Hutchinson

Each morning I find him reading.  Giggling and talking about what he sees in the book.  Then he falls asleep reading every night.  He is always asking for "one more book pease!"I love it and hope he always loves to read! 

Last week...

I am not sure how the weeks slip by do quickly.  I have full intentions of blogging a couple times a week and then I pull the blog up and it has been a week!  Last week was fun!  Finnean has a great week at school and Hutchinson had a great week with his momma.  These boys are just growing so fast.  Hutchinson keeps turning into a big boy and Finnean is fast approaching FIVE years old.  I am not ready.  I just want them to stay little.  Finnean keeps saying "I am SO EXCITED for kindergarten,  I can't wait to go to kindergarten! !" It is killing me.  Of course,  I want him to be excited but SLOW down little one!  :) Here are a few pictures of last week.  This week we are just relaxing, getting ready for thanksgiving at our house!  It is so fun,  they are so excited about the holidays!  Stay tuned for all the fun that is to be had!

Finnean LOVES to write and draw.  He is always finding notebooks and taking them over.  Last night I needed to write a few notes and couldn't find any paper without drawing on them...so I just made them my stationary!  Hopefully my letter recipients enjoy the art as much as I do!

We had a BLAST on Saturday morning!  We headed down to Crème Cupcake on Ingersoll and decorated turkey cupcakes.  The boys loved it and I got to have some tasty hot chocolate! It is COLD here, like single digit cold!  Our friends, Logan and Cullen joined us and it was so fun to see the little boys hang out.  As you can tell, our boys LOVED decorating and this was about 5 seconds before they took huge bites of those delicious turkeys! 

On Friday, I had the opportunity to volunteer in Finnean's classroom for his Thankful Feast!  It was SO cute.  His class and the class next to them all brought things that they liked to eat.  We had everything from strawberries (Finnean's pick), to ice cream sandwiches to mac and cheese.  It was quite the spread.  After the feast, they had the First Annual Preschool Thanksgiving Parade.  OH MY!  I will post more pictures.  Finnean was a drummer in the marching band.  Look at how darn cute he is!!  They also had "balloon floats", cheerleaders, a giant balloon turkey and Santa!!  It was so cute! 



This picture is supposed to be below the turkeys but I can't get it to move there! After cupcakes we headed to the Des Moines Winters Farmer's Market. It was nice and cozy inside and we found some tasty honeycrisp apples and yummy beef sticks.  We did NOT find any Christmas presents!  After we checked out the goods, we did some skywalking.  The boys LOVE running free in the sky walks.  Hutchinson took a break to watch some worker guys. 

We had our first snow on Friday.  Hutchinson thought it was pretty cool and kept yelling "NO!!!" AKA snow :)

Finnean and the grilledcheeseasaurous.

This kid.  How did he get so old?!  That smile is killing me and I just can't get over how many words he has.  It is so fun watching him grow.

Before bed giggles!

Wagler Weekend at the Lake!

In September we headed to Lake Okoboji to hang with the Kelcee's family.  It was SO much fun!  Her parents are so good to the boys and the boys just love going.  We spent our time relaxing and enjoying some good food.  We hunted for frogs and we even caught one, thanks to Matt and Molly.  The boys loved watching our little frog friend.  We are not sure how he got out of his bucket, a bird snatched him?  He jumped to his death?  We were just glad that Finnean didn't ask to many questions and didn't mind he was gone! We adventured to Arnold's Park but it was closed for the season, so we toured the maritime museum.  It was full of really cool boats and history-all of my boys enjoyed themselves.  The adults hit up the tap room of the local brew house, West O Beer.  We laughed and laughed as we played life sized Jenga and a few games of FARKEL!  The boys hung with Mark and Molly-everyone had a blast!  We lost power that evening for a few hours, so that made for some excitement.  The boys enjoyed playing by candlelit and watching for the worker guys to come down the road.  :)  We are already looking forward to next year's Wagler Weekend at the lake!

I am so thankful that we get to do life with the Murphy's.  Not sure how we got so lucky to have such amazing friends!

Frog hunting and watching!

Finnean said his favorite part was when we left and he got to hang out with Mark and Molly! :)

When the kids are away, the adults will play!

 

Whoa...that was a long month!

