Timmy's first steps

Sunday (Nov.6) Timmy started taking a few steps!

Halloween and some other stuff

Sophia was our pumpkin carving queen. She proudly scooped out the guts of her pumpkin and Max's. He was very greatful!! And couldn't believe she would touch the guts with her bare hands. She loved that it grossed him out.

Henry and his jack-o-lantern. Henry looked at pictures of pumpkins and pointed to the kind of eyes, nose, ect. he wanted.


Alex cleaned, designed and carved his pumpkin almost entirely on his own. I helped a little but not much.


Max and his jack-o-lantern.


Our traditional Halloween pic on the couch before we trick-or-treat pose. Left to right, Timmy as a dragon (thank you Aunt Kathy), Sophia as a fairy princess (thank you Jensen/Heathman (sorry if I spelled that wrong) families, recognize the dress?), Henry as Bob the builder, Alex's friend Anthony as Shortround from Indiana Jones, Alex as Indiana Jones, and Max as a Ninja.


Ready to trick - or- treat.


Well you might only appreciate these pictures if you watch Dora, but I know some of your kids do and so you do too. Anyway, Sophia made her own Backpack (Dora's Backpack that talks.). If you look closely you might be able to see Backpack's face, and you see Map (also Dora's friend) on the side of Backpack. The construction and plans were all done by Sophia, I helped with the straps a little, but she had the idea how to make them. Now squint really hard and you see Boots (Dora's friend who is a monkey) with a back pack and Dora holding Backpack. The two of them went on many adventures that day, stopping swiper and ending saying, "WE DID IT!"
(When I showed Sophia this picture. She said, that looks like Backpack but I don't look much like Dora, really.)



Here's Timmy's latest trick. Isn't he proud? (This is Timmy standing on his own. I couldn't get it to play for me, I'm hoping it will work now. Sorry if doesn't.)

Alex

Alex has been busy the last few weeks. A little more than a week ago he had , Jeffery, a buddy from school spend the night. I don't always take pictures of freinds spending the night, but this time I did. The boys had a lot of fun, mostly playing video games. The other kids love it when someone new is over! Alex also



baked his first loaf of bread, almost all on his own,



and got glasses! He said right away it made a big difference. All the kids were/continue to be very interested in his glasses. Max has said numerous times he wants glasses too and likes to make sure Alex has his case and cleaner with him. :) The glasses must help a lot because Alex almost always has them on.

Flower Girl and Birthday Party

Two weeks ago we went to Iowa to see Randy's niece get married, it was a very fast, crazy but very fun weekend. We were so glad we could be back for the occasion.



Sophia got to be a flower girl and she loved it!!!!!! She got to wear blush and eyeshadow and had her hair done. She loved her dress, loved dragging the ringbearers up the aisle and she got to carry the bride's lipstick in her flower purse, which was wonderful! She had a great day, I think she was as excited as the bride. :)


There they are Amy and Cody, getting married. Sophia couldn't wait to see them kiss. She asked more than once when it would be.



Here's our crew at the reception. Alex and Max ended up at the water park in the hotel with their cousin, Madison. They had a blast! We all played at the water park the next morning. It was pretty cool. I of course didn't get any pictures! Opps! Sophia played with her cousins and collected the rose petals off the tables, at the reception. And Henry covered his ears - too loud for him and then went to bed with his little brother, Timmy (we didn't leave him in the room alone, Eric's parents watched them - Thank you!). Randy and I hung out visiting and watching everyone dance.





We celebrated Timmy's 1st birthday at Aunt Coco's and Uncle Chris's. It was a nice party. Complete with cake, opening gifts and best of all so much of our family.

No training wheels & Timmy's 1st B-day

Timmy turned 1 today (offically he did at 12:35 am)! Yeah!! Sophia was very sweet and made him a birthday card 2 days ago. She really wanted to give it to him early but in the end was glad she didn't. We'll be celebrating his birthday back in Iowa with lots of cake to share with all his aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma, and whoever else might be there. We're very excited!!

This week Max learned how to ride his bike without training wheels. Randy's been taking him out and working with him. It's been fun for everyone to cheer Max on and get out and ride their own bikes around.



Here he goes!

1st Day of School, 1st B-day gift

First day of school! Max is in 2nd this year and Alex is in 5th. They both seemed happy after their first day. They seem to like their teachers and are happy with the friends in their classes. Max told me Friday, "I don't want tomorrow to be Saturday, I want to go to school tomorrow." Alex pipped right up, "Not me!"
And Henry has been very sad to see the boys leave in the morning. He cries when they leave and has hugs for both of them when they get back home. Their 2nd day of school Henry heard a different bus about 8 in the morning (a 1/2 hr. after the boys left). He ran to the door saying Alex and Max (in Henry speak) and cried again because it wasn't them. I'm sure it will get easier for him though.


