4 year old Check-Up

Ty had his 4 year old check-up on Friday. He is getting so big! Poor thing had to get 3 shots plus the flu mist. He was limping last night because his thighs were sore. It was pitiful! After the first shot he said "that hurt" and started whimpering.

He weighs 43 pounds and is 42 1/2 inches tall. He had a hearing test and did pretty well on that. He missed the lowest tones but most likely due to some congestion from his allergies. He is often stuffy nosed, congested, and snores. So we are going to add an allergy nasal spray to his Zyrtec to hopefully clear up the allergies even more.

We are seeing glimpses of more independence which is nice! He often wants things done for him and we often remind him that he isn't a baby. :)  Friday night before we went out to dinner he wanted to change his shirt by himself. He said he needed privacy. Here is the video...I was laughing the whole time Andy was recording. Hilarious. Listen for him to say "right" when he checks to see if his shirt is on the right way. Once he spots Andy you see a smile...ADORABLE!!!

Ty loves his preschool so very much. He asks when his next school day is all the time. He just marches in by himself when Andy drops him off. He is very proud of his projects when he comes home from school and is excited about choosing a book from his very first book order.

Happy 4th Birthday Ty!

 Ty turned 4 on September 12th. He had been planning his birthday party for at least a month. He talked about it so much before it actually happened. It was quite fun to see his excitement! 

 Don't you love his birthday crown? It's from preschool and he wore it at home on his birthday and the following Friday night at his family birthday party! It was just so adorable. I love it! Luke did the same thing with his preschool hats.

 One of his gifts from Mommy & Daddy. A remote control car from the movie Cars. 

 Ok. Guess who made the cake?! ANDREW! Made the ENTIRE cake. He used a box mix but he also used fondant and mocha flavored icing for in between the layers and for the dirty icing. Wow! Impressive! Everyone loved the cake and it was delicious. I was so proud of him. He is very creative. I love the license plate. He modeled it after the yellow car above from the movie CARS. Ty said this was the best cake EVER!

 My big boy blowing out his candles. We had family over for pizza, veggies, and cake/ice cream. Lots of cousin play time and opening presents. This little guy had a GREAT birthday!

T-ball Player

Luke is playing Fall T-ball again and LOVING it! He is one of the oldest (and tallest) on the team. He is confident and having fun. He has a great coach who is really working with the kids at practice to teach the kids some skills. It's nice! Luke is learning a lot on the Leaping Lizards. The games go through the end of September. Our neon green shirts are hard to miss. :)

 Nice swing!

Playing 2nd base.

Tyler starts preschool!

Tyler had his first day of preschool this morning! He is SO thrilled to be going to school now. He was beyond ready. He will be 4 in just a couple of weeks but we started him in the 3 year old class for many reasons. He loved his teachers, his "projects", and was all smiles when Andy picked him up. He had no trouble going into his class which is wonderful news! We are so proud of our Big Boy!

Back to School

We have finished our first week of school. The boys had a good first 3 days. Luke loves 1st grade and already made a new friend. Wilson said 3rd grade is "awesome" and is in class with his best friend! I was absolutely exhausted but have recovered this weekend. :) Luke is still recovering...he has been pretty grumpy!

Our school is still under renovation so I just started unpacking my room on Friday. I don't have students yet so it wasn't a big deal. I am happy to have a place now and am going in this afternoon to work on setting up. The main corner of my room looks something like this:

Tyler sure misses his "bruders" when we are gone to school. He starts school after Labor Day. He is so ready! I can't wait to see how he likes going to school. I think he will love it.

New recipes

Chili's Queso Dip - Have you ever had the queso at Chili's? It's good. But in a really bad for you way I'm sure. This recipe can be made lower fat and that is what I did. It call for 1 can of hormel chili so I used turkey no bean hormel chili, 1% milk, and reduced fat velveeta. It was still pretty yummy!

Crockpot Cashew Chicken- Yum. I liked this but it was a bit spicy. I had even halved the 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper to an 1/8th of a teaspoon for the boys. It was still spicy for them. I used chicken breasts ( I don't cook with thighs or tenders) and this definitely had a thai food feel to it for me. I served it with white rice and snow peas.

Sweet & Spicy Cucumbers- I have not made these yet but my sister brought them last weekend to my dad's birthday celebration. They were delicious! I would definitely make these! Yum!

Quinoa Salad - Here is the other recipe Cara brought last weekend. This quinoa salad has mango, avacado, red pepper, black beans and cilantro. It was so good!

Microwave popcorn- This is a way to make air pop popcorn in your microwave without all the chemicals and stuff that is added to microwave popcorn. All you need is popcorn kernals and a brown bag. Easy and tasty. The boys love popcorn and they thought this was really good. I melted a little butter for them and drizzled it on the popcorn and salted it a little bit.

Raw Energy bites- Just made these last night for breakfasts the next several days. Tried them this morning and Wilson and I really liked them. There are a lot of variations you can use to tailor these to your taste buds. Here is the version I tried: (adapted from fooddoodles.com)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cups oat bran
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Follow the link to see recipe directions and all of the other options for mix-ins.

5K Race

I've been running this summer, completing my Couch to 5K program. My friend Heather and I ran a 5K race together last weekend. It was an evening race and the weather was perfect!

Here we are pre-race. It was crazy busy with people downtown. During the whole run we were surrounded by lots of runners.

Post race! We make great running partners. We kept a great pace together. 

 Our stats: We placed 2,016 in the almost 5,000 finishers. 

For our age division (30-34) we were 117 and 118 out of 393 runners. 

Our official chip time was 30:46. Yay!

Our goal for the next 5K is under 30 minutes.

When I got home Ty asked me if I won. LOL!