We made it.  We did it.  We survived.  Michael was gone for all but three days of a two week span and I was prepping for our HUGE Bare Root Trunk show.  I knew that I just had to get to November 10th.  Then my family threw in a family reunion and I pushed that date to November 12.  If we could make it until then, we would be fine!  Christmas is going to seem like a breeze.  WHOA! This post is sounding way more complainy that I had hoped.  That is not the case, it is just real life.  I am SO thankful for my husband and the hard work he puts in for us.  I know that he hates being gone.  This trip was just extra hard for some reason.  I learned that I am not a super mom.  I am reminded of that a lot but really reminded of that this time around.  I learned that I need people around me to support me and I am so thankful that I have those people in my life.  I also learned that I need to lean on God.  Man, I just try to pull away when I am struggling but I need to pull in.  I am learning.  I am thankful that I took a risk and joined a bible study that I didn't know anyone at, they were an awesome support through the crazy.   I am writing this because my heart is full of gratitude.  I am so thankful that I have a husband that cares and works hard for us.  I am so thankful that I have those two little boys to care for, even though they make me stressed sometimes!! :)  I can't imagine life without them, I wouldn't give up being with them for anything.  I am thankful for all the people that helped us out in the past month.  I think that I have still been recovering this week and I am so thankful it is SATURDAY!  A favorite day at our house!  We get to spend the day together exploring and doing whatever we want.  I get to make breakfast for my family and drink my tea at a normal pace.  It is the little things and I just had to share my gratitude.  Maybe it's the season but I try to live in gratitude.  My life seems better when I can be grateful, even for things I don't really want to be grateful for.  What in your life are you grateful for that is not a favorite thing? Mine right now is laundry.  I am trying so hard to remember that we have clothes, warm clothes and a washing machine and water to run it and soap to put in it. Sometimes I despise laundry but I today I am going to be grateful for it and just be thankful that we have clothes to wear.  I might even try do a few loads today! :)  Happy weekend and don't forget to be grateful!

Cutest Hide and Seek ever.

While Finnean was at school today, Hutchinson asked if I wanted to play Hide and Seek.  Sure, how can you resist that sweet, tiny voice?  I asked him if he wanted me to count and he said, "No, Hutchy count." (while he was hiding in the closet, mind you)  So he counted to five and then burst out of the closet, giggling already.  He starts yelling, "Mom, where are you? Where are you, Mom" The whole time, when he found me, his face lit up and bust out laughing.  "Again, Mom, you hide again!"  He would start to get worried he couldn't find me right away, you could hear it in his voice.  He always would look in my previous hiding spot to make sure I wasn't there but each time he found me, that smile that just melts my heart would erupt on his tiny little face.  He was so excited and then he would say, "one more time?" as he walked back to his counting place.  Just a snippet of something that I don't ever want to forget.  My job is pretty amazing.

Brothers

These boys have my heart.  Just look at Hutchinson's crazy, long hair and his sweet little chubby cheeks that make his grin just perfect.  And Finnean, hands full of rocks, only pausing for a minute (since I bribed him candy) to hold still for a picture.  They have so much love for each other.  It am so thankful that we had two boys.  I love the things they think up together or how Hutchinson will do whatever FiFi is doing(most of the time this is okay!). I love how they will always have a friend.  I know they will struggle and drive each other crazy but I hope when they are older they will know that they have someone that they can always count on.  I think Hutchy will miss FiFi like crazy next year when he is at school.  My heart just melts when Finnean helps Hutchinson out with something or offers to play a game with him.  It also melts when Hutchinson gets so excited to pick Finnean up from school, he has only been gone for a few hours and he is ready for his brother, his friend, his playmate, his partner in crime to come home and see him!  It is awesome.  And the way that Finnean can make Hutchinson laugh, it is priceless.  One of my most favorite sounds! I wouldn't trade having two little boys for anything. 

New gig!

I am so excited to share that I have been chosen to be a new member of the writing team for The Des Moines Moms Blog (DMMB)!  I am so thankful for my sweet friends, Abby and Shelby, that encouraged me to apply.  The DMMB is an awesome group of women that have had so many experiences and truly just want to help other mommas.  I hope that you read along.  I will be sure to post a link to my posts on this blog.  I keep giggling because I can't believe I am a blogger!!  So excited!  Check out my introductory post HERE! Want to hear some small world, Iowa living at it's best?  The gal that I am introduced with, Kelsey (who is not my Bare Root partner), happens to be my college roommate's class mate from elementary school!?  Isn't that weird!  I love Iowa. :)

Favorite day...

I am so behind on all the fun we had in October but I had to share this family picture.  I LOVE everything about it.  Finnean was so excited because he got to pick apples and obviously, Hutchinson is super pumped about his apples.  We had so much fun and  I will share more about this adventure soon!