Asleep at lunch, every kid does it. :)


Henry


Timmy got his first birthday present! Aunt Kathy gave him a wagon (with seat belts, I love that). It was a beautiful day so it got a lot of use.


The wagon required some assembly, so everyone helped put it together.


There they are off for the first ride in the wagon! Bye-bye!

Popcorn

While in Iowa we were able to go to Dan and Dale's (two of Randy's brothers) garden they have behind their shop. We were able to pick and eat strawberries, and Uncle Dan pick an ear of popcorn for us to bring back to New York. So we brought it back and just last Friday we shelled our cob of popcorn and then tonight (Sun) we popped it and ate it. Dan had said when the corn was at 13% moisture it was time to pop it, Randy said he'd take full responsibility in declaring the moisture content of our popcorn. And he must have done all right because it was very good.

Our 2nd Vacation

We were blessed enough to get a 2nd vacation this year. We had a great time.

We got to Iowa Sat. morning and then went to Abby (Randy's niece) and Matt's wedding. We had a nice time and tried to get all the cousins 4 years old and under in a picture, I thought this was the most realistic one.

Sunday was George's baptism. George is Randy's brother Joe and his wife Renee's new (and first) baby. Randy was honored to be the godfather. L-R is Randy, Jill (Renee's sister and the godmother), baby George, Renee and Joe.
Mon and Tues we saw my family. My dad and Cheryl, my Grandma and Grandpa Leymaster, my Grandma and Grandpa Wood, my brother, his wife Joni, and their two boys Kale and Brady. But as we didn't have any monumental events going on and because life just gets busier with 5 children I didn't get pictures and just enjoyed the visits.

Wednesday started (after Dan and Dale fixed our van's breaks for us - thank you!!) at Heartland Acres in Independence (IA). A good museum on current farming and past farming practices.

The kids became official Poop Investigators.

And we saw the world's largest tractor.


Next we went to Dubque to the Aquarium and River Museum. There was a lot to see and do there. We all enjoyed ourselves. After the museum we went on to Chicago and had dinner with Randy's uncle Ralph. We had a great dinner and enjoyed his company.


This is part of the water works section of the museum (in Dubque). The Water works section was a hands on water activity area. The kids really enjoyed playing here.

Grandma is lifting Henry to see the duck, that splashed all of us.


Thursday we made it to Lego Land!! The kids all had a blast. There was a lot to do and see. I definitely don't have pictures of everything. We started the day by walking under the lego giraffe and into Lego Land.

Here are just a few of the lego sculptures we saw.

Lego Land began with a display called Mini-land. Which was Chicago done in Lego. It was very impressive. After awhile the lights in the room dimmed to show the city at night. Street lights came on, buildings lit up, campfires on the beach lit up and the playground equipment with children on it stopped swinging.


Indiana Jones!


Darth Vader and R2-D2 made out of legos! Does it get any better?


"Ahh! Get out of the way of the race car!" Unprompted they posed as if the lego race car was about to run them over.


Here's everyone with Bob the Builder.


Max and Alex went to a Master Builder class while we were there. Randy took them and said they were very serious about the whole thing. They learned how to make a top that looked like a hamburger. They agreed it was very fun.



All the kids played in/on the huge playset there. It was like a really big, really good McDonald's playset with a ton of very large lego blocks.



An area of Lego Land was dedicated to building and racing race cars. Alex and Max spent a fair amount of time there. Alex especially kept trying to improve his cars so they would race straighter and faster.



Grandma, Parker, and Timmy enjoyed the Duplo corner. A little corner full of Duplo legos next to the giant play set and some earthquake tables (tables you could build on and then push a button to shake the table like an earthquake)and more lego sculptures.



We ended our vacation in Muncie, IN visiting my Aunt Eileen, Uncle Pat, cousins Sarah and Emily and Emily's husband Matt. We had a great visit. Saturday my Aunt's work hosted a Family Fun Fair and we had a lot of fun. There were a ton of bounce houses, a dunk tank, lots of games, Sophia got her nails painted, lunch and lots of fun. It's a wonderful time with the added bonus of everything being free. After the fair we went back to my aunt and uncle's. The next day Randy and Pat golfed while the rest of us relaxed. We left Monday morning happy to have had such a great vacation , sad it was over and Randy and I started planning another vacation on the way home.