Happy to be 4!...and a little bit of 5.

We never imagined that the start of Noel's 4th year would be quite so busy and challenging. Perhaps it was due to one of the best summers in such a long time that we were bound to feel some let-down when school began again. Or maybe it was the conglomerate reaction of studying for Boards, anxiety about finally starting the beginning of the end, or worrying about the countdown to saying goodbye to so many wonderful Lexingtonians.

On Thursday and Friday, after studying for nearly a month, Noel took Part II of boards. So far so good. He felt good taking and finishing the exam. Fingers crossed :)

With one more item off the school checklist, we decided to celebrate by throwing Greg a "It's Great to be 4 Dragon Training Fest." 

We invited a bunch of his little friends, and we all had a blast making shields, darting fireballs, feeding Toothless, and being pyromaniacs psyched out on chocolate cake and ice cream. Simply put..."Awesome!"says Greggors. Here are some pictures from the party.

With lots of 4 year olds it was amazing that we had no accidents. We even were able to herd them into one big group and snap a group pic.

Those are some awesome looking dragon trainers!

Brighton and Greg had a ton of fun and were quite tired by the time the activity was over. Brighton was particularly tired but hung on long enough to make it to cake and ice cream.

We concluded Labor day weekend with some apple picking this morning and were surprised to find the apple orchard swarming with fellow Mormons :). 

I was reminded of Mitt Romney's thoughts from the RNC convention, 

"Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community it was welcoming and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved to town or just joined our church. We had remarkably vibrant and diverse congregants from all walks of life and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways."

We are so grateful for wonderful friends and a vibrant congregation and community.

As a last thought, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the size of our family. We can comfortably now say that Four of us wasn't enough and Noel and I have taken the plunge and are expecting the fifth Dickens in April 2013. 

Watch out, one more Dickens means another giant step in the entropy of the world!