Preparation

Second grade is a big year!  My daughter will be receiving two very important sacraments this year, her First Reconciliation and Holy Communion.  I have a meeting about Reconciliation tonight at her school and I'm so excited for her!  Not only is she growing up physically but spiritually as well.  What an important time in her life this is.  As her primary catechist, I am determined to prepare her the best I (we) can.

This picture was way over exposed, but I loved her expression.  I tried my best to salvage the shot.

I am taking B with me to this meeting at at A's school.  The rest of the kids will be hanging out with their Dad at his work.  That should be a good time for them.

Happy Birthday

Six years ago, my first son was born.  Happy birthday, T.  I love you!

Sibling Love

The boys are so nice to their baby sister, it's so sweet to see.  T & P like to make B laugh and she plays along with them happily.  It makes my heart melt.

Look at those hands grab his face!

Help

I have three boys.  I birthed three boys.  While I was very pregnant, I unloaded the groceries from the car.  The boys are old enough to help me (& Daddy) now.  Yeh!

I'm posting a picture from a previous post.  I adjusted the colors a bit.  It's more vibrant.  I think.

Visit to Fort Valley

This past weekend we went to visit my parents in Fort Valley.  It was short, but a great visit.  We had perfect Autumn weather.  The foliage was not at it's peak, but the hint of colors were just teasing me all day.  The kids had a fantastic time.  They kept saying how beautiful everything was as we were driving up, down and around mountains.

They were pretending they were on a roller coaster, wheeeeee!

We started our day with breakfast.  Then we went to Mass.

Then we were off to find a pumpkin patch.  We found it next to this beautiful driveway.  I love the trees that line the road.  I told Coach this was my dream driveway.  I want one, please.

Sigh....Then it was off to pick some pumpkins.  I'll have to show you the pumpkins my kids chose, that's another post in itself.

T pulling our pumpkins in the wagon.

I had to put B somewhere!

I went a little overboard with these pumpkin shots.  B's expressions are funny.  She was busy playing with the pumpkins around her and every time I could get her to look up, this is what I got.  What Mom?

My mom bought me some beautiful mums.  I love them.  She got me two of the bright yellow ones.  Thanks Mom!

Then we were off to the corn maze down the road.  This maze was a decent size.  We've never done one this large before and it had a game to go along with it which A was excited about.  I didn't think it was going to take long, but it did.  I had no idea where we were inside that maze.  We didn't even find all the markers we were supposed to find.  We took some shortcuts because the boys were getting tired.

We went off the beaten path.

A view from one of the bridges in the maze, pretty.

We were all tired afterwards.  We went and got lunch, had donuts for dessert and said goodbye to Lolo & Lola.  Thank you for a great weekend!!  Love you.

Two Wheeling

When I brought A to the doctor's office for her 7 year well-visit the doctor said she should be able to do three things by now, 1) tie shoe laces, 2) swim and 3) ride a bicycle.  I left the doctor's office thinking I had some work to do. 

Today, the stores I shop at sell sneakers and even dress shoes with velcro.  It seems sensible to buy those shoes when you're in a rush and especially if you want your kids to put on their own shoes!  A is definitely up for any challenge and she learned to tie shoe laces rather quickly, practicing on Daddy's shoe's.  We bought sneakers recently that have laces so she doesn't have to worry about losing her new ability.  Check!

This Summer I was determined to get my little girl swimming like a fish.  Swim lessons?  I didn't put her in any this year.  I was thinking that she could learn under the tutelage of her parents on our trip to Florida this past Summer.  She was excited to learn and I was excited to teach her.  It didn't happen, unfortunately.  A doesn't like putting her head under the water.  This is going to take time and perhaps some help from professionals.

Biking.  Another challenge that A was excited to take on.

We didn't have to wear these large helmets when I was growing up.  This particular helmet (garage sale find) makes her look like she's going to be launched out of a canon!  Safety is key, especially for new riders and for worrisome mothers like me.  Perhaps, I should get elbow, wrist and knee pads as well.  Oh, and a mouth guard! 

I tried teaching her, but didn't have the patience.  Daddy taught her and he's got all the patience!

She learned very fast, too.

#3, check!

A Stroll Through the Woods

On my day off I had some extra time to kill before picking up P & E.  I decided to go for a short walk through the woods at Brookside Gardens.  I was hoping to get some good foliage shots, but it's still too early to see the mass of vibrant colors that are usually there.  Still too much green. 

I should carve out more time to take walks like these.  It was so beautiful and quiet.  I did have B to share it with.  She was soaking in all the beautiful weather.  She let me know with her big smile and random giggles she was having a great time.  She also loved playing with all the crispy leaves.

Tea Time

I'm no coffee drinker.  I'm a mocha drinker.  I prefer expresso and milk and chocolate over a cup of coffee.  I do not drink those regularly either, however I do drink Irish Black tea from Trader Joe's regularly.  Mmmmm, it's so dark and yummy.  I let it steep a long time.  I remember loving tea as a young girl.  My mom would give me some when I was sick.  I would put tons of sugar in it, too.  In college I drank more iced tea with five packs of sugar in it.  I don't know what I was thinking then, way too much.  They called me 5-pack.  Don't worry, I'm down to one teaspoon nowadays =-)

My kids see me drink it every morning.  It wasn't till recently my daughter wanted to try some of my tea.  She did, as I did, when I was younger and drank the tea with a spoon so not to burn her tounge.  When the tea cooled down, I let her finish it. 

