on shore, and then we went back to relax on the boat!


Archer with his binoculars

And the last few straggler pics, from the boat:

Archer zonked out in bed, under the awesome monkey our housekeeper made. She was super sweet, and left the boys lots of fun things to find!

Sunset from our room...it doesn't look super spectacular in the picture, but I'm guessing it was MUCH better in real life!



Belize City

Belize was one of our favorite stops, and I was so disappointed that we didn't have any pictures at all (this was the only stop where we didn't take a single phone picture). We got the camera back, and I was actually pretty disappointed. I thought we had WAY more pictures on it, and I was sure we had more than one dolphin picture, along with at least one manatee picture. Oh well. At least we have something!

We took a boat ride up the Old Belize River:


I THINK this is supposed to have a manatee in it...not entirely sure. Possibly those shapes out towards the middle/left are manatees??


Manatee sign!





Iguanas. Big iguanas.



Baby croc! (So hard to see, but he's right on the tree trunk with his mouth open.)

The lone dolphin picture. So disappointing, because this dolphin was doing tricks and jumping alongside our boat for a LONG time.

We got off the boat, and went to a resort-y type place for a yummy buffet lunch.

This is a self-guided nature/herbal trail we went on...and we got eaten alive by mosquitoes!


Arch crashed out on the bus from lunch, on our way to Altun Ha ruins

The next few pictures are all of the ruins. It was amazing to see! I've never seen any Mayan ruins before, and this was something that John and I both wanted to see. The boys really loved it too, which surprised me. I kinda thought they would be bored with it, but they loved hiking up to the top, and thought it was all pretty cool!








This is the one that we hiked to the top of. It was a little nerve-wracking with the boys, but fun, and a GREAT view from the top of all of the ruins.







The hike down! It was SO HOT - in the 90's and HUMID - we were ready to be done!