Oh goodness, falling behind again!

Wow, I am really bad a keeping up with this.  In my defense though, it's been a busy time. Not so much for our family, but for me with my business. Business is booming, and that means my spare time is spent on the couch with a hook and yarn instead of in front of the computer.  Sorry folks!

But I'm here now to catch everyone up! 

November:

Not much to tell about this month. It was the busiest time for me with 2 really big craft shows. And since Cam also had to work the entire week of Thanksgiving (yes even Thanksgiving day), our family time was spent at home watching movies or playing in the snow. We got our first snowstorm of the year early on in the month. That was fun!  The boys had a blast playing in it, even in the super frigid temps.  Amara went out a couple times (dressed as a pink blob) but wasn't too thrilled about the cold. I was able to get a few snapshots of the boys pulling her around on the sled though.

With all the snow, I got to take some Christmas Card photos for my good friend Trista. I love doing this for this family, mostly because I get to see all the smiles Kinsey can put out!!  She is such a delight, and the best way to brighten anyone's day! 

Of course I couldn't resist snagging a few of this little cutie either!

We also got to celebrate some birthdays with this fabulous family. Kinsey and Trista both have November Birthdays. This year Trista did a Carnival theme birthday party for Kinsey. All the kids had a BLAST!!!  There were a ton of carnival games, fun fair type food, and even a barrel train - Courtesy of Jamie and his love for Tractors.

Trista and I went shopping to celebrate her birthday, all the way down in Castle Rock, to the awesome outlet mall down there. But we also did one of our other favorite things - Painting!!  She picked a great picture and both of ours turned out awesome!  It is now my favorite painting I've done from Picasso and Wine.  (and hanging in our dining room).  

I feel like I talk about this family a lot, but they are very special to us. If you want to read more about Kinsey and the fam, you can on her blog here http://kinseylenox.blogspot.com. 

Like I said Thanksgiving wasn't anything special this year. Cam worked ALL DAY Thursday, so we did our Turkey Dinner on Friday. Luckily he was able to come home from work that day early enough to get the turkey in the oven. Other than the yummy paprika turkey that is Cam's favorite to make, we just did a few simple dishes: Stuffing, mashed potatoes and crescent rolls. The kids don't eat any of the fancy stuff when we make it anyways, so I didn't bother. I ddi however put my time and energy into pies!  This year at MOPS again we did another pie crust making the week of Thanksgiving. So I had 3 homemade pie crusts ready to go for Friday. I made 2 apple pies (one was mini-sized) and one Pumpkin Pie - ALL FOR ME!!!  I like that no one else in the house is fond of pumpkin pie, because that means I get it all to myself!

But we did take another trip to Trista's Farm for a barrel train ride and some animal play time.

And Riley and Jayce got to do some painting as well. I took them to Picasso and Wine to paint some Christmas-y pictures. They were teaching Olaf, but Riley wanted to do the Grinch. So he was the Grinch in the sea of Olafs!  lol  They both did great (with a little help from mom) and had a lot of fun doing it!

December on the other hand, hasn't been so fun. 

We've spent most of the month sick. Started out with Jayce and Amara. developing some nasty "other end" issues. They lasted for nearly two weeks. Jayce missed a lot of school, and we even had to push back their birthday party. Things got better for a little while. And Jayce was able to make it to school for his birthday celebration, and Christmas program.  It was really cute!  He loves school, and his teachers. So getting to bring in his choice of chocolate cupcakes for his birthday was super special to him!  His program was a weird surprise for us. He's so outgoing, and loves being the center of attention, but when it came time to walk down the aisle to sing in front of everyone, he clammed up like Riley would have!  You can see in the photos that he hid his face the entire way down the aisle, then when he got on stage he had his hand over his nose and mouth almost the whole time!  It was adorable!  That is usually not him at all.

Since we pushed back the Birthday party, we did a little celebration at home on his birthday. We had a few chocolate cupcakes left over from his preschool treat, so we used those to sing to him and let him blow out the candle!  Thankfully, Grandma & Grandpa Louie's cards had arrived, and Unkie Rodgie's gift came that morning. So with the gifts from us and them he had plenty to make it a great little celebration.