This made me smile.  I soon had images of conversations over tea.

Bad Shot

This past summer we went to the farm to visit family.  They have such beautiful property over there and is always fun, especially for the kids.  The adults were able to dabble in some target shooting and I thought I would give it a go.  It's not every day you get to shoot a gun.  Here was my opportunity. 

 I remember shooting guns with my dad when I was younger.  We would also wear earphones to protect our ears - I remember them being bright orange.  I forget the name of this gun, but I think the gun I shot as a kid was longer and had a telescope on it.  This gun looks small, but it has a kick.  You can tell by my expression I'm just anticipating it.  It seems easy to shoot a target, but I knew I'd soon find out if that was true or not.

 You can't see it, but I didn't even hit my target.  I don't even think I hit the bale of hay.  It has been decided I am a terrible shot.  There has been talk about whether or not to own a gun.  I don't like the subject at all, but I do know that if any evildoers decide to come to my house and I owned a gun, they most probably would get away unharmed. 

On a side note, it's not every day I see the back of my head.  My hair looks cute in the back.  That was in the summer.  It doesn't look like that anymore, but how would I know.

My Little Girl

I love this picture.  It makes me smile!  A is playing with her brothers in the mud.  She didn't mind getting dirty, but she didn't want to get as dirty as her brothers.

I always wondered if my daughter would be a "girly girl" or perhaps a tomboy?  So far, she doesn't really fit into any of those catagories.  She is simple, smart and beautiful.  She is full of joy!

Family Time at SJC

Every start of the football season at SJC, Coach tests all of his players in different areas of fitness.  Coach and I have done it without the kids in previous years, but thought it would be fun to include our kids this year.

This picture was actually taken at another day, in attempt to take a family picture for the football program.  Don't they look sporty?  They wear these jerseys at football games and always attract attention for their cuteness and spirit, of course!  They love their Daddy!

They did some hanging, some pull-ups, sit ups and other challenging tests.  It got competitive.  All determined to do our best. 

Then we headed outside for some more physical tests.

Try to imagine how exciting it is to a child to run around this great new turf football field.  You can see the excitement in T's face.  I was hoping he wouldn't fall and bite his tounge!

A is very competitive.  She was studying Coach's chart where you can see all our scores and who was doing the best.  Sometimes I look at her and I see a glimpse of a young teen and it reminds me of how fast she's growing up.

I unfortunately have not mastered the art of action shots, yet.  So I am posting mainly the spectator part of the testing.  I don't ever get tired of seeing the different expressions my kids make.  Their personalities really shine through.

After lots of running and jumping, I think we were all pooped and ready to go home.  Till next year.

Sniffles

T was the first to get sick.  Now all my boys are sick and another night goes by with echos of coughing throughout the house.  I kept checking on them to make sure everyone was doing ok.  It breaks my heart.

Little B woke up this morning with a stuffy nose and I'm really hoping that she whizzes through this one like her older brother P.  Pray for health here in the Patterson house!

Sick

Since T started school I expected sickness would come into our house.  A did pretty well her first year in school, but T seems to catch everything.  It just turned October and he's sick for the second time!  We had a long night on the couch together with the nebulizer and frequent trips to the bathroom.  He did get to watch TV in the middle of the night, however.  I'm sure T would tell you this was the best part of being sick. 

The next day his breathing was still labored but you could tell he was on the mend, phew!  We even went outside to get some fresh air after picking Anne up from school. 

He looks pretty good, doesn't he?

Of course, I decided to make him some chicken soup.  He had said he liked carrots when they are soft and to get this picky eater to eat anything healthy, I boiled carrots in the chicken soup!  He ate them, but then he said he would like to eat them raw just like Bugs Bunny did.  Geesh, who knew Bugs would be an advocate in getting my kid to eat anything healthy?  I'll take it!

He ate most of it.  What's up Doc?

The days have been so nice lately.  It was nice to be out for some fresh air!  Even B enjoyed it.

Gosh, she's just so cute!

My rifle

A few days ago my kids found my rifle.  The rifle I used to march with in high school.  I certainly love that rifle because it brings back so many good memories I had in the marching band.  I took A outside to show her the kind of stuff I did with it back in the day.  I still can throw my triples and go relatively fast in double time.  Sigh...I do miss it, even as a 36 year old woman. Anyway, I just thought it was so wierd to see my daughter with my rifle.

I put her at attention!  She would have been a great rifle.

After showing her some tricks she tried them herself.  I think I have had a lot of pictures of me in HS that looked like this! 

I whipped out an old band video of memories to show A and even though we were only able to see some of the VHS tape (the rest was damaged) I was taken back 15+ years to some really great memories.  Go MV!