Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great dinner at my Mom and Dad's house. My Grandma, Aunt and Uncle, and Cousin and her family joined us. We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving - most of all, each other and our health! We had such a great feast and the kids had fun playing - Ryan talks about "Livia" all the time - they are one year apart and great play buddies! Hope you all had thanks in your heart this week for all the gifts we have been given!

Carter and his Puzzles

Carter playing with the wooden puzzles. Who on earth let him take out all of those puzzles? I'll give you a hint - it wasn't me... And guess who picked them up? Yes, you guessed it, me! Oh, well - he had a good time. He is a good independent player. Good thing, when you are the youngest of 3!

Cuddle Before Bed

In their cozy pjs before going to bed...quick snuggle, then back to playing! :)

Smile

Carter tries his hand at the camera.... Look at his baby blues!

Trampoline

Jump, jump, jump - I have gotten every penny back I spent on this trampoline in the few months we have had it. It is in constant motion! Even Carter tries, but rarely do both feet leave the ground!!

Rough and Tumble

Now that Carter is a little older, these two wrestle all the time. It is constantly a wrestling match in our living room or a gymnastics class with them, rolling and tumbling! I enrolled Ryan in Gymnastics starting next month. The school name is Perpetual Motion and his class name is "Cyclones" - is that fitting or what? :)

"If I could just reach this..."

Just a little farther...

Nightly Ritual

Ryan and Evan share their freezies every night before bed, and catch a little TV while snacking!

"Get You"

"Get You" consists of running around our love seat as fast as you can, chasing the person in front of you. Evan and I were laughing last week that we used to pretend not to be able to catch Ryan when we were chasing him, now we really can't! Those little legs can wheel around there so fast, they are a blur. Tonight he added monster trucks to the "get you" routine. I took a break and let him and Carter go for the title!

Christmas Tree Decorating

Normally I wouldn't put up my tree before Thanksgiving, but since I am not hosting and we will be out of town next weekend, the boys and I took advantage of a quiet weekend at home to work on it. Ryan was a great help, of course, always wanting to be on the ladder. Carter, on the other hand, has a fast pitch and seemed to only want to use it to hurl the ornaments at the tree. 2 broken ornaments later and he was banned from all breakables! Ryan was very excited to help with the decorating and kept saying "Santa will be so proud when he comes!" :)

Decorations: Done!

One last hanging basket complete and my outdoor decorating is done! It was fairly mild last Sunday when I put up the outdoor lights. I am glad to be done before we have snow on the ground! The kids were so excited when they came home and saw the lights on...that is what it is all about for me - the kids!

Book Club

It was our one year anniversary of Book Club this month. Audrey started the group of neighbors in November 2007. I decided to take a picture to document us as the years go by. We have so much fun at our book club discussions. It really takes me outside my box on what I would typically select to read. I love the outing and look forward to it every month! Thanks for a great time everyone!

Ryan's Day

Ryan and I had a full day to ourselves yesterday. It isn't often that I get that much 1:1 time with one of my boys. Ryan had a dentist appointment in the morning so I took a day of vacation, Carter went to Jill's. Ryan had a great appointment (small filling) that he breezed through - I was so proud of him. We went to Game Stop after the appointment and picked out 5 new games (new to him, they were actually used) for his GameBoys. We then went to Party America and picked out his Birthday Party decorations, he wanted Batman! After that, we went to Madagascar 2 in the theater. We played games in the Arcade after the movie. It was a great day spent together. He was playing his games at home when I snapped these shots:

Grapefruit and New Snowman PJs

Ryan and I were enjoying our sugar with grapefruit, I mean grapefruit with sugar before bed tonight. He loves his new snowman pjs and wanted a picture taken in them! The little things!!! :)

Kyle's School Program

Kyle's fall musical was at Meadow Creek last night. He and his friends (with Isaac and Riley in the first photo) had a singing part in the first scene. He did great. His brothers were so excited to cheer for him. Carter really got into it, our little conductor!! :)

Winter is here!

We woke up to our first ground cover of the season this morning! My daycare called saying she was closed today due to illness and since I have been battling a cough and fall allergies for the better share of 2 months, we decided today was going to be our "sick/snow day". Ryan saw his playset covered in snow and is chomping at the bit to get out and play in the snow. We'll see...

Stem Wraps

First set of wine glass stem wraps complete. These are a Christmas gift for Mrs. Loftus - Ryan's Preschool Helper. I hope she likes them - they are more work than what I anticipated, but I was happy with the finished product!