Season's Greetings!

We are ready for Christmas, the excitement is building. Last night the boys were trying to help me wrap some presents. Tonight I'll wait until after they are in bed, I'm afraid of their help at this point. We have made a trip to talk to Santa. Hunter couldn't think of anything he wanted when he saw Santa; Carter on the other hand knew exactly what he wanted "Diego Train". In fact Carter has seen Santa multiple times and has been consistent in his request. We are all ready to spend time with our family. It is hard to believe Carter has only been with our family for 5 months now, it feels like forever. As we celebrate Christmas I am thankful that I have two wonderful boys to enjoy the holiday with!

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Six years ago we had beautiful warm weather all day and then tornados at night. Far from our current frigid weather we experienced today. I remember the beautiful weather six years ago not because I was outside to enjoy it, instead I was in a hospital room with newly arrived Hunter.

We celebrated with a Star Wars - Indiana Jones birthday party earlier this month, but today is the actual special day. Since it was his birthday Hunter got to be the superstar at school which includes bringing the snack for the day. Hunter always seems more excited to be the superstar because he gets to pick up the bus bag (I really don't know what that means except it is a big deal to him). He got to stand up in a chair while his class sang him "Happy Birthday".

We told Hunter we would take him out to dinner and he could pick anywhere he wanted to go. Soooo..... we went to McDonald's.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

At the pumpkin patch:

Daddy I want a bigga bigga pumpkin!

This one is heavy.

Nothing but good news...

The Rockets won their game tonight by a landslide, well... they won if anyone was keeping score. Hunter got in the game and did a good job until he got tired of running. He says defense is better, less running.

Carter went to school yesterday and today without tears. Today he even managed to take a short nap which is an improvement from yesterday. When you ask him if he had fun at school he says "YES". According to Miss Joyce he had a great time cutting and using glue today.

Carter's First Day of "School"

We survived and it wasn't as terrible and I had been dreading. Don't get me wrong, there were tears involved and it wasn't easy saying good-bye. I did not cry though, yay! His teacher said he did calm down about five minutes after I left. When I picked him up I got a smile and a hug without any pouting (another score, yay). I asked Carter if he had fun and he said yes. When Todd came home he still answered yes school was fun. Carter has shared some stories with me about school, but I can't say I understood any of them. When he babbles now I think it is somewhere between Chinese and English; I'm not sure that there is anyone who speaks his babble language. His teacher did report that he seemed to especially enjoy story time when she read the class a book. Carter apparently kept getting up and having the teacher go back to the previous page in order to point out things in the picture (oh no, like our family can handle much more attention to detail, lol).

Since this is all about Carter I'll include some pictures Grandma sent me of Carter and his Grandpa Disch playing with trains. Carter may be Grandpa's only shot at another rail fan in the family (yikes), but there is still plenty of time for Carter to grow out of it:)

Happy Birthday to Grammy!

Grandparent birthday season has officially started, 4 more before Hunter's December birthday. Hunter helped bake the cake; he used the mixer for the first time then helped with the icing and decorating. Carter managed to get his fingers in the cake before we served it:) Both boys helped their Grammy out by blowing out the candles for her.

It's so hard to not always get your way.

Two months have flown by, but it seems like we have been 2+2 forever.

Hunter seems to be enjoying kindergarten and has pretty much adjusted to his new routine and responsibilities. Fall soccer season officially started last night with the first game. Hunter's team is called the Rockets this year. Carter was a pretty great cheerleader for his big brother. "Kick the ball Hunter", "Go Hunter Go", "Good job".

Carter visited his new "school" this week and was as excited as he could be that there was a train in his room. He isn't too excited about the idea that mom is going to be leaving him at school to go to work. It appears that we will have several rough and tearful mornings ahead of us. Next week is my last week off from work. Carter will have some half days at school to help transition into our new routine.

Other than that, we are all doing great. Carter's English continues to increase at such an impressive speed. He added such words/phrases as "upside down", "yes", "hold on", "mine", "Carter try", "I need to pee-pee/poop", "Hungry, let's eat", to mention a few of the newer ones. Another recent change is when he sees a picture of himself he says that's Carter versus Si En.

Here are some September pictures as we head into Fall.

Couldn't resist adding two more pictures...

Grandma sent me these pictures today and I couldn't resist posting them. Here are the shots of Carter petting Pa-Pa's catfish.

Fun at the Lake

It was pointed out to me that I got out of order on the blog. Bear with me and go back in time to before Hunter was a Kindergartener and I was a year younger. A whole two weeks ago. We went to Smithville Lake with Grandma and Pa-Pa. The boys had a blast fishing and taking a ride on the innertube. Carter did catch a fish, but had more fun putting his hands all over the ones Pa-Pa caught.

Hunter fishing.


Carter ready to go.



Hunter's first dip into the lake.

This was more fun for the boys than Dad I believe and less painful.

A big day for Hunter.

Well Hunter has now completed his first day of kindergarten and it was done without tears (his or mine). When I asked him about his day he told me what he ate and drank, that is what stood out for him. He was concerned that some of the kids were doing unsafe things on the monkey bars, but not him. He is often worried about safety after all.

Hunter in his classroom during the open house on Monday.

Hunter ready to go to school and not wanting Mommy to take his picture before we left.

Sprinkler Fun

Some simple yard chores turned into a sprinkler play time and I had to grab the camera and share. I have to say we have some pretty cute kids.