Trimming the Tree

 On Thanksgiving weekend we headed out to Lowes to pick the perfect tree to kick off our Christmas season!

 There were lots to choose from :)

 And everyone had an opinion!

 After perusing the lot several times, we were able to decide on the perfect tree.

 Daddy had lots of help getting it to the truck!

 The next day the kids got their first gift of Christmas- a new ornament to hang on the tree! The kids absolutely love getting out their hallmark ornaments each year and decorating our tree. Each one they open they want to hear the story behind why it was chosen for that particular year. There are lots of stories shared while we open them up. I love all the memories that hang on our tree :) This year Maddie got a ballerina since most of her time is spent dancing. Sam got Captain America, he is obsessed with the Avengers. Meg got Olaf...she sure does love that snowman. And Marla Grace got a Minnie Mouse...she loves watching her "Animals" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse).

When it was all said and done we had the tree and the rest of the house decorated and had the lights up on the outside. The kids said the house looked like a "winter wonderland"! I love to see the joy in their faces as they anticipate the Christmas Season because Joy coming to the Earth is what it is all about!

Giving Thanks

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in a different way :) On the actual Holiday I worked at the hospital. Troy and the kids spent the morning preparing "blessing bags" for the nurses and hospital staff. They came up around lunch time and delivered their bags and then visited my patients. Everyone loved them! The kids were so excited that week to come up and see what I do. They ate with me in the cafeteria and thought it was the greatest day ever. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with a yummy turkey dinner. The kids were excited to help with the preparations. They thought that using glass plates and goblets was so grown up :) We kept it an easy day and went shopping in the late afternoon and grabbed some ice cream at Chill for dessert. Loved having these five blessing sitting around my table!

Missing in Action....

Sorry that I have been missing in action on the blog lately, but trust me it is not from a lack of action! Actually quite the opposite. It seems like I blinked my eyes and November was over and we were half way through December! A few things we have been doing in November...

 Learning the letter "H" and celebrating with hat day. I'm so proud of how well this little girl does in school. She is so eager to learn and works carefully on all her pages. She also has a huge imagination and a sweet heart when it comes to playing with her little sister. These two have become close little friends lately!

 We have also been suffering from glasses envy. Marla loves Megs glasses and will grab them any chance she can. We got her this little fake pair and she wears them quite often. (there are no lenses.) This girl is getting such an imagination and a vocabulary lately!

 We also had our first broken bone. Sam broke his foot playing dodge ball with his friends at church. He has spent the last 5 weeks in a walking boot and has 2 more weeks to go. This has been pretty rough on a growing boy, but he has adjusted ok. It also disqualified him from the winter sports he wanted to participate in, but we are looking forward to spring sports and a well foot!

And we have been enjoying lots of outdoor play. The weather was pretty nice in November and my kids would rather be outside than in :) We have enjoyed parks and just being in our backyard. We have also been keeping up in school and we are almost half way done! Maddie's reading interest has just exploded lately and it is not uncommon for her to be up late at night finishing off a book she can't put down! Throw in Mommy working, Daddy's job and school, Church activities, ballet, Holiday activities and daddy's travel schedule in there and now you know where we have been! I'll try and do better in December :)

Fall Festival

 We had tons of fun at our Church's fall festival this year! These guys played games and gobbled sugar with all their friends :) Dressing up around here is actually a daily occurrence, but dressing up for this event was special and took a lot of thought and many mind changes. We ended up taking...

 Maddie and Eve dressed up as "Molly McIntire" from the American Girl book series.

 Sam went as a Tennessee Titan football player (he used his flag football jersey)

 Meg (who refused to get in a picture by herself) went as a Dalmatian puppy

 And Marla Grace went as Tinker Bell!

 Troy and I even got in on the fun dressing up as Colts football players since we were running one of the booths. Of course we were harassed a little for dressing up like "Yankees"! Southerners...

It was lots of fun! For Halloween night went to eat at Pier Park and let the kids Trick-or-Treat at the mall. Everyone chose new costumes and we loaded up on candy again :)

Camping

A few weekends ago we went on a fall family camping trip :) The weather was perfect and it was nice to get away...even if the campground is just 20 minutes from our house! We weren't prepared for the amount of stuff we would need to rough it for a few days...after we unloaded 2 vehicles and got everything set up we were ready to relax!

The kids absolutely loved it. They were all smiles the whole weekend!

We roasted hot dogs and had S'mores. We took a night walk through the campground and got to use flashlights. We saw some deer very close up.There was a lot of bike riding and playground playing. As it turned out, a homeschool group was camping the same weekend and we knew some of the families so the kids had plenty of friends to play with.

