Trying to catch up

Well, in an attempt to catch up on posting from the last four months, I've added three new posts below highlighting the events from August, September and October month. Pictures for each and a post for November will hopefully be coming soon. I'm going to try to be better about updating much more frequently.

October

October was a very fun month for us! We started off with Colin's birthday. Colin just loves The Count from Sesame Street so we headed up to Philly to celbrate his birthday at Sesame Place. Sesame Place was having a special Halloween event - The Count's Halloween Spooktacular with tons of fun shows and trick-or-treating in the park. The weather wasn't great (are you seeing a trend here?) but we made it a great day regardless. The park was not very crowded so we got to meet tons of the characters. Colin and Keira just went crazy when they saw The Count. Ryan even got to be part of the Elmo's World Live show. Colin definitely had a terrific birthday!
The next day, we had a birthday celebration with Grammy, PopPop, Aunt Meghan, Aunt Erica, Uncle Dan, Cloe, Mara, Jenna, Ella, Aiden, Uncle Matt, Aunt Christine, Caroline and Patrick.
Colin had his two year old check-up:

September

September proved to be a very busy month. As soon as we got back from Philly, Keira and I had to visit a new preschool for her. The teacher (Mrs. Nalls) that she was supposed to have at the old preschool quit and everyone in the class was heading to different schools this year. We were very fortunate and completely blessed to get a spot of the waiting list at Fairfax Presbyterian Preschool in Mrs Nalls' class! We were thrilled that Keira's best friend Mia also got into the same class.
Before Keira started school, we took a trip to Indiana to for Popcorn Festival and introduce Ryan to Blair's family. The trip timed nicely with the Cubs vs Pirates game in Pittsburgh so we decided to break the drive up with a few day stop in Pittsburgh. Again, the weather didn't coorporate for us to get to the water park but we had alot of fun at the National Avery, the Carnegie Mellon Science Center and the Pittsburgh Zoo. We ended with taking Ryan to his first baseball game. Unfortunately when we came home from the game, I started feeling lousy and only got worse for the next two days. Blair was a trooper loading up the car by himself and doing all of the driving.
We didn't end up making it to Popcorn Festival but Keira and Colin had tons of fun playing with cousins Kaylee and Drew. Ryan got to meet Aunt Julie, Uncle George, Aunt Mary, Uncle Randy, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Paul. We all got to enjoy a nice dinner together. That Sunday, we enjoyed a special breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa for Grandparents' Day before starting the drive back home. We stayed outside of Cleveland for the night and finish the drive the next day. All in all,
both Maddux and Ryan did excellent on the long car ride and their first stays in a hotel.
As soon as we got home, it was time to unpack and get to bed so Keira was ready to start school the next morning. Keira had a little tough time saying goodbye to me at school (she was crying and had to be pulled off of me by the teacher and another parent) but had calmed down within a few minutes after I left. Keira loves school so much now that I barely get a goodbye before she darts into her classroom!
The rest of the month was not crazy with travel but very hectic as I started back at work part-time and frantically tried to accomplish a few things before I started back full-time at the end of the month.

August

Well, August proved to be a crazy month. Ryan got released from the hospital on the 7th. Blair had one week left of his leave so we frantically tried to enjoy the time while accomplishing a few projects around the house (I think all that got done was Blair cleaning out the garage). Blair went back to work in the middle of August and I took the kids up to Philly so Ryan could meet a good number of relatives (AuntErica, Uncle Dan, Cloe, Mara, Jenna, Ella, Aiden, Uncle Matt, Aunt Christine, Caroline, Patrick, Aunt Eileene, Aunt Cass, Uncle Rick, and Brian as well as Terry and Mary Ann) and I could get some more help/pampering from my parents and sister Meghan. Ryan was an angel on the car ride sleeping the entire trip! A week and a half flew by as we had fun just hanging out and visiting family.
Blair joined us in Philly the following weekend. Our plans for a fun family day at Sesame Place got rained out but we ended up having a fantastic time at the circus. The month and our trip to Philly ended with a carnival-themed birthday party for Cloe and PopPop.