Time is flying by and we're already nearing the end of September! We're a few weeks into football season and the kids are really enjoying watching the Notre Dame games this year!
Sarah and Austin are still in love with their baby brother and shower him with kisses all day long.
Trevor "watching" the ND vs Purdue game.
Austin hanging out on the couch in his ND jersey. He is very excited that he has a jersey with #5 on it. He says, "I'm Manti Te'o AND the quarterback!"
A litte self portrait of Sarah and I (not easy to do with the big camera).
Bedtime snuggle time. Austin and Sarah love it when I lay Trevor down beside them each when I say their bedtime prayer and tuck them into bed at night.
All this past month, Steve has been volunteering on the weekends at the booth that Austin's school runs at the Renaissance Festival. Since Daddy always loved the festival when he was a kid, we decided to attempt visiting Daddy while he was working a shift at the festival booth. It was agreed that he'd have a few hours off to spend with us and off we went. Daddy was already there working when we arrived. The kiddos posed for a photo at the "Welcome" sign.
We found Daddy, but it took a while before we could pull him away from his volunteer work. We had some lunch (I brought a picnic lunch for the kids - great idea!). During that time, Austin knocked Sarah off the picnic bench and she ended up face first in the dirt and rocks, muddy, screaming, bleeding from her forehead. All while Steve was off getting us some bottles of water and I was holding Trevor. Why don't mom's grow extra arms when we have kids?
After everybody was settled down, we walked around for a bit. It was very crowded, dusty, and getting warm, so we didn't last long, but we did a few things before the kids were flipping out and needed to go home. First Austin took a ride on the butterfly ride.
Sarah opted out, but had fun waving to Austin on the ride.
Trevor hanging out in his carseat/stroller on his first real outing.
We wandered toward the petting zoo part and saw elephants and camels among others. Sarah was quite interested in the animals.
There was a little show in which a group of kids and an adult danced, did tricks, and then brought out animals to show the kids.
Sarah was mesmerized.
Unfortunately, Austin started sobbing when the actors went around in the audience with magic wands and sprinkled a small amount of glitter off their wands onto the kids. He flipped out about the glitter and left sobbing. Trevor was starting to get sweaty and fussy around this time and got so upset he scratched his face to the point of bleeding. Sadly, despite Sarah really enjoying the show, we had to call it quits and leave. After another 20 mins or so finding the exit, another 30 mins trekking out to the car (with a still sobbing Austin in tow), we managed to make it home. Steve had to stay to finish working at the booth, but I managed to get the 3 kids home, bathed, into clean clothes, fed and happy all by myself.
Nanny and Grandpa came over to have supper with us and watch the ND game that evening. Nanny cheered up Austin by bringing the pit crew chiefs for some of his car sets. He is obsessed with CARS right now and is collecting pretty much every character he can from the movie. Nanny has also shown him eBay and he is now quite pushy on asking Nanny to look up more toys he wants on eBay. Ugh!
Sarah got a Winnie the Pooh needlepoint that used to be in Austin's room, but with a new mat and frame, matches Sarah's room beautifully.
Grandpa got some snuggle time with Trevor.
During the game, when ND scored, Brian did his celebratory push ups for the score. This time, the challenge was greater, as he was lifting additional pounds in the form of a cute blonde girl on his back.
Austin got in on the action too. Michelle helped.
Nanny and Grandpa snuggle time.
Other random cute photos...
Sarah is the big kid at home when Austin is at school. The other day, she decided she would read stories to Trevor. Very cute, but unfortunately, she pokes him in the face with the book fairly often.
Cutie baby!
This past weekend, we headed to ND for the ND vs. Michigan game. Before we left, Austin and Sarah helped Mommy make our travel tradition - homemade chocolate chip cookies for the drive. I also made oatmeal butterscotch cookies, since those are some of Steve's favorites. The big kids helped out, while Trevor had a little nap.
Licking the beaters...yummy!
After baking the cookies, we brought half of them over to Nanny and Grandpa's house, so they could have some in their car for the drive. While there, Sarah got suited up in her chef outfit to do some serious cooking in the play kitchen in the basement. (Check out the shoes too - she got out Nanny's workout shoes and shuffled around in them).
Then we got on the road Friday morning. The drive went pretty smoothly, thanks in part to Nanny coming along with us to help with the kids, and the new set of DVD players that attach to the headrests in the car and allow the kids to either watch separate movies or the same movie showing on both screens. Trevor was a little trooper and slept almost the whole way. We arrived at Uncle Jim's house around supper time and settled in. Uncle Jim got to meet Trevor and have some snuggle time.
The next morning, Austin and Sarah could barely contain their excitement.
Little Irish fan ready for his first game day on campus!
First we headed to St. Joseph, MI to visit Tom and Mary.
The kids were all smiles when Mary showed them a little stuffed puppy that rolls around and giggles like crazy.
Then it was off to campus...
When we got to ND, Sarah was so excited that she could see the Golden Dome! Here she is pointing out her discovery.
We found our old friend Mackenzie at her tailgate and got to catch up a bit. I neglected to take a photo with Mackenzie. I did, however, catch a photo of this little guy in a homemade replica of the band uniform. He even had little cymbals! How cute!
Our family of 5 in front of the Dome!
Then with Nanny and Grandpa and Auntie Michelle and Uncle Brian!
Baby's first visit to ND!
We were so blessed to not only find Mackenzie, but then also got to see Scott and Kim! They are living at ND because Scott is now a professor there! They were so sweet and made us and the kids a gift basket full of treats and adorable customized coloring pages for the kids. How wonderful! Then we made our way to LaFortune to find roomie Margaret! We ran into the Kankas right by the Dome and managed to get us all in a photo. Yay for ND friends!
Then we headed to the concert on the steps.
Trevor slept right through it.
Austin and Sarah loved it.
While hanging around after the concert, we were surprised when the F16s that were going to do the fly by over the stadium during the pre-game show buzzed the campus with individual low level fly bys. It was EXTREMELY loud and scared the kids. It was remarkable how quickly the reflexes of the adults kicked in, though. Within seconds of the first one approaching, I covered Trevor's ears, Michelle hugged Sarah against her leg and covered her ears, and Nanny grabbed Austin to cover his. After that was over, we headed over to the marching band step off. Uncle Jim lifted Sarah up to see them march by and Austin got right up front.
Then we split up. Steve headed to the game with Grandpa, Uncle Jim, Michelle and Brian while Nanny and I took the kids. We headed to the bookstore briefly, then grabbed some dinner before trekking back to the car to drive back to Jim's house. We got back around 10 pm, got the kids to bed, then watched the game on DVR.
The next morning, we turned the game on again for the kids to watch since they missed it the night before.
Grandpa got some snuggle time.
While Austin and Sarah built forts out of the couch cushions.
What a fun, busy, whirlwind weekend. Time with family, getting to meet up with friends, and an Irish victory over Michigan...what more could we ask for?
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