4 year stats

 The girls finally had their 4 year check-ups on Monday.  I was worried how it was going to go cause their doctor left the practice (and really all 3 of us had a little crush on him) and it was our first time seeing a new doctor and I had heard that they got a lot of shots at 4.  But all my worrying was for naught.  The new doctor was great and they only got one shot - though it was two vaccines together.  Brooke was nervous before the shot but did not cry at all after.  Audrey was fine before but cried right after - apparently cause she did not want a band-aid on her arm. So once we pulled that off, it was all good.   They got their hearing and vision checked and all good there as well.

Here are their stats - accompanied by their 4 year preschool pics (the quality is not great cause my scanner is not working so I took a picture with my phone, emailed it to myself, and downloaded to here)

Audrey is 40.5 inches (up from 37 last year).  She is 35 lbs (up from 31 last year)  She is the 50th percentile for weight and just between the 50th and 75th for height.

Brooke is 42 inches (up from 38.5 last year).  She is 41 lbs (up from 35 last year).  She is basically right on the 90th percentile for both weight and height.

Bounce of House

This year the girls really wanted to have their birthday party at the Bounce of House (which is secretly the House of Bounce but they always say it backwards and it is so darn cute!) again so we decided to do a sequel.  Overall we thought it was a great success.  The girls were SO HAPPY to have all of their friends come to their party...with only a couple of exceptions all of their friends really were able to come.  Even though I had been prepping them for weeks that there was a possibility that some of their friends might be sick and not able to make it.  Which then led to assurances that regardless of whether they were sick or not, they could still go to their party.  We've been very blessed to have made such great friends up here and it was fun to see them all.

My bouncing pictures were all horrible - so here are some pics of the bouncy things and the eating portion.

 They have the big jumpy one, the big slide, and the obstacle course one.  The girls go back and forth between the slide and the obstacle as to which is their favorite.  They really love to jump up super high and fly down the slides.  Audrey was quite impressive with the height she jumped this year.

The whole family - duh.

Audrey showing off her birthday crown - which she got from preschool the day before.

The birthday girls blowing out their candles on their cupcake cakes.

Brooke loves cupcakes!

The whole party - minus a couple of the little siblings.  Seriously an amazing job with 30 little kids to all be so focused!  Though it may have had something to do with the fact that it was 7 pm and they had been jumping for 75 minutes.

OH MY GOSH! THEY ARE 4!

It is so hard to believe, but tomorrow my babies will be four. And it has been an amazing four years!  I have loved (almost) every bit of it. Next week I plan to write a little post about each of them, but here are their 4 year pictures. (Audrey was a little sick the day we took the pictures, so her individual ones did not turn out quite as cute as she really is.  Fortunately the girls also have their school pictures this time of year, so hoping that hers will be super cute)

D's Big Race

Well after 9 long months of training, D's marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, was October 30.  It was so cold that weekend that it actually snowed on Saturday!  The girls and I took the metro in and saw D at mile 17 and again at the finish.  We had to nix seeing him more cause it was COLD as a spectator.

D totally rocked the marathon.  He finished in sub 3 hours - which is HUGE in the running world.  Here are his stats (he is such an engineer!)

Time:                     2:59:04

Pace:                     6:50

Overall Place:     #174 out of 20,895 (top 0.8%)

Gender Place:   #162 out of 12,365 (top 1.3%)

Age Group:         #27 out of 1960 (top 1.4%)

Super impressive, right?

Not sure how long this link will work, but here is a link to his pictures during the race by the professional photographers.  Some of them are super good cause they have such a pretty historical background.  Another advantage to being in the front is that he got a ton of pictures taken of him - harder to do when you are in a huge pack.  Here is the link: http://www.marathonfoto.com/index.cfm?action=site.login&RaceOID=13692011F1&LastName=HADDEN&BibNumber=14929&spMAILINGID=36518508&spUserID=MTE3MTQwMDE1NjcS1&spJOBID=117505760&spREPORTID=MTE3NTA1NzYwS0

If you click the little magnifying glass at the bottom of the picture you can see it better.

Here are the pics that I took:

 Snow in October? Crazy!

 Riding the Metro to go cheer on Daddy!

 Waiting at mile 17 and ringing their little cow bells

 Getting ready to high-five D (in the running tights and grey shirt) at mile 17.  Brooke pulled her hand back right as that guy in front of D tried to high-five her.  So funny!

 D rounding the corner for the last 0.2 miles, uphill, to the finish line

 All of us with Darren after the race was over.

Here are the girls reading the metro map as we headed home.  They were so cute about looking at it and finding which dot we were at and counting how many more dots we had left.

Happy Halloween

In a not-so-shocking turn of events, I am a bit behind in my blogging.  So better late than never, here is our Halloween celebration. This year the girls were a bunny and a ladybug (as previously seen in the photo shoot in mid-October).  The girls actually looked adorable in these costumes, but it made me sad that they had graduated from the adorable furry costumes into the little girl costumes. 

 Here are the girls painting their little pumpkins...unfortunately the paint peeled right off the next day.  But we had fun doing it.

 Marching in their Halloween parade at school.

Such concentration!

 How cute is that little ladybug Brooke?

 Not the best picture of Audrey, but it does show two of her best friends from class Luke (the new obsession) and Zach P

 Audrey's favorite part of her costume - her little bunny tail!  She hopped around all day like a bunny.  So cute.

 Class photo after the parade at school

 Hard at work carving our pumpkin.  The girls drew the face and then we worked together to carve it.  They did NOT like to touch the insides of the pumpkin at all.

 Ta-Da! Our Jack O Lantern.

 Getting ready to head out trick-or-tricking on our street.

 I think they are yelling LET'S GO!

 Going through their loot

Fall Fest

This year we went to a local fall festival - on a Tuesday, without Dad - rather than the big Cox Farms that we have gone to every other year.  We went with my friend Heather and her daughter Tori.  Overall the kids had a great time - though secretly I wish that we had gone to the big one.  Maybe next year.  Here are some pictures of their favorite activities: sliding, climbing in the pirate ship, rolling down the (small) hill in a tube.  They also enjoyed the hayride through the spooky forest, but I did not take any pictures of that.

 They would have gone on this forever!

 Audrey was so funny putting her arms up and yelling on the way down!

 Group shot with their friend Tori and their souvenir pumpkins