Soccer!

Emily and Addison played soccer this past fall, and Chris was their coach!

Their team was named The Unicorns, and it consisted of three sets of twins. We got to spend every Saturday in September and October with our dear friends the Robbs and the Homolkas.

Jenna and Alexis are identical twins, and Katie would try to give one a clip or something so Chris could tell them apart, but the best way to tell is that Alexis is usually wearing pink while Jenna is usually wearing purple. Kiara and Annika are not at all identical. Kiara is quite a bit shorter than Annika, and Annika's hair is super long.

All 6 girls loved Coach Chris, and we parents looked at Coach Chris with awe as he herded these little rambunctious 4 year olds around and turned them into a team!

We met at Westfield Park every Saturday at 1:30 for a short practice followed by a game against another team. Our first practice/game happened on September 12th, when we were up against the Rowdies. This definitely wasn't the first game for the Rowdies, but they went easy on us and it was a fun game!

Go for it Em!

Yeah Addie!

Elizabeth and Clark had fun cheering their sisters on!

Let's Take Dad to the Zoo!

On a nice sunny Saturday in November, we decided it was high time Chris came along for a trip to the zoo. What a wonderful day it was. Going to the zoo is always a treat, but it's extra extra special when Dad can come. Emily's favorite animal is the flamingo. Her obsession started when she got a giant stuffed flamingo at a fall garage sale. Now whenever we visit the zoo, the flamingos are a must see. In November, they had been moved to their indoor habitat, so we got to watch them squirm (were they feeling claustrophobic or were we just projecting onto them?) in their small winter home. The best parts for me, though, were watching the girls smiles on the carrousel ride and feeding the Lorikeets.

Cotton Candy...a must at the zoo!

Addison was wearing her Elsa hat complete with long blonde braid. We had SO MANY people ask if it was her real hair!

Emily LOVED feeding the Lorikeets!

Elizabeth was very brave and did it too!

There are some drums for kids to play by the Great Apes exhibit, so we ended our zoo day with some drumming and dancing. What fun!

Sledding and Science

The big girls don't have school on Wednesdays, so it is our "wide open" day, when we're not worried about schedules. Sometimes we stay in our pjs till noon. Sometimes we leave the house early and stay out until late in the afternoon.

On this beautiful snowy Wednesday in November, we spend the morning sledding and the afternoon experimenting.

We woke up to the most snow we'd had yet, so the kids immediately requested to get bundled up and go out in it. The first thing Emily did when she got out there was to plop down and start a snow angel.

Elizabeth was super excited to be out in the snow, but she was not a big fan of being cold, so she didn't last long.

Addie wanted to get right on the sled.

After a few minutes of cold fingers, Elizabeth had had enough and went running for the door. Her reaction reminded me quite a lot of the last picture in this post.

The big girls REALLY wanted to bring the sled to the pool park hill, and on a day like this one, I just couldn't say no.

Emily was the first one to head up the hill. She was heading up practically at a run, she was so excited to zoom down.

Addie wasn't far behind.

The girls took several runs down before we decided it was time to head home for some hot cocoa.




After hot cocoa and lunch, we decided to have some science time. We started out using droppers to add vinegar to our colored baking soda, and we ooooed and ahhhhed over the fizzy results.

Then we decided to throw caution to the wind and we put aside our droppers and just began to POUR the vinegar. These results were giggle and squeal-inducing and we went through the entire bottle of vinegar in no time.

What a fun day with these three snow bunny scientists!

Fall Nature

Our neighbor's front tree is always one of the first ones on the block to change colors. It dumps tons of leaves, which I gladly rake into our yard into huge piles for the kids to jump in. (The neighbors love that I "steal" their leaves, Chris does not.) The combination of a perfectly blue sky behind bright fall leaves is a sight so beautiful that it always makes me catch my breath and take a minute to soak in the view.

I love the way birds line up along a wire. I noticed these cuties while we were having a family day at the pumpkin patch.

The maple in our backyard turns the most brilliant red, and early in the season, just the tips of the leaves turn, while the center remains bright green. The kids collected these multi-colored leaves.

One of my favorite views from our house is out the side window, where I can sit and watch the birds at the bird feeder. We always get lots of birds in the fall, so we try to keep the feeder full.

We had some stale bagels, and instead of throwing them out, we decided to cover them with peanut butter and birdseed for the birds. This little fella found them instead, though. But we had lots of fun watching him hang from the branches, doing acrobatics for treats. He reminded us a lot of the squirrels in one of the girls' favorite books, Those Darn Squirrels, so we pretended to be Old Man Fookwire and we shook our fists at him.

By the beginning of November, the maple was on fire, a deep beautiful red.