A Playdate with Viv

Since our neighbors moved, we don't get to see them too, too often anymore, but today we were lucky enough to bring Vivi home with us after school. Everyone was in heaven. Right when we walked in she started washing her hands & I said, "Great, now we can have an after school snack." And she replied, "I just want to go get the baby." And Lucy was thrilled!

Everyone loves baby!
The kids all got their homework done together & played tons.
Vivi was also nice enough to entertain Eliza while she did her reading homework & Eliza loved every minute of it!

We love having playdates with Vivi!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We got most of the Christmas decorations up over the weekend but we traditionally decorate the tree for Family Home Evening the Monday after Thanksgiving, so we decided to leave that for tonight. It was so much fun watching the excitement of everything with the kids finding their ornaments. Eliza has been a hoot to watch as she discovered everything fun & new. The kids couldn't wait for the Christmas train & toys & of course the lights.

Christmas is so very fun & I'm glad the kids love all of the decorations & activities, but that they love the real meaning of Christmas even more.

Andrew's VIP

Andrew was super excited for this week to come & has been anxious to go to school all day long! He's the VIP for the week & gets to be the line leader & special helper all week long!

We made his poster this morning (& note the drawing of the black ninja) & he's been counting down the minutes until we could head to school. I love this boy & how much he loves school & am glad he is doing so well there.

Big Helper

I love how much Andrew adores Lucy. And he is so quick to help her be happy whenever! Today I caught him reading her a story & she was loving it so much!

She really loves her big brother & he loves her. What a great combination.

Soapy Hand? I Should Make a Handprint!

And I wonder why I need to clean the bathroom mirror every single day!

But I don't. I should, but I don't.
It didn't take long to figure out who did it but it was fun watching the culprit squirm for just a second.
And then to just start laughing! Good times.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a really great Thanksgiving. It was the first time since we've been married that we had it only with our family. We weren't intending on that but everything just ended up that way & it was really quite nice. Our day started out quite early with our early birds asking for 10 pieces of construction paper. A bit later (around 5:30am) we heard, "Gobble! Gobble! Happy Thanksgiving!" Lexie & Joseph made themselves into cute turkeys.

They're lucky Rick's not a hunter. But they quickly convinced Rick that he needed to make them pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast the boys headed off for the Turkey Bowl & we girls started cooking. Poor Alexis cut her hand with the knife so no more cutting for her.  But I had lots of help holding my little monkeys and then lots of help picnicing in the mashed potatoes. They were so good & I seriously could not keep Eliza out of them.

I'm just glad she found some more foods that she really loves.Once the major dishes were cooking & the turkey was ready to go in, the children made some appetizers.

 

And soon we were ready for our big meal. We had enough food to feed an army.

And eat we did. And also gave great thanks for all that we have.

And quickly everyone (except for Joseph) became quite full. We literally did not want any pie 5 hours later (but we all had just a small sliver because what is Thanksgiving without eating a little bit of pie?). We also taught Joseph how to play Settlers of Catan and we just had a wonderful day enjoying our family & thinking of all of our many blessings.

Special Friend's Day

Today at school is Special Friend's Day. Rick went this morning. Lexie was giving a presentation on Native Americans & wanted me to braid her hair (& then take pics with her & Lucy).

Rick tried to get a picture of Lexie dressed up as a Native American, however, this is all he caught. Oh well. Rest assured she looked cute & did a great job.

Then he got to hang out with Joseph for a bit & play at recess with him.

I went this afternoon with Andrew. We made some crafts & colored & ate pumpkin pie. He also gave me this paper saying what he was thankful for. Last week while I was volunteering in his class I saw the circle map on the board with "I'm thankful for" & then the kids made suggestions as to what they were thankful for. There were things like my family, friends, dog, the farm, & then I saw "the black ninja." I laughed & thought, "My child would say something like that." Sure enough, I go to look at Andrew's paper & yes, he was thankful for the black ninja. I have no idea where said ninja lives, came about, but he's very thankful for it this year & we have the documentation to prove it.

I'm glad we could go hang out with the kiddos some today. They are a blast.

Turkey Family

For Family Home Evening tonight, Eliza taught us a fun lesson on gratitude & we made a fun family of turkeys. It's not the easiest to paint an infants hand, but a toddler is super fun. Eliza could not stop laughing. We sure love our Family Home Evenings! And all of our Silly Turkeys!

Who's Who v5.0

It's time for "Who's Who?" I know you are all so excited about this one! This time, we've decided to try and make things a bit harder for everyone. So, here we go. Guess who is in each picture. The names may be used more than once. A prize will be awarded to the winner-the first one to get them all correct. (Rick says it will be something really good, like you get to come spend a weekend with just the kids. Awesome! Okay, that will not be the prize.) Alright, so Who's Who?
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Bonus Points for guessing the following:
A.

B.

 Thanks for playing!

Got the Giggles

This little girl is starting to giggle! It's so much fun!

I wish I could have caught some of the really good ones this time, but maybe next time.

And she is also into the kick your legs like there is no tomorrow stage. She seems to always be on the run!

Three Months Old

As our last post said, Lucy got to spend her 3 month old birthday at her first college football game. She was a trooper & really did very well considering her age. I'm glad she hung in there so well & for so long. Once we got home we took some pictures of her being cute & silly.

Lucy is in the great stage of smiling. It's fun how she will look at you & smile & then turn her head & body, she does that a ton lately. It makes the kids laugh at how much she gets her whole body involved in the smile.

And I just had to throw in these cute silly pictures of her.

I love this quirky face of hers.

She's such a cutie!

We cannot believe she is 3 months already! But she's a doll. Still a super sleeper & we are so grateful to have her in our home. She's a keeper!