My favorite turkeys

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of food, family and fun.

Here are some pictures from the girl's kindergarten feast.

Here's Abby in front of the big turkey in school... everyone in her class had to design a feather and a vest. Look at all the colorful feathers - Abby wanted to do one with hearts. I didn't realize the kids would go all out on decorating either of these. I think some of the parents spent some serious money on the vests - we just put some stickers on hers and her Indian name she came up with "Paddling Duck." Everyone else was pretty traditional with feathers and such - oops.

The "Feast" at school. All the food looked great!

Abby in all of her glory. "Where's the FOOD?"


Abby was the only kid in her class to eat everything on the plate - even the cranberries.

The girls and their kindergarten teachers - they love these two!!


Brown bag special.


My dad came in from Colorado - here are the kids with him. We had a good time visiting.

I wasn't feeling the turkey this year so we just had a small ham and lasagna. Yeah, weird combo but it all worked out.

Here's my mom with the kids.

We skipped the Christmas tree farm this year and James just went to a local nursery to pick up a tree. We'll go back next year... it was really cold Friday morning (finally) and I didn't want to take Cole out in the weather. I didn't even realize the "big box" trees are $40 cheaper! So bonus there.

The kids' favorite part - drinking hot chocolate. Cole went for some warm milk (I'll spare you the picture on that one).


Happy kiddos by the tree (fueled by hot chocolate).

I actually participated a bit in the Black Friday madness. First year I've ever gone to a store the day after Thanksgiving. Austin and I walked into Old Navy late in the afternoon - they had his fleece pants for $5 so thought I'd get several pairs. As soon as we walked in, the registers all died. We should have just left then but we waited it out for a good hour. I'm glad it was Austin who was with me. So this is the first and last year I will participate in all that craziness.

Here's just a random picture of Emily - she slept in a braid and her hair was pretty wavy the next day. I thought she looked cute :) Plus it's always nice to get a photo of her when she's practicing her writing (and not playing with princesses).

Another Austin obsession - Scrabble. Sometimes he plays with us, sometimes a ghost. And usually the ghost wins. C-O-O-L (6-point word for our oldest kiddo).

Happy Thanksgiving!

from this little turkey!

6 months old!

Cole - you are 6 months old now! Half a year old?? Oh my!

What are you up to now?

You LOVE to eat. Obviously. You are the cutest little round baby! I think your favorite food is sweet potatoes. We're still making all your food. Even Austin has pitched in... here is he helping with the carrots. They are not your favorite. They wouldn't be my favorite either. But we have tons of them so we'll see if you come around.

This is your favorite new toy - tons of stuff for you to play with on here!

You are so close to sitting up... and staying that way. You can sit up on your own for about 5 seconds until you topple over. I am completely fine with this. I know once you master this crawling won't be so far off.... I think you are going to be into everything.

You are a wiggle worm!! You are busy, busy, busy. You do not like to sit still when we hold you.

You are so ticklish! I could listen to you giggle all day long (which is why you get tickled quite a bit).

Everything goes into your mouth. Maybe you're teething, but no signs of any teeth quite yet. You have a very strong grip... and are not happy when we take something away from you. When you're laying down you hold onto your feet like this.

I think my favorite time with you is after your last feeding at night. You're so happy afterward and you play a little game with your daddy. You'll give your biggest, cheesiest smile - then hide in my shirt, look at dad again with your silly grin, and repeat over and over.

At your 6 month appointment you weighed 16 lbs. 11 oz. No wonder my arms hurt when I'm carrying you for a long time. You were 25 inches long... finally made the charts to the 4th percentile. Yeah! I can't remember exactly what your head circumference percentile was, but it was huge. Obviously you have big brains like the rest of us. Ha! You are in 6 month clothes and I just moved you into size 3 diapers.

You have the sweetest little spirit and we love you very much!

Strike a pose

It's not quite the season here for hats yet - still in the 70's... not to mention the fact that our college teams aren't playing up to our expectations. But I think I'm one of the luckiest mama's in the world that I get to play with this little man everyday.

Mr. Football

and I'm referring to the boy in our house, not to my dear husband... to James' dismay.

Austin is seriously a football lover's dream child. He's memorized the top 80 players of all time... here he is doing the top 40. He can also tell you what the team they all played for and their stats. I think he has a photographic memory. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.



I think he might be borderline obsessed. Which is why Santa is going to sneak some books about presidents into his stocking this year. Although who's to say he doesn't have a future in this? You never know.

While James was out yesterday, Austin created a 2o question test on football players for his dad. James came home, answered the questions, and scored a 50. HA! Here's the proof.

