Tis The Season for catching up, getting older and celebrating all things Christmas!!!!!

We are still here, still squirpy as ever...just so, so busy. Tomorrow we will celebrate our Tucker's 7th birthday. How is that even possible? In fact I asked Todd to do some birthday present wrapping so I could finally sit down and blog. Here are some pics of our birthday boy.











This was taken over Thanksgiving in Asheville...I could write an entire blog post on the adventures of Christmas card picture taking through the years!!! This one didn't make the cut but it's endearing (and it was taken right before Campbell decided she was finished with picture taking):



see:




Happy Birthday Tucker Fox!!! You are awesome, amazing, brilliant, challenging, helpful, busy, hungry, head-strong, incredible and God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave us the gift of YOU!

I have a month full of thoughts and pictures to share but tonight I'm taking my headache to bed. However, I'm hoping for a few more blogging moments now that Christmas break is upon us...famous last words I'm sure!

I don't even know where to begin!

Where does the time go? We have had a few bouts of illness and mountains of leaves to rake, trick or treating to do (minus our sick Finley), candy to eat and beautiful weather to enjoy! The boys are already talking about our annual trip to Asheville, NC for Thanksgiving and they have been getting their Christmas lists ready, which really means after every commercial they catch they then run and put whatever it was on their list.

We just got Jack and Tucker's report cards this week and they were both excellent! Cooper and Finley are loving Montessori and Campbell has had a language explosion. This is a good thing and a bad thing. She is now repeating words, she especially loves playing this game with Tucker, but I'm wondering how long it's going to take for the boys to realize they can get her to say something naughty!

I have lots of pictures to share!

Here is a picture of our chicken:



and our mummy:



A fabulous picture of Finley in some of our many leaves:



Grandma brought CK a new "Melmo" potty tonight and here is a shot of it being put to good use:



Today was an absolutely gorgeous Fall day and we decided to take advantage of what will probably be the last of Indian Summer and go hiking at Mohican. Our trip was cut a little short by a Jackson migraine but we had a great time and ended our evening with grilling out and some sweet family time.





As if his bad headache wasn't enough, Jackson than ran his nose into a steel swing post!



Mmmmm snack time:




Todd, Tuck, Coop and Finn all climbed the fire tower (it's 80 feet tall!!!!):



We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day!

Just in case you were wondering...

how potty training was going...



and what happens when Tucker gets a hold of the camera...

On This Cool Fall Afternoon We Were A...

BUBBLE BLOWING



JOHN DEERE RIDING


BIKING AND TRIKING


PUSHING


SWINGING



MOVING


FAMILY IN MOTION!!!

"So Fast" and other Fall adventures

I know it all too well but it seems a little harder to swallow this time since I know she's always going to be the "baby". No one to follow behind her to keep to feelings fresh. Campbell Kate is growing up so fast! Her little early intervention class is certainly serving it's purpose and she is starting add more words to her vocabulary...no, dog, Kiki, no, eat, all done, up, no, no, no. I know, I know, she wouldn't be a proper toddler if that one wasn't her favorite.

She is also starting to show signs that she is either a) ready to start potty training or b) trying to push me over the edge by teasing me about being ready to potty train. She did have one day when she refused to leave her diaper on and peed on the potty twice on her own. And then there was last night when she refused to leave her diaper on but mostly just wanted to be naked while carrying the potty around.




We've had a super busy month! And seriously, how did it get to be October already!!!!? One misty, foggy morning we went apple picking:




Todd's parents came into town for a long weekend. Here is a picture from out trip to Schmidt's. My sister Katie and her boyfriend Kain joined us.




Here are a couple more:







We celebrated Todd's birthday with a little cake:




My gift to him (ok, it certainly served as a treat for me too) was a weekend sans kiddos to Chicago. We went about three years ago for the wedding of our friends M and A and had such a wonderful time! I have wanted to go back ever since and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We stayed with M and A and tacked a few more tourist activities onto our list but two nights just didn't feel like enough. Here are a few pictures from our trip:








All possible of course thanks to my seester who graciously took over the child minding while I was indulging in quality, alone time with Todd, the company of wonderful friends, gourmet hot chocolate and Michigan Avenue!!!!




She's the best!

The bus pics

Campbell continues to love school and the bus. She also won't stop climbing and risking her life in the process. Everything else is going swimmingly. I'm finally starting on the projects that I planned to do all Summer when the boys weren't in school. It would appear that I have more "free time" to clean out closets when they're gone...imagine that?

I've also continued to stick with my quest for fitness. I was going to wait to post about it until I reached my first weight goal but it is one of the things that has been occupying some of my previous blog time (and my blog brain)! Not to mention the fact that I have been way to indulgent with myself in the past several weeks and I keep bouncing the same couple of pounds around. Who knows when I'm going to reach that goal. I have never previously participated in any kind of structured exercise program and stuck with it. Last October I gave in to the cries coming from my body and stepped on our newly bought elliptical machine. I lasted about five minutes...I was pretty sure I was going to die. And yet, here I am...still kicking, still ellipticalling, still walking, jogging, sweating, whining, moaning...still plugging away at it, alive.

If you travelled with me on the journey to get Miss Knievel here safely you know that when I wasn't driving my little boys around to school or having the baggers at the grocery store carry my milk and put it in the car for me, I was laying on the couch on my left side. If I wasn't on the couch I was eating or maybe even perhaps eating on the couch. You know I'm going to say she was worth it...every muscle atrophying bit of her. But after she was here and I wasn't protecting her life with my uterus anymore I realized that I had become rather marshmallow like. So after I had come to terms that there would be no more squirpy little babies coming from my bod and Campbell had stopped nursing I decided it was time.

In July I started working out with a local Mommy and Me Fitness group and I love it. It's hard to make the time and find help with the bigger kiddos (Thanks Aunt Kiki!!!!) but it's so worth it...I'm worth it!!! It's a stroller class so CK gets to ride along. I love it when I start running and she goes "WOW!"...too cute! I desperately want to get more comfortable with running but I keep wrestling with some sort of stress injury in both of my shins (and my 32 year old body). I refuse to give up on my goals though! Now it's out there...now I'm accountable, right?

Enough about the size of my bottom! You come here for this anyway!

Getting some comfort from one who's gone before:



I know this is so heartbreaking but she did great, I promise:



See, she warmed up to the idea:



I'm going to stop predicting when I'm going to blog next and just keep doing what I can. : ) I have lots of closets to clean out and it felt way too good to unload my bags and bags of stuff at the Goodwill trailer today (where the kind of creepy helper guy told me I was a real sweetheart and my husband is lucky to have me) to stop now!

I wrote this last night...no idea why it didn't post!!!!?

It's like riding a bike...

blogging that is! At least that's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that I will jump back in here and remember exactly how it was that I made time for this!

Here's my inspiration for today. As you can imagine in our house there are lots of discussions about anatomy and puberty (If you were at my house in the morning you would hear pretty much everyday, "Please shut the door I am NAKED and I want some privacy!!!). You know, like what happens when you're a teenager, say about age 15? After dinner Tucker announced, "Mom, when I am fifteen I'm going to show you my hairy bottom on your birthday!"!!! I mean really, what am I supposed to say to about that delightful gift that is to bestowed in my future? The conversation deteriorated from there... Nothing like hairy bottom after dinner jokes six year old style!

All of our little peeps are enjoying school. Tomorrow morning I will put my little baby on the bus for the first time. I have been driving her the first couple of weeks and while it's a little heartbreaking to send her off, it will ease up the chaos that has become my noon hour!

Here she is walking into school her first day, bus pictures will eventually follow:




Here's the crew:





And just because: