This week has flown by!

I'm learning to read. I'm really trying hard to sound out words and Sue's and at school. Sue is even working with us on adding numbers sometime. Noah and I are the only preschoolers that can read, write our letters and add numbers, though. When everyone else tries to learn how to spell and write their name at Sue's project time, she is teaching us how to write our last name. (We've been able to write our first names for almost a year now.) Noah is still reading everything he sees. Mommy came home one day and I was reading a board book with colors in it and Noah was reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Monday we finally got to ride the bus to school! We are happy to be able to ride the bus with our friends again - especially Joey. We miss getting to play with him all day at Sue's and at preschool. It was Noah's day to bring snack, so we had cheese and crackers that we picked out with Daddy.

I started my first day of dance class on Thursday! I'm so excited about it. We just listened to music the first day. We tried on some shoes to see what fits us but didn't buy any. I'm going to learn tap dancing and ballet. Daddy & Noah weren't allowed to be in the room with me when I dance, so they sat in the hallway and played with Daddy's iPad.

Thursday we also changed our beds. I'm on the bottom bunk again and Noah is on the top. I've wanted to switch back to the bottom for a while, but Noah didn't want the top. But, Mommy asked us on Thursday and Noah said he wanted to be on top again.Mom and Dad said they hope we're more careful about the top bunk now that we're older.

Saturday, Mommy was gone most of the day at her MOM sale. She got rid of some of our old clothes to moms with littler kids. I was so excited that she found tap shoes for me! YAY! Now I just need ballet shoes. She also got skates for us and a few pairs of pajamas. Noah was disappointed she didn't bring him a karate outfit but she said they didn't have any.

While she was gone, Daddy took us to a fire department open house. It was so much fun! We got to sit in the trucks and police cars. We got a chance to spray the hose, but I didn't want to. Just Noah did. They also had hot dogs, chips and oreo cookies. We went into their safety house and impressed Daddy and the fireman when we went into the kitchen and told him all the fire hazards in the room as well as the good things. We picked out all the fire hazards in the living room, too. When we went into the bedroom, smoke started to fill the air. The firemen helped us climb out the windows to safety.
The best part of the day was the bouncy house! They let us go into a bouncy house for 5 minutes to jump then it had a stairs to get out. When we went out the door at the top of the stairs, there was a slide to get down. It was so awesome!

Mommy came home shortly after we got back. She hung out with us and played for a little while. Then after supper, she had to go again. She went to a party for one of her Diva friends who is getting married.

Daddy took us to church today and we talked about Noah's ark. We got to make marshmallow animals (and eat them!) for an ark that was made out of graham crackers. We stayed in the nursery for a little while after Sunday School then came home and had corn dogs for dinner. We just got to stay around the house and play. I played dress up, played with some toys downstairs and chalked on the sidewalk outside. It was a fun day just doing our own thing at home today.

On the way to church, Daddy and I had a conversation about Jesus.
Daddy: Why do we go to church?
Hannah: To see Jesus!
Daddy: Who is Jesus?
Hannah: God
Daddy: What did Jesus do for us?
Hannah: Tells Santa to give us Presents!
Daddy said he has some work to do yet...

Here's some pictures of the art we've done this week. I love to draw. When I go to preschool, I love to go to "creative cupboard" where I can draw. I mostly draw pictures of our family...sometimes me and Noah, sometimes me and Mom, sometimes the whole family - usually with Cheyenne, sometimes with Spike. Noah doesn't do as much creative cupboard. He prefers to play puzzles and in the pretend play areas.

This afternoon, we drew ourselves on the sidewalk. There's also some pictures of our volcanos we did on Friday at daycare. They were really cool.

Tomorrow we get to go to Sue's house and back to school. It's going to be a fun week!

