What is 26.2 miles between friends?

He did it! After months of training, Robert completed his first Marathon - in NY! What a great place to be. The crowds where unbelievable, I have never seen this many people in one place. Robert left the hotel around 5:45am to go wait in line for his starting time, which was not until 10:15am. It was nice and cold, so he was very bundled up.

Since we had some time to kill, I went to NJ with Stephanie, Jo, his sister and Izzy to The Cake Boss. The place was completely packed but I got Robert and congratulations cake to enjoy after the run.

We made our way back towards the finish line and I was so nervous I was going to miss him. I kept getting text messages stating when he crossed different marker points and it was getting late. With thousands of people separating us from the finish line, I knew I had missed him. I decided to climb up this rocky area to get a picture of the run, it was right around mile marker 26. I looked over and there he was. I could not believe it. Nathan and I started screaming and Robert looked over. That was a great feeling.

Robert finished the race just under 5 hours, at 11 minute 18 second miles. What an accomplishment. He has now decided to run multiple marathons and is signing up for the Disney one in January. I guess there are worse habits to have.

Happy Halloween

It is that time of year again, and the kids are looking forward to the candy. We went trick or treating at Gamma's house this year. Our friends Rob and Melanie joined us. Alexandra was dressed up as a ladybug and Anthony was a very scary Pirate! He was too cute and loved walking up to the doors with Alexandra. After a few houses, Anthony was getting tired but not Alexandra. She walked up to each house, "trick or treat" and made sure to grab extra "for her baby brother who was too tired to walk." We had a great time!

Vocabulary Expands

Anthony has mastered a lot of new words over the past few weeks. Just to list a few:

- Yellow, "Hello", Oma, Alexandra (not that clear yet), Outside, Sit Down, Bye, Nose

He is turning out to be just as much of a talker as Alexandra. He points and says thing constantly now. He loves walking through the house and pointing to the pictures. I guess it is true that boys just talk a little later in life. Anthony is very adventurous. He loves to climb on things, follows Alexandra everywhere and will try to do just about anything she does. I find myself always saying "Alexandra - does that set a good example?"

First Day of VPK

Today was Alexandra's first day of VPK. Where has the time gone, I can not believe she is so big! She was not overly excited, to her it is just another day at "school" since she is doing VPK at daycare. Of course, for Mommy it symbolized so much more than that. My little Angel was growing up - way too fast. She got dressed with minimal stress in the morning and was off.

Daddy dropped her off and I picked her up. When I got to the daycare, Ms Marie (her old teacher) told me that "I have a very dramatic daughter." Please, tell me something I don't already know. She was telling me that Alexandra gave everything away by her facial expressions - hopefully this holds true for years to come because right now - she is horrible at lying.

We got home and worked on our first "homework project." She had to decorate a star with a picture of her family and color it in. This was a family project - and she kept telling us "You have to work on this with your children." I think she is going to be a teacher, or instructor of some sort - she is very bossy.

Go Germany

Although we did not make it into the finals - we still love to watch the German's play soccer. Daddy and Anthony watched the game last Saturday. Anthony even showed his support by wearing his Deutschland Fever T-shirt!

Swing Set Adventures

So we bought a swing set for the kids and Daddy agreed to put it together. Since Alexandra was with Gamma over the holiday weekend, it was the perfect opportunity to get started. Okay, so first off, it came in 4 huge boxes. I was responsible for organizing the steps - that was a mission. It took me over an hour to lay out the wood for steps 1 through 10 - there are a total of 48 steps. We started to understand why everyone wanted so much money to assemble this thing.

After a few hours, we were starting to make some serious progress.

The day was coming to an end and Daddy was exhausted. See I had the easy job - I was inside most of the day taking care of Anthony. We decided to regroup and work on it a little more on Monday. The morning sun brought a new wave of energy. Daddy finished a lot more today! Hopefully by next weekend we will be playing on this thing - or at least the kids since it has a weight limit. Alexandra came home and was very excited to see the progress.

Clean Bill of Health

Alexandra's appointment at the urologist went great. Turns out she only is a 2 out of 5 so for now, no surgery or medication is required. We are going to change her diet a little and help remind her to empty her bladder more frequently and hope for the best.