last t-ball game

A few weeks ago, Cole had his last t-ball game of the season. He's come a long way and it's so great watching him improve each week. He really seemed to enjoy it and had a lot of fun. 

a little brother-sister pep talk before the game

little lefty up to bat

heading to first

fielding

throw to first

heading home

these two.

 After the game, they had a little ceremony and each kid got a trophy. Now I'm not typically a trophy-for-everyone person but when your little 3 year old is beaming with pride over his first trophy you change your views just a smidge. The cuteness was too much.

congrats on a great season, Cole!

bump watch #3::33 weeks

Weeks:33 weeks!

Maternity Clothes: yes and sadly starting to out grown some of them. Thankfully hubby's clothes are right next to mine and may or may not go missing sometimes. {just for pjs---for now}

Movement: Definitely noticing some sleep/wake patterns with this little guy

Symptoms: I totally jinxed myself with saying how great I felt for 31 weeks, working in a pretty physical job, having 2 kiddos and a house to take care of. I did feel great.

And then 32 weeks hit and it was rough. 

I had two almost trips to labor & delivery from some nice Braxton-Hicks and some serious pain. I had Steve {and myself} pretty worried. I figured it was stretching/growing and all the time I spend running around but didn't want to brush it off without chatting with my doctor. Thankfully Tylenol, extra water and rest helped a lot. Basically I have a big baby, my body is working hard and stretching/ growing and I'm too active. I did take a day off to rest and felt a lot better after that. Apparently it's all normal despite being painful and gets worse with every pregnancy. Fun.

Cravings:  Carrots---especially roasted carrots. But that is just random times so nothing really too exciting. I'm kind of boring.

New: We did the big room switch, the crib is set up, baby clothes have been washed  and the car seat has arrived. It's starting to get slightly real. Ideally, I want to be 100% {ok 80%} done by Christmas. We didn't want to stress around the holidays and we didn't want to make all these huge changes all at once on the kiddos. So far they have loved being a part of everything but we're trying to be really aware of all these changes happening for them.

Sleep: goodish---although lately there has been a trend of just being up for a few hours at night.

a bunch of updates

October is finally blogged---and it's only 1/2 way through the end of November. Oops. There are a few random updates I'm going to try to squeeze into this post {if I remember them all}.

In case you've been under a rock, the Sox won the World Series! Such an awesome year for them to win with everything Boston has been through. Not that is makes it better but it was pretty awesome watching everything the Sox have done for Boston from the players to just lifting spirits in general. The kiddos loved their Sox spirit days at school and all the buses were covered with Sox spirit paintings. So fun.

The kiddos stayed up later than normal to watch the games. The night of the final game we got them up to watch the last 3 outs. It may or may not have been 11:30ish at night on a school night but this what you do when the Sox win the series. Cole & Ava were pretty tired and don't really remember being up---but they did love our cheering and dancing at the time.

I'd also like to point out that I went to a game when I was pregnant with Ava & they won the series and went to a game when I was pregnant with Bean & they also won the series. I'm pretty sure we should get life long tickets or something :)

a tired boy & his daddy for the last pitch

Parent-Teacher Conferences: We had both kiddos conferences last week. We were really pleased with how both kids are doing. I love looking at their portfolios and seeing their work. Ava is doing great in school. She really loves it. She loves reading & is doing really well---actually beyond well. Usually at this time Kindergartners are at an A/B reading level and Ava is at a D! That is usually where you aim for your students to be at the start of 1st grade. {obviously every kiddo is different but that is the guide we use}. We were super impressed with that and definitely a proud parent moment. She is doing well with math, social aspects & following directions. She just needs to slow down on her work and not try to hurry through it. We see that at home too so not a huge surprise. She also started some RTI for speech---another non surprise there but we're happy she is getting some speech support.

Cole is also doing great in school. He barely talks which cracks us up because he does. not. stop. talking. He is warming up more and more, does great with the routines, visits a lot of different areas and really loves going to school. His favorite area is snack where he will help himself to 2-3 servings of snack and just sit and people watch. He's such a little old man. We saw his speech therapist while we were at Ava's school and she is so thrilled with all of Cole's improvements.

