Color Dash

It was homecoming week in Hudson. The store got tagged by the high school homecoming committee to celebrate.

They had theme week at school. This day was hat day. Spencer was excited to wear his cheesehead but then was a little sad coming home cause everyone called him "cheesehead!"

The boys and I played at the park the at start of week. We've had some really nice weather this week.

There is a song that the kids like from bible camp. My cousin Jewel gave me a copy of the CD and I swear we've listened to the same 2 songs at least 100 times!

If your curious what song it is watch this video. No I'm not driving I pulled over in a parking lot.

Spencer continued to play flag football this week. 

Nolan thinks because his pjs have webs he should be able to fly. He attempted many many times.

It's so rare when these two will actually sit and play nicely together that I had to capture this moment.

Ryan took Spencer to the Y for a football competition. They had to punt, pass and kick the ball. Spencer took 2nd for his age group of 6-7 year olds, he was so excited!

Easton is our little speedster. Here they are playing sharks and minnows. He was the last kid still with his flags on and he beat all of the kids to the other side again without getting his flag pulled. He told Ryan, "I can't believe I did that"

This week Easton got to spend some time with Ryan after football.

I was able to join Spencer's class to help celebrate Johnny Appleseed. Poor Spencer is allergic to apples so he was limited to the treats he could eat.

This was the taste testing station. I brought him applesauce to eat while the other kids had apples.

They colored pictures for a story board. 

This station they got to cut up apples for applesauce. 

Spencer's school had a family night at Sky Zone.  This is one of Nolan's favorite places. 

I snuck Spencer out of school 10 minutes early so we could attend the homecoming parade. 

Spencer also had a late start this week. We went to the gym per his request. We played one on one, did some laps around the gym and finished with a game of soccer. Sadly I rolled over a soccer ball and went down on my knee. I'm still recovering from my injury :(

Hudson took on my alma mater Eau Claire Memorial for their homecoming game. The older boys went with Ryan while Nolan had a sleepover at Auntie's and I went to a retirement party.

The boys like to stand by the locker room and high five the players as they run onto the field.

We got to see a preview of the pictures from Aunt Renee's wedding. 

Here's a sneak peak at what 2 of the boys are going to be for Halloween. 

This weekend I had marked on our calendar as garage clean out day. The boys LOVED helping sort toys and figure out what we should keep and get rid of.

Hmmm…. how many hockey nets does one family need?

This weekend was an exciting one for Spencer. He got to run in his first ever 5k! He had been begging me since last year to run in the color run. I found one in Eau Claire and signed us up.

We got an extra packet of color to throw on the boys before the race.

Just before the race started…..

Easton kept busy with the rest of the blue color packet. 

And we were off! 

Spencer did such a great job running. He only wanted to walk a handful of times. I asked him at one point if he wanted to walk up the hill. He pointed to some runners in front of us and said "mom if they can run up the hill so can we!"

Our family was waiting for us at the blue color station...

Sadly I didn't have a memory card in our regular camera and we didn't figure that out until after we crossed the finished line. So this is Spencer recreating crossing the finish line with Finley and Auntie.

Hadley joined Auntie for the finish!

He's officially a 5k finisher. 

To celebrate we went to brunch. Grandpa is missing because he's over in Scotland for the Ryder Cup! 

Flag Football

Both Spencer and Easton started flag football at the Y this week. 

Easton's team played a game where you have to run around and try to grab the other player's flags. Easton was the last one with his flags still on and he had the whole green team chasing after him.

The boys and I continue to enjoy our days home together. We went to Look Out Ridge. I remembered the last time when I was there when Spencer was 4, Easton was 2 or 3 and Nolan was 1. It wasn't my proudest moment when I left Spencer in charge of Nolan so I could take Easton to the bathroom. It's times like this when I realize how much our lives have changed in a few short years. Each phase always seems to bring a new kind of busy.

I took the boys to meet a friend at the park. Easton ran around with my phone and took this picture of Kate and I talking.

It's amazing the things they find fun and entertaining. For about 20 minutes they played with plastic bags that are meant for dirty diapers.

Our boys are struggling with separation anxiety lately. Spencer has expressed a few times how he misses spending time with me and when ever I go to leave it's at least a 10 minute process of hugs and kisses from all 3 boys. They are constantly asking "where are you going" and "why do you have to leave?"

I continue to get a lot done on the days when they are all at school. With the cooler temps it was time to do the dreaded task of changing out sizes/seasons. It seriously is an all day project working between their 3 rooms.

It's getting colder out in the mornings. Every day Nolan and Easton want to walk with to the bus stop. That sounds cute and fine but sometimes it's enough work to just Spencer out the door. I always tell them if they want to go they need to get dressed and put their socks and shoes… or just wrap yourself up in your blanket and freeze.

I need a lock for our pantry…

So it begins… We often friend Spencer and Easton sleeping in random spots in their rooms or under their beds. Well this night Ryan found Nolan on the floor. 

The nightly routines around our house can be wearing on Ryan and I. We decided since I get to spend a lot of time with the boys throughout the day that maybe Ryan should take time out of each week for one of the boys. Each week we will try to carve out time when he can take one of them to do something fun. This week he took Spencer to play some baseball and to a park for a little bit.

Gatorade cheers while taking a break

We got Easton and Nolan's preschool pictures back. When we had them taken they offered to snap one of Spencer also. Here are their pictures..

Ever since Nolan could start talking he's had a nasal tone to his voice. We thought maybe he would out grow it or things would get better after he had his tonsils and adenoids taken out. We are roughly 3 months out from his surgery and he still has the nasal tone. Some think it's gotten worse, he's harder to understand but I feel like it's remained the same. Often when he gets going and tries to tell you something really fast or is upset it becomes more nasal and even I can hardly make out what he's trying to tell me. Before we could start our speech evaluation they wanted us to make sure that it wasn't a structural issue. So off to Gillett we went. We met with the cranial/facial plastic surgeon and with a speech therapist. After multiple tests and quick examination they felt that Nolan's issue is structural.

He scored pretty high on air leaking from his nose during all of his speech tones. Our plan when we left was to wait another 3-6 months to allow for him to be fully healed from his surgery and reevaluate at that time. They would also do an endoscopy at that time to watch how his pallet worked while he was talking. My cousin reached out to me and referred us to a ENT surgeon at Children's that we are going to meet with in October to get a 2nd opinion. Hopefully we can find away to avoid surgery!

He may have a nasal tone to his speech but he sure is cute!

The store had a celebration this week. They became members of the Hudson Chamber. They even had an official ribbon cutting for them.

Saturday it was back to the soccer field. 

Nolan LOVES watching his brother's play! 

Spencer only wanted to play goalie this week.

Nolan had gotten in trouble so we had him sit in his room for a little bit. After a few minutes of crying it was quiet. Poor guy was just tired.

We had a neighborhood event Saturday night and the kids sort of bounced back and forth from house to house. As it got later we put Easton in charge of watching the little kids. They watched Rio 2.

Ryan and Justin held a beer tournament. Basically each person brings a different type of beer to enter in the contest. Each round they taste test 2 of the beers and vote on the one they like the best. There were 16 beers entered in the contest, and nobody knew what type of beer they were tasting. It operated sort of like a basketball bracket... the beer with the most votes moves onto the next round. In the end it came down to Spotted Cow and Miller High Life. To everyones surprise High Life won!

Wish Spencer and I luck because next Sunday Spencer will be running his first 5k!