Advent Calendars

We've added 2 new advent calendars to 4 that we normally do every year. I wrapped 24 of our Christmas books and placed them under the small tree in the family room. Each night, one of the kids will have a turn to pick a book, unwrap it, and then we will read it. The other calendar we got is a Lego city Advent. There are 24 windows to open and in each one is a Lego character to build. Carter is beyond excited for that one!!! The kids can't wait for December 1st to arrive!

Getting Ready..........

Our ward Christmas party is this Saturday and the Primary was is in charge of putting together the gifts that Santa will give each of the children (as well as many other projects). The Primary President came over this morning to help me put together the 90 bags.

I'm so glad that our ward decided to only have 1 party this year. In years past there has been an adult dinner, a Primary breakfast, a Relief Society progressive dinner, a High Priest dinner and it felt like the whole month of December was taken up by all of these things. This year we have the one dinner for the entire ward (and it's on the 1st!) and then we will be done for the rest of the month!

Nativity

I often find Claire sitting here at the Little People nativity, playing with all of the pieces. Tonight I was able to sneak up on her & snap her picture. She loves playing right here!

Sunday Evening

Carter and Claire have been asking to play a board game for a few days, so this evening we played "Star Wars Guess Who?" and Dora Candyland. Fun evening!

Kate's Art

Kate came home from church today with this cute poem and her hand made into a turkey. The poem says:

"This isn't just a turkey as you can plainly see.

I made it with my hand which is a part of me.

It comes with lots of love especially to say,

I hope you have a very, Happy Thanksgiving Day!"

Sunday Morning

Kate looked so cute in her Christmas dress this morning before church. My Mom & Dad gave it to her last year for Christmas and now it fits her. I love how she gave me her sideways glance in the last picture! Claire looked sassy in her boots and she loves to pose for the camera.

Carter actually asked to wear a tie to church...gasp! A little father-son bonding happened as Cory showed him how to "tie his tie." Carter can not keep a shirt tucked into his pants, so his tie is looking a little short.

I sure do love these kiddos!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hard to believe another Thanksgiving is upon us. We spent the morning at home watching part of the Macy's Parade and decorating a bit for Christmas. After lunch I brought Carter & Claire with me over to Mom's church building to help set up for dinner while Cory stayed with Kate so that she could get her nap.  I helped peel the 25lbs. of potatoes. 

We enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner with lots of fixings! After dinner Lisa & I went over to Michael's to get a few items from their pre-Black Friday sale.

It was a hard day for Grandpa to not have Grandma there. We all miss her so much and wish Grandpa didn't have to suffer.

Jack Jack

Tom, Marci and Jack came over this evening to play some games with us. Jack was as cute as ever and seemed to like the lights on the Christmas tree. I placed him under some branches and he layed there for quite a while looking at the lights and ornaments. He is such a good baby!

A Saturday In November

I asked Cory to put the Christmas lights up outside today. He went out to look around for an outlet and there is not an outlet anywhere near the front or sides of the house. Cory called me Dad in the afternoon to see if he could come over sometime to help him run a new outlet to the outside. My Dad said he would be over in a few minutes to help out. I think it's amazing that in a couple of hours they were able to run a new outlet and we now have Christmas lights up outside. (Well, they are almost up....we got 2 strands up and then it was too dark to see anymore.)

While they were working on that project the kids were out front running around and riding on scooters and bikes. They wanted me to take their pictures over and over again.

I love how our Christmas tree looks in the front window!



Carter's Classics

During lunch today Claire showed us the following pose:

and said "What am I doing?"

Carter replied: "You're hesitating." Oh man, it was so funny, he meant to say meditating.

Then Claire said "I'm mesitating."

Funny, funny kids!!

Christmas Around Our House

We now have all of our decorations up for the Christmas season. We had to find new homes for all of our goodies since we moved during the summer. We are happy with the way everything looks and so thankful for all of our blessings.

Trimming The Tree

We put our Christmas tree up this evening and the kids helped decorate it. In the past, I have always done it by myself in the evenings, when the kids have gone to bed. It was fun to have help this year and the kids loved it. They were so excited to see their old ornaments, especially the ones that they have hand-made. We are getting excited for the Christmas season to begin!

November FHE/Claire & Ryan Birthdays

This evening we hosted our November Family Home Evening and also Claire & Ryan's birthdays. With their birthdays being in December I thought they might enjoy having a little break between their birthdays and Christmas!

We first started with a lesson on the media and how there are "rattlesnakes" out there, trying to get us to watch or read things that are not appropriate. It was actually a lesson I did for sharing time a few months ago. Cory was so nice to give the lesson tonight!

After the lesson the kids decorated turkey cupcakes. They did not turn out as cute as I had hoped, but they still enjoyed them. I could not find the cookies that were called for in the recipe so I had to improvise.

Next came the fun part....presents!!! Claire received some fun things: 3 Barbies, My Little Pony, a cute outfit, Dizzy Dancer, Brave TAG book and some cash.

Happy Birthday to Claire & Ryan

Claire's Thanksgiving Party

Yesterday I worked in Claire's class and helped the kids make pumpkin pies. Today all of the families were invited to come have pie & hear the kids sing a couple of songs. I ended up working in the class the whole day (which was only 3 hours) and helped Mrs. Sarte get ready for the parents to come. I cut up all the pie and filled the cups with apple juice. The kids looked so cute in their Pilgrim hats. We are now ready for our Thanksgiving break!

Kate's Kandids

I love Kate so much! She is such a funny little girl. We started this thing where I will say to her:

Me: "Kate, guess what?"

Kate: "What?"

Me: "You're......"

Kate: "Awesome!"

Me: "Kate, guess what?"

Kate: "What?"

Me: "You're..."

Kate: "Cute!"

Me: "Kate, guess what?"

Kate: "What?"

Me: "I........"

Kate: "Love you!!!!"

I never want to forget her cute little voice saying these things to me!

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves

Our tree in the front yard has so many leaves! We can rake them all up and the next day the lawn will be covered again. We are supposed to get some rain this weekend, so today after our green waste bin was emptied I went out to rake them up. While I was outside Becky Hedrick drove by and waved & a second later she was in front of the house again asking me why I was raking leaves on my birthday! She said that Zac and his friend would love to do it for me. Such sweet boys. We had the green waste bin & 4 large garbage bills filled in no time. As we were raking, more leaves starting falling & the boys would yell "No, get back up in the tree!" It was pretty funny. I have another bin scheduled to be delivered tomorrow so it will be nice to have 2 bins to work with.

When Cory got home from work he said "Is it my birthday today? Who raked all those leaves up for me?"

There are so many more leaves still on the tree, this chore is going to go on for a while!