Baby Bump: The kiddos got to come with me to my 31 {!} week appointment. They were so excited---although Cole was convinced the baby would be coming home with us right then. They were both pretty shocked to see me pee in a cup {clearly didn't think that one through when bringing them}. I got a lot of "Mama, what are you doing?" "We have those cups at school and no one pees in them there." Just one more thing to add to their therapy sessions. The best part was that they got to hear the baby's heartbeat. The look on their faces was so sweet. They were just so excited. Definitely such a sweet moment.

A "super" Halloween

After all our Halloween festivities, we were pretty tired on the actual day---and Ava had a fever when she came home from school. Boo. She was so desperate to go out trick-or-treating and thankfully she responded really well to the Motrin. We just did a quick round of trick-or-treating so we could get the kiddos back to rest.

A holiday always calls for a special breakfast!

 Cole was 100% set on being Batman. Ava wasn't as sure but then decided she wanted to be a superhero princess. Cole thought he was actually in charge of saving the world. Cutest thing ever. There is something so adorable about little boys & superheros.

 Since the kiddos were superheros, the bump & I went as the bat signal.

                                     

Some year hubby is going to break down and join us in our costume fun :)

 We just did our street and then came back to hand out candy {and eat some}. This is the kiddos favorite part which worked out great for a tired mama & dada.

Halloween Festivities

Halloween was busy! There were tons of activities between costume day at dance, Halloween Bingo, Adjective Day,Spider Ball & Halloween. I think we were all Halloweened out by the end of it.

Halloween Bingo: Cole's interest lasted all of 5 minutes before he was done and just cared about the snacks & his new glow bracelet :)

 Ava was picked to bring her class bear home so among all these Halloween activities was homework, birthday, birthday party and documenting the bear's adventures with pictures and journal entries. Of course the bear had to join us for Halloween Bingo.

parade time

 Instead of Halloween, Ava's school celebrated Adjective Day where they have to come dressed as an adjective. {because, you know, those Pagans and Halloween ::eye roll::} Not only did Ava have to go as an adjective but an adjective spider for her Spider Ball. She went as a Sparkly Polka-dot spider because that's how creative we could get.

We also had to send in a fun adjective snack for the Spider Ball. We had to send things that were salty, sweet, crunchy, wet, & funny---oh, and peanut safe too. We sent it:
salty-ghost popcorn
sweet-gummy bears
crunchy-vampire apples
wet-mummy juice
funny-funny bones

The kiddos graphed what they brought in and then enjoyed their yummy treats. I love all the fun activities they do but sometimes mama is just too tired for all this. But Ava loved it and had a blast so it's all worth it.

pumpkin lunch

 We collected even more Halloween books for the kiddos. I love setting out the themed books for each holiday/season. Our all time favorite is still listening to & reading along with Big Pumpkin.

pumpkin patch take 2

We were really cutting it close this year with the whole getting-a-big-pumpkin-and-carving-it-before-Halloween thing. We finally managed to go, pick out 2 big pumpkins & get them carved before the big day. Phew.

 Poor Steve, the kids swear they cant wait to carve pumpkins but then they last all of 5 minutes before moving on to something else. He's a good sport though.

Hello Ava :: Ava's 6th birthday

Ava really wanted a Hello Kitty party for her 6th birthday {we all know how I feel about character parties but HK did have some cute colors to work with so we went with it}. I didn't even do 1/4 of what I normally would do but she loved it and had a blast so that is all that matters. Here's our Hello Ava party:

the boys were VERY concerned that covered the tv

 Ava walked in from soccer and said "Oh my gosh this looks awesome!" Glad the toughest critic approved :)

last birthday as a family of 4---yikes!

 Ava was blessed with so many wonderful things for her birthday and so many people celebrating her. She loved everything and was just so big opening everything by herself and reading the card with little help. Crazy.

 I still can't quite believe we're celebrating SIX years of Ms. Ava Lou.

Emily came all the way from Hawaii for Ava's party {or a conference but Ava thinks it was for her party} She brought so many goodies for us and then we made her read all the Hawaiian books she sends because I can't pronounce half the words :)