Happy 4th Birthday Maddox!

My Madman Maddox,

I cannot believe that you are four years old!!  I love you, my sweet, energetic, fearless, compassionate baby boy!  You are constantly moving, constantly getting into things and constantly making me smile!  We are so lucky you are ours!  Right now, you are enjoying all the new toys you got for your birthday!  You try desperately to share with your older brother (even though he sometimes makes it difficult)..... you are always my best sharer!  You are working on counting to 20 and writing the letters in your name (see below).  You love holding up four fingers and counting each one to show how old you are!  At four, you are able to chew gum now and you were quite excited when Zander gave you gum (that he picked out just for you) first thing this morning!  At your flu shot earlier this month, you didn't even move a muscle or make a sound as you got your shot!  This fearless attitude comes in handy often, although I'm worried it might cause us to be in the emergency room a few times over the years!  I absolutely love your smile..... you use your whole face to show how happy you are!  You currently like getting up before 5:00 a.m. and we are hoping that you will start to sleep in a little bit.  You always find a reason to get up whether it is to go the bathroom, you are scared of the rain/thunder or you just want to cuddle with mommy!  There is never a dull moment when you are around!  I love you so much and can't wait to see what you will do next! 

Love you,

Mommy

 They celebrated your birthday at church last Sunday... you were excited about going on stage!

 Last night as a three year old....

Birthday morning.... mommy made cinnamon rolls and sausage!  Aunt A, Uncle Jay and Henry got you a baseball helmet for your upcoming baseball season!

We celebrated your birthday at Jump n Fun with friends and family!  Since Emerson's birthday is just a couple weeks later and Aunt Lindsey is due to have your new cousin in the upcoming weeks, we had a joint birthday party for you both!  Since we sometimes call you M (Maddox) and Em (Emerson) we went with an M & M themed birthday party!  Everyone had a blast!

These mamas are worn out but are excited we pulled off a successful birthday party for these cousins! 

More Fall Fun!

We visited the local pumpkin patch that we have been to in previous years to pick out our family's carving pumpkin!  We were there less than a minute and our boys agreed on the same pumpkin!! At the current stage of life we are in, these boys often don't agree when it comes to decision making so this was a huge "win".  We are hoping to carve our pumpkin this weekend!  I love Maddox's face and clasped hands in the first picture which I feel shows the excitement our whole family felt when we found the "one".  ;)  

Just for a comparison picture.... same pumpkin patch.... three years ago and now!  These boys are growing too fast!

I got to watch my favorite niece last week while her parents had a dinner to attend.  We had fun at bedtime!  Can't believe the next time I'm watching her, her baby brother or sister will be on his/her way!

Zander loves writing notes right now..... so glad I'm his favorite mommy! ;) I came back to my computer to find these two post its!  He also loves spending time with his BFF, Mia, after school.  I love the friendships he is making and how much he loves our school! ;)

Zander turned 6.5 this past week.... I can't believe he is heading toward seven!  He wanted to take a picture with his baby pumpkin he got at Luke and Laurel's birthday party!  This picture was completely unprompted which makes me smile so much that it was all his idea!

It's Fall, Ya'll!

While the weather has still been quite warm, we have had cooler mornings and hints of fall.  We decided to embrace the fall season (even if the weather wouldn't) with some fall-themed family activities over the last week.  Here is what we have been up to....

1.) We had Emerson with us last weekend while Lindsey and Boomer were out of town.  We enjoyed having her sleep over and she easily kept up with her cousins!  We spent Saturday morning at the science center.... a favorite for all three kids and then met the rest of the Kennedys along with the Williams family at Triad Park for a picnic dinner and time at the playground.

 2.) While mom and dad have been out of the country, we have checked in on Great Grandpa and Great Grandma multiple times.  I sent them this picture of Grandma taking the boys for a spin around the hallways with her walker!

 3.) I got to chaperone Zander's field trip on Tuesday to the fair!  I try to attend one field trip a year with my oldest, and when looking at the scheduled field trips for the year, I realized this might be the only one I could attend logistically!  I'm so lucky to get to go to school with Z each day and have a glimpse at what he is doing while in 1st grade!  We had a blast looking at the animals, tractors and fire-fighting equipment.