Hannah

The summer is wrapping up and the weather is getting cold!
On Sept 9 (a week and a half ago) we started our first day of preschool. We went to Creative Play preschool last year, so we're not new to the class, but we have all new friends in our class! Mrs. Bodin & Mrs. Hanks were happy to have us back in their class. Mrs. Bodin & Mrs. Hanks are also happy that I'm reading! I really am impressing them with my reading skills. I love to read - I read everything I can see (signs) and get my hands on (books).
Our first day, mommy took us and stayed with us. Only half of our class was there on that day. This whole past week (our first full week of school) almost everyone was there. The buses weren't running so Daddy took off work to bring us. We were picker-uppers, so we were so cool! We love riding the bus with the schoolkids, but we love to be picked up at school sometimes.
I am making new friends slowly. It's so much easier to just hang with Hannah, but I've met new friends. Hannah is a little more shy but she'll make some new friends this year.
The first day of school, she couldn't find her mailbox in class because Mrs. Bodin gave us all new mailboxes. Mommy tried to point her new mailbox out but she kept insisting that was Joey's mailbox. Joey is in kindergarten now; Joey's old mailbox is now hers. My new mailbox is Hannah's old mailbox from last year.
Last weekend we got to spend Saturday at the Diva Stud volleyball party with Mommy & Daddy. All the Diva families were there. We had some yummy food and lots of time to play in the sand where the adults usually only play. There were lots of girls, and most of them were doing some cheerleading dances. For a while, us 3 4-year old boys played Hot Wheels.
This weekend was a busy one! Friday night, Daddy got us Chinese food. I liked it. Hannah didn't (except the rice, noodles and sweet & sour chicken without the sauce). Then Daddy got the bonfire out and we had a bonfire with our neighbor Griffin. It was fun! We got to have s'mores and stay up late.
Saturday was a SURPRISE party for my best friend Grayson. We went to a place with a GIANT play area, waited for Grayson and surprised him when he came in. He was surprised! He looked a little scared at first, but when he realized what it was, he was so happy! We were so happy to see each other, we ran to each other and gave each other a hug. After games, pizza, cake and presents, we got to play in the play area. It was awesome! We played for 2 hours before going home.
We got prizes and toys from the party. I got some candy and a funny face, Hannah got a tiara crown. The place with the party also had a cool bridge outside, so we got to play on the bridge before we went home.
After supper, we walked down to a local church carnival. We played a few games and won some prizes. It was fun, but we didn't stay long because Daddy said we had to go home for bedtime.
Today, we got up and went to Sunday School. Last week was our first day of Sunday School. TJ & Penney are our teachers again, so we're so excited about them! They're so awesome.
After Sunday School, we got ready to go to a Twins game. Hannah has been talking about this all week. We were excited! Unfortunately, it drizzled and rained on us most of the time. But, we brought our blankets, rain coats and snacks so we made it to the 7th inning. After the 7th inning, we got some lemonade and waited to run the bases. We got to go down under the bleachers and then out on the field to run the bases. We got to run the same bases that Joe Mauer runs! It was awesome. Mommy & Daddy didn't get to run with us (though, Mommy got her picture taken with TC Bear while we ran the bases).
When we got done running the bases, we got to go out to dinner at Sunshine Factory. It was a really good day, but after our baths, we were exhausted.
We're looking forward to school tomorrow. Hannah has the sharing bag (I got sharing bag last week) and I am bringing treats. It's going to be a fun day!
Noah

State Fair and Waterpark Vacation week

This has been the best week in a long time!
Monday, we came home from daycare and a big tractor was digging up the street in front of our house! It turns out it was actually our neighbor's yard that was being dug up to put in some new pipes underground. Angie came shortly after we got home, so we got to hang out with her Monday night. We asked her to come with us to the state fair, and she came Monday so we could leave early Tuesday for the fair. After supper, Angie and Mom took us to the store to buy shoes. I got sketchers! I've wanted Sketchers for a long time so now i can be really fast! They didn't have the hot lights shoes I wanted, but I'm still excited about my new sketcher shoes.

Tuesday morning, we got up bright and early to go to the state fair. We are big kids now, so Mom and Dad said we wouldn't use strollers. When we got tired of walking, we could go home. We took several rests during the day and survived from 8:30 until 6:30! Daddy and Mommy were so impressed with us. We saw the baby animals in the baby animal barn (we saw baby pigs that were 3 days old and even a pig who was having new baby pigs!), we saw all the animal barns, we rode rides (in the kidway as well as the space needle and the skyride), helped out at the little farmhands, did projects in the kids area, checked out campers, saw how they get milk from cows and looked at a lot of things at booths. We had lemonade, hot cheese, strawberries & cream, peanut butter sandwiches that came in a little car, corndogs and ice cream. It was such a fun day! We can't wait to go back to the fair next year!Wednesday we went back to daycare. I was the best eater for the month of August - I cleaned my plate the most times - so I had a Happy Meal for lunch! It was good to see our friends and get to tell them all about the fair! After daycare, Daddy and Mommy picked us up and we went to our preschool open house. Mrs. Bodin & Mrs. Hanks were so happy to see us. Mrs. Bodin rearranged the room a little bit, but was very impressed that I'm reading. Afterwords, Mom & Dad brought us to an exercise store. We checked out all the different machines while Mommy checked out the treadmills. It was pretty fun!