We were hoping to be able to celebrate Amara's Birthday and have the joint party for them this weekend, but low and behold, I got sick. Nothing major, and I'm already feeling better, but with all the germs going around and all the scary talk about the flu, we thought it would be best to push back the party again. At least until after the holidays. Hopefully, everyone will stay home and away from all the germs and stop this crazy epidemic. At least that's our plan!!
 So not much else going on right now. We will probably do a little Birthday celebration for Amara on Monday like we did for Jayce. Other than that is just Christmas prep. Needless to say, I'm glad I had all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving!!  I would have never finished at this rate!  I was really proud of myself. I planned ahead, thinking about the perfect gifts for everyone, then waiting around for deals. And thanks to everyone leaking their black Friday ads, I was able to get everything for a better deal!!  Yay ME!!  I need to remember that for next year. With all the people we buy for and now 2 birthdays, this is an expensive month for us. It was really nice to spread it out this year.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention our Christmas tree (partly because there isn't much to tell.)  We ALWAYS go in the mountains and cut down our really Colorado Christmas Tree. Except for this year. It was really sad. We had a few issues with acquiring a vehicle capable of getting a Christmas tree this year (more on that in a later post). And with all the sicknesses and Cam working almost non-stop, there just wasn't time to make it happen. So, we drug out the fake one that hasn't seen the light of day in 9 Christmases (the last time we used it was in Indiana!). :(  But it's alright. It's sturdier than our live ones we usually get, so we were able to load it up with ornaments and decorations!  The kids loved that!  It was nice to let them put the ornaments where ever they wanted, instead of us telling them, no, it won't work there. We added more than usual, and it looks great!  I guess I can't complain too much, it's just that it's not the same.

We also went to see a Santa. We don't usually do that, we don't make a big deal of Santa in this house. (No elf on the shelf here!!) Hopefully that will lay the foundation of the real reason for CHRISTmas for our kids. Anyways. Amara does not like Strangers. Especially Men Strangers. And Even More So BEARDED MEN STRANGERS!  So I just knew that she was going to scream bloody murder when we stuck her on his lap.  And I thought, I don't have pictures of the boys doing that, and every mom needs that  "screaming child" picture. So I wanted to take them to see Santa. Plus, now that we are a complete family of 5 it would be nice to have that official Santa photo.  So we found a Free Santa where you take the pictures (bonus!!!  I prefer taking photos, and not paying a bajillion $$ for a single photo.) And he was a really good one!  He even curled and put glitter in his beard!  That's dedication for ya!!  So we dressed them up, and headed out to see Santa. There was no line thankfully, and we went right in. I set Amara down in front of him, expecting her to turn around and cling to me. BUT, he reached out to her and she walked toward him!! Timidly, mind you, but she did!!  She then let him pick her up and set her on his lap!!  So much for my screaming child photo.  But I did get a really nice one!  I guess that's just as good!!

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to update again after Christmas. We also have a very fun Surprise for the kids happening tonight!!!  So I'll include that one in the Christmas post too!  :) 

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Halloween Fun

October was filled with all sorts of Pumpkin fun!  You got to see our trip to the pumpkin patch last time, and painting pumpkins, but Halloween was creeping up on us fast so we had to get those suckers carved! 

Jayce and Amara had a blast!!  Riley was cautious as usual.  Jayce, in usual fearless fashion, stuck his hand in right away to pull out the guts!  Amara wouldn't touch it, but enjoyed sticking her face in the hole.  I'm not sure if she was smelling it, or looking in there, but almost every picture of her is with her face in a pumpkin!  Once again, Mommy and Daddy did all the carving, which is fine.  But we had to convince the older two to pick some designs that are a little easier than their first choices.

