Cute Kids and Fall Leaves

Happy Back to the Future Day!  (For those who may not have heard..today, October 21, 2015, was the day Marty McFly traveled to when he went to the "future."  So, hey, where the heck is my flying car??  Little known fact: When I was about Arden's age, I thought Michael J. Fox was super duper cute.  I even had a poster of him up on my wall of cute boy posters.  I think this little infatuation lasted for a year or so, when I found out that I was already taller than him when I was in 4th grade. Anyhoo...)

Speaking of growing taller, these kids of mine are getting bigger and smarter all the time.  Wasn't it yesterday that they looked like this?

Those little cuties are long gone.  (I miss them sometimes!)  Now I have these big cuties, and I couldn't be prouder of them and their smart, beautiful selves:

Cora is loving first grade and comes home every day with stories of which boys chased her and which boys she chased at recess.  She makes me more than a little nervous sometimes.

Arden seems to be growing up faster and faster as the days go by.  She is still so sweet, but I feel those tween years coming up fast.  I dread the hormones and eye rolling and door slamming that is inevitably coming.  Plus, she is getting so beautiful and big!  This also makes me nervous. 

And wow, Dax.  He gets taller every single day, and his feet grow a size per month (or it least it seems that way to me).  He is doing great and really likes second grade so far.  He loves reading chapter books (once he gets started), and has a fun bunch of buddies he plays "wall ball" with every recess.

And here they are all together.  I love this one:

 Awwww....if they could only sit next to each other so nicely in the car on long trips.  Seriously, I sometimes feel like I should put up plexiglass walls between their seats or something so they can't possibly touch each other.  But look how angelic and beautiful they are!

Dax is taller than Arden by a couple of inches now.  Arden really doesn't like it when people assume he is older than she is.  Dax kind of does, though.

Here is a close up of Arden.  This is one of the last pictures taken of her with her braces on.  She got them taken off earlier this week, and we have to go pick up her retainer tomorrow.  She gets to wear that at night for a few years, and then she will enjoy round 2 of braces, poor thing.

 Here is a super closeup of Cora, her eyes are so pretty:

Dax kept pulling weird faces!  He either looked so excited it was a little scary, or just really not excited at all.  This is as good as we could get:

Sure love these stinkers.  Please stop growing up so fast!