An Impromptu Neighborhood Concert

Last Friday night after I brought Henry and his friend, Alex, home from cross country practice, they decided to play us a little trumpet concert in the front yard. I'm sure the neighbors LOVED it!

Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo

Alex's little brother, Matthew, joined in with his brand new instrument that he got today...a recorder. (Seth is getting his this week.) Since the older boys also played the recorder in 4th grade, they plan to show their younger brothers the ropes!

Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo.

We are going to have a VERY noisy house this year!

A Morning in Preschool

Evan came down this morning completely dressed and ready to go to preschool. He and I were very excited because I was going to spend the morning helping in his class!

Evan has a really nice class. He's got his own little group of buddies that he always plays with (of course Connor is one of them!). It was fun to see them in preschool action. It made me giggle how they played bad guy zoo animals on the doll house. Such boys!

Their lesson/activity for today was making applesauce. Here they are in circle time learning how to do it.

I helped at the station where they cut apple wedges with plastic knives and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on them.

Next they went to a station where they mashed the apple pieces that had been cooking in the crock pot. (The teacher had prepared some so that the kids didn't have to wait until theirs were cooked.)

When they weren't working at the apple stations, these boys were doing a lot of drawing and cutting. Apparently this is one of their favorite things to do because they are always coming home with lots of their little projects.

Then it was time to sample the applesauce. Most of the kids really liked it!

Right before it was time to go home, the kids started learning a cute Halloween version of "The Wheels on the Bus". They loved it! Click on the videos to let them serenade you!


Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo

Are they not the cutest pretend skeletons you've ever seen?!

Up next, the bat portion of the song...


Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo

What a fun morning! Thanks for sharing it with me, Evan!

Fall Fun with a Friend

There's a sweet little farm near our house that we love to visit around this time of the year. There are so many farms that offer Halloween fun for kids, but a lot of them are big, crowded and expensive. This one is the opposite of all of that, so it's definitely a favorite.

We went with Evan's friend, Matthew, and my friend, Suzy, a few days ago. This is the same Matthew that is on Evan's soccer team. They have a great time together!

The boys climbed on a wooden train,



fed bunnies and goats,

climbed hay bale pyramids,



pretended to drive tractors,

posed for pumpkin pictures,

played a little hide and seek in the corn stalks,



played trucks in a GIANT sandbox,

made volcanos,

and played in a hay bale maze.
I think they had a great time!

Evan's Halloween room

Evan is eagerly anticipating the Halloween season. He decided to deck out his room with all sorts of scary things. In the following videos, you'll see that he gathered up all of his scariest toys (dragons, dinosaurs, robots, and the like), and displayed them around the room. He also asked me to print up Halloween pictures, which we colored together this afternoon. Then he taped them up all around his room, proudly displaying his work. (I might need to get a bulliten board in his room!) I love what he did with his room, although what I especially love is that he did it for his friend. Hope you like it, Connor! :)

Letter Learning

The other day, when Evan was walking out of preschool, I suddenly felt a sense of unease. The thought dawned on me that he was going to Kindergarten next year, and I wasn't sure that he would be ready. He did not know all of his letters and sounds yet, and did not seem in any hurry to learn them.

That is, he wasn't in any hurry to learn them until last Friday. He seems to have enrolled himself in an online crash course of letter learning. Evan is absolutely addicted to Starfall.com, which is a website that offers children practice in their letters and reading. He is constantly asking to use my computer to "learn his letters", and I am thrilled that we have discovered a fun way to help him learn.

What a birthday!

On Saturday, we celebrated Seth and Caroline's birthdays with lots of family and fun!

Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, siblings, mom and dad all turned out to watch the kids in their various sports...Evan and Caroline in soccer, Henry in cross country and Seth in football.

After the football game, we all came back to our house for a little fried chicken dinner. The guys "watched" the game...like father-in-law,

like son-in-law!
Aunt Debby has one of Dave's dad in a similar pose. Apparently, it was the thing to do on Saturday afternoon. :)

This was Seth and Caroline's cake BEFORE...

and AFTER the world's worst dog sampled it. (Love you anyways, Moxie!)

Here's all of the cousins getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to the kids of honor. Good looking group, huh? (I'm not really sure what was going on with Evan's lack of attire there!)

Hahahaha...love those puffed-cheek faces, kids!

Caroline had about two bites of frosting and then gave the rest of her cake to a very grateful Evan.

After cake, Anabel, Nadia and Caroline entertained us by doing a game show in the basement.

Anabel was the emcee, while Caroline and Nadia were contestants. They had to answer quiz questions,

and had a silly dress up race game!

We were all thoroughly entertained!

Next, it was upstairs where Henry performed a little trumpet for us, and then Caroline and Seth got to open their presents.

That's a happy boy!

One of Caroline's special gifts was from Grandma Nosek. Grandma had made all kinds of clothes for Caroline's American Girl dolls!

Caroline LOVED them! I LOVE this picture of Caroline and her Grandma Nosek!

Caroline and Nadia put on a little doll fashion show for all of us.

Nadia with Elizabeth in her Knights cheerleading uniform!



Here's the girls with Elizabeth wearing a robe and Julie wearing raingear!

And look at Julie in this sweet dress!

Love these two...Great Grandma and Aunt Debby

My sister, Karen, made some BEAUTIFUL keepsake cards for the kids. She is so talented! This one is for Henry, in honor of his River Rat swim team.
And for Caroline? Smurfette, in honor of her love for all things "smurf". ;)

Seth's card had a knight on it in honor of his football team!

Uncle Jim and Aunt Karen gave the kids new books. Jim always chooses the best ones out there, prereads them, and then writes a special message in them for the kids. (This is how I found them this afternoon, reading their books from their aunt and uncle!)

After we said good bye to our family, we went to the local forest preserve for a cub scout camp out. You know, because we didn't have enough going on this weekend. :) Honestly though, it was so much fun, and we actually got a decent night's sleep.

This is a picture of Henry and Seth and some of their BFFs.

Here's Evan with one of his BFFs, Connor. They were so cute having a little conversation at breakfast this morning.
Happy birthday, Seth! We love you, favorite 10 year old!

Seth is ten!

Big day ahead!! Picture day for soccer, soccer games for Caroline and Evan, cross country meet for Henry, homecoming football game for Seth with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins cheering him on, family party for Seth and Caroline after the game, and a campout for cub scouts tonight. Now that's a birthday!

Love you, Seth!

A Decade of Seth

It hardly seems possible, but we have had this young man in our life for ALMOST ten years now! We are blessed indeed! Tonight we celebrated Seth's birthday eve with pizza, pop, popping corn right on the cob in the microwave (Caroline's holding it), and watching The Indian in the Cupboard together. (Henry just finished reading that book.)


Tomorrow we are celebrating with our extended family after all of the soccer games, football game and cross country meet. Tomorrow night we're having a campout with the Cub Scouts. It should be a most excellent way to celebrate a decade of Seth!


Happy birthday, Mr. Ten Year Old!!