Our favorite things

Books!!

And Trains!!
....and our grandpas and grandmas!:)

Milestones

Reagan has now hit the big time...as far as preschool goes at least! She started her 4 year old preschool this week and is loving it. She will be going to school 3 mornings a week, which is just enough for her and mommy.:) She has a large class of around 27 students, but there are 3 teachers in the room with them. One of the things she noticed right away were all the boys in her class, because last year she only had 2. I'm sure that will be a big difference, although it sounds like she was already trying to boss them around on the playground! Her personality is definitely a lot different than Luke's in that respect.:)
Drew and Lauren have also made the jump up to big kid beds. We converted their cribs into toddler beds because they were climbing out of them and I didn't feel like dealing with bumps to the head or broken bones! Lauren was a little hesitant, but I think she likes the freedom now. I do have to separate them for nap time though because they just mess around with each other instead of sleep and then they are grumpy. Drew is funny because when he wakes up he'll be out of bed, but then if he sees me coming he quick jumps back in because he thinks he'll get in trouble. He hasn't figured out that after he's slept he's allowed out! The next big milestone for them will be potty training. Lauren is super interested, but I'm not quite ready yet. I still feel like they're a little young and I'd rather wait a bit and have the process go quickly. Drew just doesn't care, so I'm hoping he'll take cues from his sister!
We're adjusting well to our new school routines. Luke is loving first grade and his class and teacher. We're gearing up for the first football game of the season this Friday and one more camping trip over Labor Day. Lots of fun over at the Noteboom house!!

The 1st Day in the 1st Grade

Luke's first day of school was today. He was excited to start First Grade and had some friends from last year in this class. I think he'll learn a lot and have a fun year! I don't think anyone will have any trouble figuring out his interests either. He picked out his Star Wars shirt to wear with his new Star Wars backpack, which held his Star Wars lunch box and Star Wars thermos.:)

Let the countdown begin

This summer has seriously flown by. While I don't think of summer as being almost over, it is after all only the beginning of August, the school calendar tells me differently. Luke is down to less that 2 weeks of summer vacation before the big first grade year begins. I was feeling a little glum about that the other day as we were enjoying some leisurely play time in our backyard, but then I started thinking about all the wonderful fall things I like and I perked up a little.:) We still have lots of fun things planned though. This Saturday we're heading to the zoo with Ryan's work. We get in free, which is an added bonus! Next week we're taking an extra long weekend to head to Orange City and the cabin one more time. It's kind of a last minute planned trip, but we needed to get back there while we could. We have tickets to the Iowa State Fair and we're going camping Labor Day weekend! I told Luke all the plans we have for the rest of the summer and his face lit up. It should be a fun time.
I've also been counting down the numbers on the scale. I had a master plan about 2 years ago, which backfired big time. I joined Weight Watchers so I could lose the 20 pounds of baby weight from Luke & Reagan. I thought that if I lost the weight before getting pregnant one more time, it would be easy to get right back down to it. I did lose the weight and then got pregnant...with twins! Unfortanately, I gained 60 pounds instead of 30 pounds and now have...you guessed it, 20 pounds to lose. So I started using a free website called Myfitnesspal.com. It has been great so far! You input what you eat and it takes away calories, carbs, fat, and protein from what you should have daily based on your requirements. You can also input any exercise you do. I've lost 4 pounds so far and am still feeling motivated. The best part is that at the end of the day when you input all your data, it tells you, if every day were like today you would weight "input weight" in 5 weeks. That makes you want to keep on going. I just thought I'd share in case anyone else is trying to lose weight or just eat healthier.
We also had pictures taken by someone in our church at the beginning of July. They turned out pretty cute. The twins were not very cooperative at all, but we were able to get a couple of good shots of them. Luke & Reagan had tons of great ones! Here are just a couple. Enjoy your weekend!