Isaac @ 6 1/2 Years Old

A local park does a Fall Festival every September and the kids and I went this past weekend. Isaac wanted his face painted like The Hulk.

 At 6 1/2 years old, Isaac:

• Loves Harry Potter. The books, the legos, the movies. Guess who he's dressing up as for Halloween?
• Is starting to show a lot of interest in sports. He is playing soccer this fall, and he also loves basketball and baseball. He got to go to his first MLB game when grandpa was here. He loved seeing the Yankees play since they are his favorite team. 
• Runs everywhere. My mom thinks he looks like a little Forest Gump because he runs wherever he goes. Truth be told, I would rather take any other child grocery shopping because he has such a hard time staying in one place.
• Will eat just about anything. He is a pretty adventurous eater for a six-year-old. 
• Is a thinker. He is always asking questions that I have no idea how to answer.
• Makes everything a competition. He is pretty good about letting Davis win once in awhile when they race or play together. I think he has figured out that he has to give in once in awhile or D won't want to play anymore, and then the competition would be over. 
• Has a kind heart. Most of the time I am very pleased with how he treats his siblings. He is easy-going and fun-loving and I'm really proud of the boy he is turning out to be. 

Rock climbing at the Fall Festival. It was about at this moment that Ike realized how high he was and wanted nothing more to do with rock climbing.

This and That

Nathan Michael with his namesake.

• My parents headed back to Utah yesterday. No matter how many times I say goodbye to them, it never seems to get easier. I still get all choked up and teary-eyed. We had so much fun with them here. {Sigh}. I wish we lived closer. 
• Ryan and I had a conversation this weekend about being the parents of young children and how, often times, we make our lives more difficult by putting ourselves and our family and our children in situations that are recipes for disaster. Why do we do this? Case in point: taking all the kids out to eat at a sit-down restaurant when ordering take-out would be more pleasant for everyone in the family and everyone in the restaurant. Of course, if we never take them anywhere, then they'll never learn how to act in certain public situations, right? 

I was able to chaperone a field trip with Maddie's class to the apple orchard last week. 

• Have you heard of the "Who was..." series of early readers? They are fantastic biographies of all sorts of people from Amelia Earhart to Neil Armstrong to Michelle Obama. Written for young readers, they are simple biographical chapter books. Maddie received Amelia Earhart and Helen Keller for Christmas this past year. When she found them in her stocking she was less than thrilled, but recently decided to read them and she has loved them. It turns out our library has a collection of them, so Who was Anne Frank? and Who was George Washington? are on hold right now. I highly recommend introducing them to your budding reader. 
• The leaves are just starting to change here in New England. It's my favorite time of year here! Bring on the pumpkin desserts, caramel apples, and walks through the leaves. I can't wait.
• With Davis in preschool for a couple of hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, me and Nate are on our own. Today was our first morning alone. I must admit that it felt glorious to clean the house all by myself while Nater slept. And it stayed clean for a whole hour instead of just a couple of minutes. Of course, it's already dirty again, but such is life. 
• Ryan is busy busy busy right now. Thinking about it makes me really excited that this phase of our life is (hopefully) drawing to a close.  
• A young kid from our church died in a horrible car accident this past weekend. I didn't know him too well (I taught him in Sunday school for a few months), but my thoughts have been consumed with grief for his family. Everything can change in an instant and no one is guaranteed a life free from sorrows and trouble. I hope it has made me cherish my family a little bit more. 

While I haven't met Ike's teacher yet, I am confident that she's super awesome since she had the kids celebrate "Talk like a Pirate" day last week, complete with their own eye patch and parrot.

Girl's got Heart

Retro Fun Day

For as long as I can remember, my dad  has been a delivery truck driver. This has meant that he works every Saturday but has Wednesdays off during the week. As a little kid, Wednesdays were always known as "fun days" because my dad was home. He would take us to school that morning (which usually meant stopping at the convenience store on the way and stocking up on candy), he always cooked dinner that night, and, if we were really lucky, he would check us out of school early so we could hang out together. 

This past Wednesday I got my chance at a retro fun day. It was awesome. I can't remember ever spending the entire day with just my dad. It's not likely to ever happen again, so I tried to live it up as much as possible. 

My angel mother took all four kids for the day while my dad and I woke up before the sun and headed to the big city. 

We started off at the Top of the Rock. I'm always amazed by this aerial view of the city. After Rockefeller Center we walked down to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Such a beautiful building and one of my favorite places to visit in NYC. After the cathedral, we hit up the Museum of Modern Art. I have always wanted to see Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night in person. It did not disappoint

After looking at a bunch of modern art at the MOMA,  we  headed toward Central Park to eat at Sarabeth's, since, you know, my name is Sara Beth and all. They serve breakfast until late in the afternoon there so we both took advantage of that. It was delicious. 

After eating breakfast for lunch, we rented bikes and explored Central Park. 

My dad really wanted to see the tribute to John Lennon while we were in Central Park and luckily we stumbled upon it.  As we were walking our bikes back to the rental store we spotted none other than comedian Jim Gaffigan walking with his daughter to their hotel. Now I can say I've seen someone famous in NYC.

After our bike ride we were pretty worn out, so we took a quick subway to Times Square and then visited Grand Central Station. It was such a memorable day. I'm so glad I got to spend it with my dad.

Davis' First Day of Preschool

Davis had his first day of preschool today. His teacher said he loved it. He said he learned how to paint, sing, and play outside. Sounds pretty good to me. We celebrated by meeting Ryan for lunch at his work. There are tons of food carts right outside the hospital with every kind of food you can think of. As you can see, Davis went with the pizza and topped it off with a root beer.