Thanksgiving Trip and Christmas Advent Calendar

Our family traveled to my Mom and Dad's in Clarksville, TN for Thanksgiving this year. We enjoyed a DELICIOUS, traditional, Thanksgiving meal (including my favorite - sweet potato casserole!) and spending quality time with "grandma" and "grandpa". We also traveled to Bowling Green, Ky to see my dad's extended family, including my grandmother. We had a great time. The kids especially enjoyed Grandpa's miniature farm wich includes several goats, a bull, turkeys, chickens, and a cat or two.

Grandpa and kids

Wyatt

Layla and Anna Lea on the haybales

This Christmas season, I was motivated and inspired to try an Advent calendar for our children. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, yet something that they would look foward to each morning. Almost all of the ideas that went into the envelopes were traditions that we would have done any way (like ice sugar cookies) but, doing it this way adds anticipation, and makes us more intentional in celebrating the days leading up to our Saviour's birth! Below is a picture of what I came up with that is working well for us this year. The first day we decorated our Christmas tree. Today we enjoyed cups of hot chocolate. On Sunday, we dressed up for church and tried for a family photo in wich everyone is smiling....with little luck.

Our "Advent Calendar" (made using envelopes clothes-pinned to a little rope)


Family Photos:)

Layla

Anna Lea

Wyatt

The Happy Little Family

(Many thanks to our photographer who managed to capture the stairs, cluttered with clothes in the background;)

Another thing I added to the calendar was making a birdhouse with Daddy. Rob, was not too thrilled with my awesome idea at first, but came through (as those of you who know him well, knew he would) with a perfectly cut, perfectly aligned, perfectly squared, solid-as-a-rock, birdhouse!

Couldn't resist posting this pic of Wyatt working in his cute lizard undies and socks!

The finished product!

Leaves and a little Chocolate Pie

Over the past couple of weeks I have fallen into the "holiday spirit" and have started baking and planning an Advent calendar for the kids. I love the holidays and all of the traditions and anticipation that it brings. This past week I baked a pecan pie and a chocolate pie. By the second day, there were only two pieces of the chocolate pie left. As I was vacuuming that day, I kept glancing in checking on Wyatt and Anna Lea, but in between glances, they happened upon the chocolate pie........

I truly do not understand why my children feel the need to "go the extra mile" when getting into something. They are not satisfied to merely nibble on the delicious food that they have found, but instead feel the need to baptize themselves it as well. Oh, well. I guess they figure if your gonna go, go all out!? A philosophy they continue to live out as they grow.

On a happier note..... we have a lot of trees around our house, and Rob did some leaf-blowing this past weekend. I grabbed my camera and captured a few memories.

my little "angels"

Fast becoming one of our November traditions is my Grandma Wilma's famous pumpkin roll recipe she has passed down to us. And it is GOOD!

Meeting Little Beau

This past weekend Oscar, Katie, and Little Beau came for a visit. We enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know one of the kid's newest cousins.

I had Layla be my photographer for the evening, and she did a really good job! She took all of the pictures below except for the one she is in.

Gram and Beau

Rob and I (don't look at my hair, it was strugglin' that day)

Poppy, Anna Lea, Freddy, and Freddy

Kate and Oscar

Layla trying to not be in a picture (wonder who she got that from?)

Wyatt

Layla and Beau

Mimi and Beau

Fall Party and New Kittens

This past Saturday we hosted a fall party for our connect group from church.  It was a blast, literally!  We began at 4pm with a little skeet shooting...which ended up lasting over 2 hours!!!  Several people had never even shot a gun before!  It was so fun to watch everyone.  Even Wyatt took a turn shooting! After we used up all the ammo, we moved on up the hill for a bonfire, some chili, hotdogs, and s'mores!  We had about 35 people come.

A couple of weeks ago while I was at our local dairy farm getting some milk, I picked up a couple of kittens and brought them home for the kids.  It took the kittens a few days to warm up to everyone.  Anna Lea, I'm sure, enjoys them the most!  She has been trying to think of names for them and finally told me the other day that their names were Flotsam and Jetsam.  If you are wondering where these names came from, let me explain...One of her favorite books right now is The Little Mermaid.  In the book their are two evil eels named Flotsam and Jetsam, so there you have it!  Now that the kittens are used to us, Anna Lea has been toting them around all over the place, one in one arm, one in the other.  I also caught the girls carrying them around in a zipped up gym bag, and told them that probably wasn't a good idea.  Later, after Anna Lea and Layla came inside,  I happened to look out and see the gym bag moving, and rescued poor Flotsam and Jetsam.  One day, Anna Lea ran inside very excited with one of the kittens and said "Moma, listen!"  and squeezed the cat in her arms, giggled and said, "it toots!"  I held back my laughter and told her that probably wasn't a good idea either.  These poor cats don't have a prayer...their names probably should have been Lucky and Chance instead:)

Layla had spirit week at school a couple of weeks ago.  Rob painted her face (of wich she was very proud) for school colors day.  Later that night he repainted it, and painted Anna Lea's and Wyatt's for the first home basketball game.  Layla and Anna Lea were probably most impressed with the cheerleaders (as was Wyatt;)

Summer Ends, Fall Begins!

It has been a while since my last blog, so this one will be kind of a catch up post with lots of pictures. Summer has ended and fall has begun.

People have asked me how it is having one in school all day now, and I would have to say, it is not much different. I still have a two and three year old at home all day that think they are too old to be taking naps now....so, that means not much time during the day to leave them unnattended, or who knows what might happen!

Layla still LOVES school! She is so excited every day to get there and find out what letter she will be learning. She came home a couple of weeks ago and told me that her friend, Emma, "loves Justin Beaver". :)

One thing the the kids enjoyed doing this summer was filling up buckets of water with bubbles and playing in them. This is something that I remember doing with my sister Hannah when we were little. It doesn't take much for kids to have fun!

Anna Lea and Wyatt

(Please excuse the nudity)

Layla and Anna Lea wearing their new hair bows to church

With Layla starting school, and Anna Lea and Wyatt not wanting to take naps until later in the day, bedtime started to get a little stressful. We decided to make a picture chart showing all of their bedtime routines, and really try to start being consistent with an 8pm bedtime.

Here is the chart we made. Usually Wyatt and Anna Lea do not take naps now, and it starts getting pretty rough around 3pm when we go to pick up Layla from school, but it sure is nice to start our bedtime routines chart around 7:30 and have everyone asleep by 8 ish!



We have also had some visitors this summer. Sally, her two girls, Violet and Rose, and Sally's sister, Maggie came to visit for a few days.

Wyatt and Caroline Rose

Wyatt and Violet are only a few months apart in age and really started having a good time when they found one little patch of dirt in the yard. They proceeded to dump in all over themselves and each other thoroughly enjoying themselves!

They were completely covered from the top of their heads to the bottom of their feet and all of the cracks in between!




So, I decided to just let them "wash off" outside

They did eventually come clean.

Another favorite summer pasttime...Tea parties on the porch.

Now summer is over, and we have already jumped into fall activities. We took our second family camping trip this past weekend with Andy, Jamie, and Alexandra McCay, and the kids had a blast! I didn't get any pictures this time though:(

Ready for church