We really don't have any words for this...

Noah leans toward the creative side. He is the kind of kid that rarely plays with toys as they are intended to be played with. This is a great example of that. He used a crane, a stuffed animal, and a Halloween bucket to create a trap. In this particular scene, the poor stuffed animal has been successfully captured by this device. We took a lot of comfort in the fact that when Noah strung up his little doggy, he did so by it's foot and not it's neck. In our book, that's a win.

Soccer!!!

This is the one year that Noah and Ryla would be eligible to be on the same soccer team. That means we pretty much had to make sure they were. They really had no idea what they were doing, to them, this was just another obligatory "act cute" photo opp. But they really nailed it!

Aidan played soccer last fall and loved it. He still plays all the time and can't wait for his turn to be on a team again. Because his wisdom and skill are vastly superior to that of his little brother and sister, Aidan got to join dad on the coaching staff for the team. His official title is Assistant to the Head Coach.

The first practice was pretty much pure chaos. Ryla is the oldest kid on the team by at least 6 months, and three of the kids didn't turn 3 until after the season had started. Noah may look like he worked hard in practice. Actually, we couldn't really get him on the field- he just played on the play set. And Ryla was happy to pose for the pic, but she spent the rest of the practice working on her cart wheels.

Keller is a little boy from our neighborhood who is on the team with Noah and Ryla. The three of them are really good influences on each other... okay, they're not, but they have a lot of fun.

We noticed that both of them have a good sense of image management. Rya knows how to present a soft and subtle presence that invites others to notice her. Noah is more of the "I'm gonna kick you in the shin type." I think he sticks out his gut to make himself look bigger to the other kids.

The kids didn't really seem to know much about soccer, but they were pretty quick at picking up the team name. Remembering that they are the Ant Eaters was about the only measurable outcome for the first two practices.

Notice that this is one of those rare moment in little kid soccer when there is not a blob around the ball. Our kids don't really seem to have that tendency to clump up. They pretty much just hand out and wait for the other team to score- why run all over the field when the ref will just bring the ball back to the middle and let you kick it again?

Watching Aidan "coach" little brother and sister is probably the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. We laugh about a lot of the actual game play, but this is a pretty cool experience. Chances are that in 10 years they won't remember much of this, but at least will have the pics to look back on, and we'll be able to tell them how they looked out for each other, learned from each other, and made each other better. Hopefully, they will remember those lessons- even if they never learn how to dribble a soccer ball.

He's sort of a suck up...

Yes, yes, Noah is full of life. You might say that his passion bubble is close to the surface. He's fairly notorious for causing trouble, but he's no dummy. He's learned that you can get away with a log if you periodically put your cute pants on and do something sweet. This is Noah's latest effort to earn some brownie points. Some have said they think it's weird that he's in his underwear. We agree. It's a little out of character for him to have underwear on. He's usually more of the birthday suit kinda kid.

We've got a genius in the house!

Aidan has never been that kid who thinks reading is fun, but math just seems to be kind of a breeze for him. This past week he had a surprise math quiz in class. Out little man was the only kid in his class to get a 100%. To top it off, he was the only kid to even finish the math quiz. What did he get for being awesome? A certificate for a burger and fries from Mighty Fine. Well done, kid. Well done.

Noah Gets Chopped

Aside from a constant presence of bumps, bruises, scrapes, and abrasions, Noah's mad-scientist hair is probably his most defining characteristic. Well, we had noticed that his hair was becoming a little less "cute little boy" and a little more "hot mess of crazy." We were constantly finding twigs, leaves, and other debris stuck in there, so we figured it was finally time to get this almost 4 year old his first hair cut. We expected a rediculous scene in which we would be providing fellow patrons ear plugs so they could endure Noah's fit of terror when the clippers first touched his head. We couldn't have been more wrong. 

This kids was so stinking excited to get to be the one to sit in the chair and get his hair chopped off. I"m guessing he had seen big brother do it enough to know that it was going to be ok. It was a good chance for us to be reminded that he's becoming old enough to care about being like big brother, which will have to be a blog post of it's own before too long.

He thought the whole thing was fascinating, but the spray bottle was his favorite part since spray bottles are one of his favorite toys. He did a top-shelf job of sitting still in the chair while the stylist did her thing.

And when it was time for his "post-hair cut look how cute I am shot" he was totally ready. Good bye little toddler, hello Mr. Big Stuff.,

No big shocker there, this is the one that really got mama. When she saw her two little boys hugging on each other, she was the hot mess. But who can blame her. This really is the kind of photo that you hold on to for the rest of your life as evidence you're kids really do like each other.

Noah (finally) Goes Back to Pre-School

Despite our best efforts, Noah is 100% the baby of the family in every way. This is the kid who can get away with murder...he's also the one most likely to commit one! He's our little explosion of energy and he lives with his passion bubble very close to the surface. These are all great things that we enjoy about Noah, but it should be mentioned that these traits do not mix well with a summer stuck at home! It's fair to say that Noah's return to Pre-School is a welcome event for everyone in the family and will go a long way toward helping us all live in peace and happiness. I just wished Noah seemed more excited about it.

If you pay attention to things like the date on a post, you'll notice that this is actually going up about a month after he started schools, so you'll be glad to know that the start of the year has been really great for him. He loves his friends, his teachers, and going to the office with dad. His teacher this year is the same teacher Aidan had in his first year of Pre-School, and Noah loves Mrs. Mangum just as much as Aidan did. In face, we keep having him correct us about how things are supposed to be done because that's how Mrs. Mangum said to do things.

A Treacherous Adventure and Old Time Train Ride

A requirement of living in the Austin area is that you surrender the idea of going for "walks." In ATX, people go on hikes. And the best part is that you can go on said hike down a semi-developed trail, completely surrounded by nature, feeling like you're in the middle of the forest, and be 2 minutes from downtown. We decided the kids were old enough to tackle one of these above mentioned hikes. Just before school started, we loaded up the crew and met up with some good friends.

Ryla is always grateful to have some girl friends to rescue her from life in a home with a male-majority.

And the boys just want to throw rocks and hit things with sticks...

The boys were cracking us up that day. They kept seeing runners with their shirts off and asking why the runners got to take their shirts off and the kids didn't. In their words, they wanted to, "show off their muscles. too." Just like all good parents do, we caved once they pushed us over our whining-limit.

When you're in the woods with no shirts on and you find a dry creek bed with giant rocks and boulders, there's really nothing you can do except climb all over them. I should mentioned an important aside. We cam across this creek bed about roughly 300 yards after getting on the trail. That's as far as we got for the day. Once they climbed all over the rocks for about 20 minutes they were all near the point of death via heat stroke. So our hike was really just a 600 yard stroll to a bunch of rocks, but it was still an adventure to them.

It's cool to show your muscles off by losing your shirt, but it's way cooler to get rid of your shirt and carry rocks over your head...

After the first 100 feet of trail walking, there was a steady rotation of small children looking for shoulder rides. Everyone knows that this is really why dad's go on trips like this, because who wants to go through the trouble of renting a pack mule for the day?

And here are a couple obligatory "aren't our kids cute!?" pictures. These 6 really do enjoy hanging out with each other. We're big fans of the Dishman crew and wish we didn't live on the complete opposite side of Austin from them.

Once we completed our perilous 600 yard trek, the kids needed a chance to rest and recover, and since were just down the street from the Zilker Zypher, it seemed to be an ideal spot to allow for that.