Happy 6th Birthday Nick!

Nick started out his birthday with 6 candles in his french toast sticks!

Opening presents from his brothers and mom and dad.

Nick got a football goal post, football and a flag football set!  Later in the day we hosted Thanksgiving dinner and a family birthday party for Nick!  The kids all had fun playing football outside together on a rare warm and beautiful Thanksgiving day. 

"Some assembly required"  Sam was all over that one and ready to help!

Ready to play!  Nick got his Bears jersey from Grandpa Dan and Grandma Jill when they visited last weekend.  He has worn it every chance since then!

Time to kick a few footballs!

The brothers playing football!

Grandma Bonnie gave Nick a very cool race track!

Nick's cake!  We got his cake from a local bakery, they did a great job and Nick was so happy with it!

Grandma Bonnie and Nick.

Celebrating with Friends!

Nick celebrated his 6th birthday on November 22nd, Thanksgiving day, this year!  Before the big day we had a celebration with his friends from school, a few other special friends, and his 2 little brothers.  The party was held at Off the Wall Sports where Nick plays soccer.  The kids all played soccer and kick ball for the first half of the party and then it was pizza and cake time!  

Sam was an excellent goalie!

Soccer!

At Nick's request, his cake this year was a football field!  I was proud of the candle goal posts!

Ready for pizza!

Cake time!

Happy Birthday to Nick!

The goody bags!  Eric was very popular at that particular moment!

Ben, checking out the goodies!

Nick really had a fun time at his party playing with his friends.   It's hard to believe that he is 6 already!  I don't know where the time has gone.  At age 6 Nick is really into football.  He can tell you the scores from all of the NFL games from the past weekend, and a few scores of games from last year as well, and which teams will be playing one another the next weekend.  He loves to play football out in the backyard and in the basement with his brothers and mom and dad. He likes to hang out with his brothers and tackles them constantly, it doesn't matter where we are, school, library, Target.  It's very cute to hear the conversations that take place between Nick and his brothers.  There is a lot of "poopy talk" but some serious talk as well.  He is reading more and more and likes to read to his brothers at night.  He wants to be an pilot when he grows up.  He is our sweet, sensitive, smart little boy! 

Our backyard

We had our first snowfall last week!  It was just a light dusting that lasted a couple of hours, but it sure was beautiful!  

Nick and I had a surprise the other morning as we headed out the door to walk to the bus stop!  This buck was standing in our back yard, staring at us!  It was an exciting sight to see!  

Sunny afternoon

One afternoon last week we took advantage of the beautiful weather and raced remote control cars on the driveway!  Nick and Sam are getting big enough now to really control the cars and keep them on the drive, most of the time!

Special Visitors!

We enjoyed a visit with Grandpa Dan and Grandma Jill and Michael last weekend!  The boys all had so much fun hanging out and playing football together!  Michael was able to share a few football skills with our kids!

The barber shop

We recently switched from the Cookie Cutters haircuts for kids to a grown up barber shop!  While they don't have TVs and video games to play, the boys sure do enjoy the dum dum sucker they get at the end!  And I love that they all 3 get their haircuts at once!

Mama took the boys to the zoo!

We enjoyed a beautiful day at the Indianapolis Zoo recently.  I liked the boys' impressions of the flamingos!  

Shark tank!

ILL-INI

Nick, Sam and Ben attended their first University of Illinois football game a couple of weeks ago in Champaign.  Ironically, they played Indiana University, and lost!  We enjoyed being back in Champaign after living there for many years, many years ago!  It was a beautiful, crisp, fall afternoon.  Perfect football weather.

The highlight of the day was watching the boys play their own game of football on the quad.  Eric was excited to see the campus and all of the changes from the past 12 years.  It was fun for him to share it with his sons!  

The boys all posed for a picture perfect photo!  Our friends Dave and his son Chris, came along too.  We met Dave during our early years in Champaign!  He and Eric had labs next to one another in graduate school. 

Halloween 2012

The boys loved carving the pumpkin!  They all 3 had a say in just how the face should look.

One more pumpkin to decorate, with marker this time!

Superheroes, unite!

Sam, the Hulk.

Batman Ben.

Spiderman Nick.

All ready to go trick or treating!  It was a beautiful, but chilly, night!  Mommy and Daddy felt very safe  with our little superheroes protecting us!

We trick or treated in our neighborhood of 20 homes.  It was the perfect amount of walking and wagon riding for the kids.  Nick was starting to catch on a bit towards the end of the night of the benefits to trick or treating in a larger neighborhood!

What a night!