Thursday morning Daddy took Cheyenne with us to daycare. At lunchtime Sue called us up to lunch and Mommy and Daddy were there waiting for us! What a fun surprise. They said they were going to take us for a picnic but it started to rain, so we drove to a restaurant on our way to vacation!

Mom and Dad had talked about going to a water park for vacation, but we weren't too excited about it. Hannah was sad because Cheyenne went to a puppy hotel without us, and I'm not excited about new things sometimes.

On our way to vacation, we stopped at an army museum. We saw lots of guns, weapons, uniforms and medals. Daddy even got us camo t-shirts like he had when he was in the army! After that, we got to go outside and climb on helicopters and tanks and check them all out. Unfortunately, we had to cut that visit short because it started to rain on us.

We drove for a little while longer until we came to a big town and Daddy stopped at a hotel. It was pretty nice, so we were excited to go in. There were bears and animals in the lobby. Mommy got a room key and we went into our room - it was nice! It had a little living room with beds behind a little wall on the other side of the room. We got to pick our own bed - we, of course, picked the bed with the TV by it. Then we checked out the waterpark. It was awesome! We couldn't wait to swim in it! We had to make a trip to Target to pick up some snacks for the week, but got to come back and swim! It was so fun - there was a lake with a pretend tree in the middle of it and a river with waterslides that we could sit in tubes and swim around.

Friday morning we got up and went to Paul Bunyan Land. Paul Bunyan was a really big man - he knew our names when we walked in! We let Mom take our picture while we sat on his boot, but I didn't like him. He was kind of scary. Hannah kept wanting to talk to him, but I didn't like him. As long as I could avoid Paul Bunyan, I had a blast riding all the rides I wanted to ride. We rode every ride that we were tall enough for - boats, canoes, bugs, airplanes, train, frog hopper (that's our favorite ride!) the roller coaster (Hannah didn't like that one!), the ferris wheel, sleighs, bumper cars and the tilt-a-whirl. There was a bunch of barns and a little town set up with old stuff in it. We looked at it, but the only part we wanted to check out was the little school's playground. We did also get to ring the church bell.

We got tired at about 1:30 so we stopped for sandwiches and went back to the hotel. We relaxed for a short time before going back to the waterpark until suppertime. We went to pizza ranch for supper - that was so yummy!

Saturday morning, we got up, packed our bags and went to the waterpark one last time before going home. I wanted to play all day, but once it was lunch time, we cleaned up and headed out for lunch. We got to go to McDonalds, have Happy Meals and play in the playland. We stopped by our friend Reid's cabin on our way home, but he wasn't home. We also stopped at a weird store with a little of everything and that was fun to check out the fish house, furniture and fun stuff on the shelves.

When we got home, we unloaded and headed out again. We went to Daddy's volleyball friends house on Lake Minnetonka. I got to play with their 3-yr old boy, so we played good guy/bad guy and roughhoused while Hannah played in the kitchen. It was a fun night.

We were on the road a lot Sunday. We got to play a little bit in the morning before going to a big house to look at some beds that Grandma wanted us to buy for her. Mom and Dad had to take them apart and load them in the truck, and we were on our best behavior while they were in and out, packing the trucks. The lady that was there was so nice! She gave us play money, books and Christmas bows!

We played at home for a little while and then got to go get Cheyenne from the puppy spa. We've missed her so much! She ran around the yard and house when we got home - she was so happy to see us and we missed her a lot, too.

When we got home, Mommy told us we were going to have supper guests so we cleaned up a little bit. Grandma, Grandpa, Dani, Jason, Lauren & Ben came over! We had supper then went back to the house where we got the bed. We played in the front yard while they moved some couches out of the house. Unfortunately, they couldn't stay and play. But, it was so fun to play with our cousins for a few hours!

Today we got to go to Ron & Carol's house for a volleyball party. Of course, we had yummy food (we brought pizza!) and there were lots of other kids there to play with. My favorite thing to do at Ron & Carol's is still to play in the hammock. Hannah played with the girls all day - I did my own thing most of the day. I had a fun time, but it has been a very busy week! We're looking forward to going back to Sue's house tomorrow. And, we start our first day of school on Friday, so we're really looking forward to going back to school.

Have a good week back to school! Next year, we'll be starting kindergarten at this time!
Noah