Welcome, Fall!

Fall and spring are my two very favorite seasons of the year... I love winter because of the holidays but the weather is so perfect during fall and spring, especially for the boys.  I love that they can go out back and play until their little hearts are content and they don't come in drenched in sweat.  I also love being able to open up the house and have the fresh air coming in.  Our days lately have been spent out back playing on their swing set, playing in the sandbox and sitting at their picnic table playing with their favorite, play doh. 

 They are definitely the happiest outside!  Makes my job so much easier these days when they can get out, run off their energy ... and honestly, some days they seem to get along so much better when they are outside.  Here is what else we've been up to:

Boys watching Tiger football... to say they're not having a good season is an understatement but we'll still wear our Tiger gear and cheer them on keep our fingers crossed that somehow we'll pull out a win :)

Chase is still absolutely loving being a big brother and wants to help out with Luke as much as he can.  He wants to change diapers (key word, wants), loves to talk to him and hold him and is on top of the world when Luke smiles at him.

This little man is growing like a weed!  He has changed so much over the last few weeks.  He loves to talk to you with his eyes, makes the cutest expressions and is on the verge of talking and laughing.  He smiles at anything and everything and loves watching the mobile on the swing.  He melts my heart daily!

Jacob continues to do pretty much everything his brother does.  He is learning his letters right along side his brother, he loves to read books and learns all of Chase's Cubbies verses each week.  He will be doubly prepared next year when he is old enough to start Awanas :)

We went for a great stretch of time (really Luke's first 10 weeks of life) without one person in this house being sick.  Since then, Chase has been sick twice.  This was the first sickness of the season and it wiped him out!!  It ended up just being a 24 hour fever bug but his fever was super high for those 24 hours and he was miserable!  Hoping we don't have a winter of sickness after sickness but knowing how our winters have been the last two years I'm not getting my hopes up too high!

Because of something pretty scary that happened in our neighborhood (right next door to be exact) a few weeks ago, Sam has moved up in the world in our house.  She was spending a lot of time outside or in the garage because all the dog hair was driving me crazy but now she is back inside full time.  The boys could not be happier!!!  I guess I will just have to get used to vacuuming twice a day ;)

Luke has the biggest grins these days but what makes us laugh so hard each time is that he loves to stick his tongue out, especially while he gives us his biggest grins.  One day soon I will have to get his smiles on video because he is obsessed with his tongue and it's so adorable!!

And finally, Chase is really into drawing and writing his letters lately.  Here he drew a picture of an elephant and if you look closely you can see the elephants eyes, ears, trunk and legs.  Pretty good for a 3 year old, don't you think?

So, that's how we've been spending our fall season so far... although now it has gotten so cold that it feels like winter!  Hoping for a few more weeks of beautiful fall weather before it turns cold for good... but also so ready to decorate for Christmas.  I'm going to have to have a lot of self control over the next two weeks because I'm so ready to start playing Christmas music!  I would start playing it today but I think that might be a little too early... I guess I'll try to wait until our drive back home after Thanksgiving (or maybe the drive down)! :)