There's a new expert in our house these days.

Have a happy football Sunday!

Just another day!

Just thought I'd put together a quick post since I haven't put anything on here lately.

We've had quite a few germs in our house the last few weeks, but life is good! These kids always make me smile. I am still amazed that we have these 4 beautiful kiddos and that God has entrusted us with His gifts!

They all got their first report cards last week. I can't believe the amount of work the kids do in second grade. There was actually a math problem that I had to think about last week when I was helping Austin with his homework. And I love math. This is the first year he has real grades. He got all A's on his first report card - James and I are so proud of him. I met with his teacher at the end of last month and he is doing super. He absolutely loves school and thrives in that sort of environment.

He reminds me of a CK model of some sort in this picture. Strike a pose. Ha!

He has about 5 loose teeth now and I bet in a few months he will have a mouth full of over-crowdedness! Mental note: start saving for braces!

Abby loves school. She comes home spouting off all the poems and songs they learn and telling me about all the kindergarten drama... you know like who was on superstar and who was in trouble for the day. I feel like I know all the kids in her class, even though I don't personally know any of them.

She picked these sunglasses out of the treasure chest at school. Apparently it was a reward for good behavior. Works for me!

And then there's my sweet Emily. She is such a trip. Everyday when she gets home for school, she immediately goes to her room, strips off her shorts and puts on a tutu until bed time. And by every day, I don't mean some days. Or most days. I mean EVERY day!

She likes school, I think?? I can't ever get any good information out of her and I think sometimes she just makes things up. Like today apparently she rode a horse at recess. We've had to have a few talks about truth vs. lying lately. Her teacher tells me she is very shy in class, but she's a "quiet leader."

The girls are into these things called silly bands. I had no idea what they were before school started. They are basically rubber bands that have shapes on them the kids wear as bracelets. Now they trade them on the bus - which I'm not sure how that's possible since I have never bought a silly band ever for them to be able to trade. There's a boy on the bus that they call "the love guy" who James and I are kind of weary about. It sounds like they are getting most of the silly bands from him. They have told me some strange stories so I'm not sure how much longer they will be riding the bus. Anyway... here are all the silly bands she came home with today...

And onto the next child - baby Cole is doing great. He continues to be the center of attention... and if he senses that he is not getting the attention he deserves, he let's us all know!

He gets so excited as the bus drives up to our stop. I want to think it's because he can't wait to see his siblings... but I think he really likes the big yellow bus! It's so cute to watch. He frantically kicks his legs until the bus drives off. And then when his entertainment arrives home life is certainly good for him!

Time is flying by this year. Where does it go? Enjoy the rest of your week!

Spooky spooky

We started our week of Halloween festivities at the kids' fundraiser at their elementary school.

I got off pretty easy this year. You'll notice from the picture below from 2 years ago, the girls wanted to be a ladybug and clown once again. Clown costume still fit. The only costume I had to purchase was the ladybug. Austin's transformer outfit was from last year. Yeah for me! Maybe we should be giving them more milk!

Emily won the cupcake walk. Last year it was a 4,500 calorie cake walk. We're a-okay with cupcakes this year.

She gladly shared her good fortune with her sister.

Kinder costume contest. Looks a bit like the bar scene in Star Wars.


I left after the face painting and headed to my volunteer station - Chick-fil-A. I was in heaven. James was off with the 4 kiddos by himself and surprisingly stayed for a while. The kids still had tickets to spend.

I helped both girls in their classes last week carve pumpkins. This is not my specialty - but the kids were good sports. None of them knew that they drew the short straw with me at the carving station.

You know how dogs sometimes look like their owners? Well, I'm just sayin... :)

Time for our own pumpkin carving... that doesn't sound so good, looking at Cole's bib... I mean "real" pumpkin carving.

The girls' job was to put the seeds in a bowl for us to cook later. They had a blast. Unfortunately James sort of burned the seeds this year. He convinced them that they were supposed to look like that.

Mmm... pumpkin guts!

There's Emily and her alter-pumpkin. Aaargh!

Aaargh!

Roasted pumpkin seeds - yummy!

Halloween day...

Chubby little pumpkin.

It reminds me of my twin pumpkins 5 years ago. Gosh, all my kids are obviously related.

Oh, how they've grown!

Scoring tons of candy...

Late night for our little pumpkin.

I think we have even more sugar than we did from last year. I once again confiscated all the Reeses for my special hidden stash and now we need to figure out what to do with the rest...

Happy Halloween!