Fall Fun 2013

We have kicked off the fall season with a full line up this year.  We've been apple picking and pumpkin painting.  We've been to high school football games and participated in our first book character parade.  We've decorated the front porch and I even broke down and gave our kitchen chalkboard a little festiveness.

Brooks started 3 year preschool and has loved every single minute of it.  He has done well behavior-wise at school and that's all you can really ask for right now :)  He gets to paint and eat a snack and play instruments every day at school and what more could you want when you're three?

Will had his first kindergarten musical performance and it was so precious! Remember the pre-k graduation 4 months ago where I had to drag him across the stage??  Well, I'm not sure what happened, because even as we walked into the school last Tuesday night, Will was telling me he wasn't going to sing...but he surprised everyone (even himself I think) and stood on the front row and sang with the other kindergarteners!!  I was so happy and proud of him.

Our school fall break just ended and I can't believe we just have a few weeks until Thanksgiving break, and then Christmas.  It seems to just fly by! The biggest news over fall break was that Tessa started walking!!!  Our whole little family was in the living room together when Tessa took her first one and half steps.  The boys went NUTS over their baby sister.  She definitely has her own traveling cheering section.

We took our big boys one their first hike and they did pretty well.  The terrain was kind of moderate - mountainous and rocky, but they did well.  It wore them out and I was pleased with that outcome! They chased lizards and climbed trees along the way.  It was a fun day with our boys.

We have a busy couple of months coming up - Tessa's one year portraits are next week.  A pumpkin patch field trip coming up.  A stuck-like-glue baby tooth getting pulled (Will officially has two rows of teeth now.  Yikes.)  An upcoming date night to a wedding.  Halloween.  Thanksgiving.  And I am working on a HUGE surprise for the kiddos for Christmas.  Stay tuned....

Back From Summer Break

Obviously, I took a sabbatical from blogging this summer.  I didn't do it intentionally, but our summer was crazy and blogging always seemed to get pushed further and further back until it was too far gone to recover from.

We started the summer off with a bang - we went to the beach and my iphone was stolen.  Nice.  So *most* of our pics from that trip are gone forever.  But I do have a few....

(Will lost his first tooth at the beach too!)

We also had one of the wettest summers ever recorded down here in GA - so although my boys spent a few good weeks in the pool for swimming lessons, we didn't actually see much pool time this summer.  Bummer.

Mr. Brooks had his tonsils and adenoids removed and tubes placed in both ears.  That was a super fun two weeks at the Rutledge house.  Not. 

(obviously after the funny medicine)

After about 10 mins of "funny medicine" Brooks was having trouble holding his little noggin up.  So his head was bobbing around and out of nowhere, he exclaimed "GUYS! You know what's holding my head up right now?! MY NECK!" It was so funny! The entire group burst into laughter.  He immediately passed out.

At his post-surgery check-up he was 100% back to his rambunctious self.

The husband and I abandoned left our children with their loving grandparents and went away to Charleston, SC for a weekend (my birthday weekend to be exact!).  I pretty much fell in love with Charleston the instant we got there. 

Miss Tessa celebrated her first birthday - YAYYYYY!  And as typical with the third child, my effort for her party was so minimal that I didn't even send out invites.  I actually (gasp!) TEXTED our friends and family the week before and told them to come over for cake.  See?  And just like that - she had a birthday party.  It was soooooo awesome.

And Mr. Will started kindergarten.  Oh man.  I am still getting used to him being old enough for kindergarten.  And some days, I want to go to the school and jerk him out, saying "ummmm - let's just forget this ever happened.  He'll be back next year."  But he likes it.  For the most part.  He doesn't so much like the school work, but he loves eating at the big picnic tables (the cafeteria) and playing on the playground (he actually just informed me yesterday that he doesn't so much play on the playground, as he walks over to the wood line and hangs out, pretending he's tending to his imaginery horses). Computer class and PE are hits too (he's done his first crab-crawl relay too!  Anyone else remember those??)

So yea - that's our summer in a nutshell.  Now that it's September, I'm ready for cooler (and hopefully dry) weather, jeans, football, pumpkin spice lattes, apple picking, pumpkin patches and Halloween candy.  Hopefully our days will be calm enough for my blogging too :)