Here's some pictures of the process:

Then it was finally Halloween. Riley and Jayce CHOSE!!!  to coordinate their costumes!  It was so Cute!  They went as Mario and Luigi, and I loved it!  We had a little trouble getting Riley's outfit together.  Who knew it was so hard to find size 8 overalls at a Thrift Store!  And I ended up having to paint his hat green (so it's a little stiff.) But they both loved it!  Amara was a Ladybug. I had intentions of making her a 50's girl with a tutu poodle skirt, but when I saw the wings and red tutu deeply discounted at a costume store I quickly changed my mind.  Add some antennae on a headband and we have ourselves a ladybug! 

On the 31st in the morning Old Town does a Trick-or-Treating event with all the downtown businesses. It's just for little kids under 6 (since most older ones are in school anyways.) So I went with some MOPS friends and their kiddos.  It was so cute!  Amara has the begging for candy thing down, so everyone loved her. She was a hoot!  One point she stuck her teeny-tiny hand in the bowl and grabbed at least 10 pieces of candy!! More than I could have grabbed!!  Everyone was laughing at her! Jayce had fun too, although he was in a mood and ended up riding in the wagon with Amara most of the way, and not wearing half his costume by the end. Oh well. It was still fun!

 After that we went to the new Steak n Shake in Greeley - Just 20 Minutes AWAY!!!!  I'm so glad to finally have Milkshakes within a 20 minute drive!!!  Next summer we may be looking for a lot more things to do in greeley!  lol

Other news, Amara is talking up quite a storm now. She will repeat most anything you ask her to say, and is starting to ask for things with words rather than just pointing and grunting. We still have a long way to go, but she's making progress!  Jayce is loving school!  We eat lunch everyday at 11 (because they are starving by then even though they graze for breakfast all morning!!) and IMMEDIATELY after lunch he gets his shoes and backpack on and is ready to go. I have to explain to him (every 3 minutes) that he still has an hour or so until school starts!  So funny.  This week he had to make a scarecrow for some homework. I drew overalls on the person, and he colored it in. Then he glued yellow yarn on the arms, feet and head for straw.  I added the glue for him, but he did the rest. I then tore out a hat from paper (to give it a rougher look) and he glued it on the head. There wasn't really space for it on the paper, but he was determined to give his scarecrow a hat!  I love how artistic he is, and that he loves doing it.  I used to have to bribe Riley to draw/color the smallest paper, but Jayce did this whole scarecrow in one sitting, for like 30 minutes without a single complaint. He kept saying "I have to keep going". lol. He wanted more and more and more!  Speaking of Riley, he's doing really good too. He had some Birthday parties this week, so I took him shopping. We've made the rule that it has to be a game or book to give to our friends, and at first he whined about it. But once he saw that there were books about Minecraft, and games related to things he and his friends like, he had a hard time narrowing it down.  I'm happy to be showing my kids that there is more to life than action figures and race car tracks. Not that those things aren't great - but I'm sure Zack got 5 transformers for his birthday, because that's all they talk about and play with!  Another great thing is Riley's reading level. We had his teacher conference a few weeks ago and he's doing amazing in school. His reading level has really skyrocketed, and he's reading great. We took him to the Book Fair at school and let him pick out a book. I wasn't thrilled that he picked out Captain Underpants, but that was the point to let him pick out a book he was excited about. Needless to say, it worked!!  It is a big chapter book, and he finished it in 2 days!!!  That's almost record time for me!  I remember being like that. I would get the Babysitter Club books in the mail and hide under my covers at night to finish it by flashlight. I loved reading, and I'm so excited to pass that excitement on to Riley!  His writing is still struggling a little bit, but he's so much like Cam (and that's not Cam's forte either) so I'm not concerned that he'll be fine. Just means a little more work at home. He has also dropped off in his math.  Which is a little concerning, but I think it has to do with him being bored in class. He is SO smart at math that he daydreams during the lessons and then misses what he needs to be doing. Once he learns what the lesson is he takes it and runs with it. He typically has his math homework done in literally seconds!!  He's so fast with it.

I'm really proud of all the leaps and bounds my kids have made the past few weeks!!  they are growing up too fast though. Not much else going on until Thanksgiving. Looks like Cam is going to be working that whole weekend again. But we always know that is a possibility.  Have a good week everyone and enjoy the beautiful Fall we are having!  ;)