 4.) I have suspected that with Maddox's thumb-sucking habit, we might have a slight concern about articulation when it comes to speech and producing sounds for letters.  I had him screened on Wednesday, and I'm happy to report he passed in all areas.  We are supposed to bring him back in 6 months for a re-screening.  He was happy to earn all the stickers and get a whistle from the prize box!

 5.) We took advantage of canned food night at the fair and went back with the rest of our family on Wednesday night.  Zander loved showing daddy and brother all the places we had visited the day before.   The boys also loved watching the Marvelous Mutts show and getting cotton candy at the end of the evening!

 6.) We had our school's fall festival Friday night.  We loved walking around and seeing friends from school.  We enjoyed silly-stringing our principal, going on a hayride, playing corn hole and eating more cotton candy!

 7.) One of my favorite days of the year is when we can go to the Corn Maze!  Along with the maze, we enjoyed the cow train, the tram, the actual train, the jumping pillows, the zip-line, the tractors, the trampolines and eating apple cider donuts and kettle corn!  This year did not disappoint!  The boys got to do everything they wanted to do and got to pick the order in which we did everything.  I always love the corn maze while Zander's favorite this year was the tractor.  Maddox loved the kid zip-line and daddy enjoyed the jumping pillows (although his back didn't like it too much the next morning.... haha!)  I will say it was fun to have all four of us on the jumping pillows and laughing loudly as daddy bounced us even higher!

 This was an incredibly sweet moment below.  Maddox couldn't get the tractor to work on his own due to the pedals.  Zander stopped pedaling to help push his brother and get him started again.  I love watching these brothers support each other!

 Maddox opted for mommy pedaling with him when Zander picked the tractors as the activity he wanted to revisit at the end of our day!  haha

 8.) On Sunday, we enjoyed a leisurely afternoon at the house between morning church and the evening AWANA program.  Maddox wanted to nap with me since it was raining outside... I just couldn't say no to his sweet face (the to-do list can wait!) and look at those eyelashes! Such a cutie!

 Zander worked on his Christmas wish list while we napped.  He wants a tablet, tractors (big, little and medium) and a new pair of headphones!  I think he believes Santa got a raise this year... haha!

Grandpa Turns 70!

Last weekend, we were able to celebrate Grandpa's 70th birthday with family and friends!  It is hard to believe he is 70 years old!! I still think he looks and acts so young that I'm discovering that age is just a number and can't really define what you are able to do or accomplish.  Grammy worked hard to make a book with many positive comments about Grandpa.  I wasn't surprised to read all the incredibly nice things people had to say about my dad!  We enjoyed a delicious dinner out at J Peppers in a private room and the grand-kids loved helping Grandpa blow out the candles and eat his cake!

I just love how Zack and Zander matched for church last Sunday.  It was not planned but Big Z and Little Z looked cute in their red shorts and plaid shirts!

 Also, Zack worked hard in the yard last weekend.  He cleaned up our vegetable boxes and added kale as we head into fall.  He also added this cute fall "scene" out front that I thought made for a photo opportunity!  Even though it has been in the 90s, we are officially in the fall season and looking forward to all the fun activities this season brings!

 Zander has been doing great at school.  He has been earning extra points for great participation and got a Bow Tie Behavior award for making good choices during the school day.  Thanks to Grandpa, he is able to cheer on the Gators as well. ;) (He also just came inside for recess when this picture was taken...haha!)

Our children's minister sent me the October issue of the Parenting Christian Kids magazine.  I was surprised to see my Jr. Cubbies group on the front page.  I just love how Maddox is leaned into me as we are discussing a story in the bible.  We typically have about 18 three-year-olds so there is never a dull moment on Sunday nights!

 We had an Author Study day at our school this week.... we chose characters from Snow White as an office staff and first grade selected characters from Kevin Henkes books... you can see Zander with his best friend, Mia, below.  Zander decided to be Chester.