The next day there was a junior ranger day at the park. The kids got to go to different stations. They learned how to throw a casting net, talked with fire fighters, fished, dressed like rangers, got to make turtle crafts and many other things. They had lots of fun!

After that was over we were done roughing it and got to eat lunch at one of our favorite restaurants out on the beach. Then we meet friends and spent the rest of the day on the beach enjoying the beautiful water and fall temperatures. It was a perfect relaxing time spent with family and friends!

Glasses!

Our little Megan Joy got glasses last week! She gave us a little scare by going cross eyed on a Monday and not being able to correct it. I called the eye Dr right away and they got us in early the next morning. After extensive questions, some scary terms and a long examination it was determined that she is extremely far sighted and hasn't been able to see well at all her whole life. On that Monday her eyes gave up trying to focus. She was fitted with glasses and her eyes corrected immediately. (Pretty amazing!) She got to choose some purple glasses like ones that Princess Elsa might wear. They are pretty cool bendable frames that you can twist and turn without breaking. The first day there were a few complaints about having to wear them, but after that she has worn them like a champ and is excited to see the world a lot clearer! We are so thankful that the Dr. caught the problem and it was so easy to fix.

Everything is Awesome!!

On the 19th Sam turned 8! He wanted a low-key Lego birthday party with his best buds. These 4 guys had a blast! For the first hour or so they played football in the back yard. Than they ate Pizza, red and blue Doritos and had Soda! (Sam's menu choices!)

We organized 5 different Lego themed "minute to win it" games and the boys all kept score. They loved this! It was a lot of fun because each of the boys had strengths in different events so they all took turns winning. They had lots of fun cheering each other on, but Caleb was the overall winner!

Then it was time for cake! We had a Lego cake that we decorated at the last minute with Sam's actual Legos because no one in this town sells Lego themed cakes or has anything Lego themed to put on a cake, and believe me we looked!

Of course 8 year old boys think that any cake is awesome and they laughed at their blue and black stained teeth from the bright icing! Sam made a huge wish!

After the cake the boys went up stairs and built Lego creations of their own. They were very creative and had fun comparing their creations and building a little world with them. Sam got a few Lego sets to build for the party as well and they had fun putting those together. Right before the party Sam received a box from Papa and Mimi with the Lego movie inside so the night ended with a little movie viewing.

This is the face of one happy 8 year old!

 We love you Sam!!

Shadow

 This one time when I was asked by Sam for the millionth time if he could have a dog I said he could when Marla Grace could walk. He remembered so.....meet Shadow!

 We decided to adopt a dog through a local 'no kill' shelter. They take great care of the dogs and make sure they are fitted with the right family. We met a lot of dogs but when we met Shadow we knew she was the one we wanted. She was very eager to be around the kids, but gentle with them. She is house broken already and is fitting in great with the family. She is a terrier mix and is full grown at one year. The kids are taking such good care of her she needs frequent naps!

This is one happy dog and one happy boy!

Clear Blue Eyes!

 Marla Grace has had a clogged tear duct in her left eye since birth. We were hoping and praying that it would clear up on it's own like Megan's did, but it didn't. After jumping through quite a few hoops and traveling in many directions, she was able to have a procedure near Pensacola last Tuesday in office to open it up. We really loved the Dr. who finally helped us out. She was very good with Marla and was willing to open it without anesthesia.

Before the procedure we had to use a warm rag most morning to open her eye, but now we have nothing but clear eyes :) We are thankful that it went so well and that it is no longer and irritation in her life.

Brand New

Last Monday we started a brand new school year! Although the kids said they weren't ready to start, they jumped right in and have done a good job so far!

 Maddie is 9 and is starting the 4th grade. She is excited this year be continuing her ballet lessons. This year we are also trying a brand new dance class called Lyrical dancing. It is a little more of a free style dancing and has to be taken in addition to a classical ballet class, so Monday lessons just got long :-)

 Sam is 7 and is in the 2nd grade. He is excited this year to start basketball. He has tried baseball and flag football and now wants to try something brand new! In addition he and Maddie will be starting guitar lessons next week. They attended a Fine Arts Camp this summer and both wanted to pursue lessons. I was able to locate a teacher we really like that is the son of our Music Minister. These lessons are also on Monday so Mondays are really full this year!

 Megan is a brand new student this year! She is 4 and has started K-4 and is doing really well. She likes her teacher and does a very careful job on all her pages. She will also be continuing in her ballet lessons....On Mondays :-)

This is what baby girl thinks about all these new developments! She has lost her playmates for the morning and is also having to sit through lots and lots of lessons and practices. She is getting to learn a brand new and important life skill as well...how to entertain yourself!

too big....

Who is that big girl in a new big girl bed and without a pacifier?

 That is my baby girl...growing up too fast.

Four!

Megan Joy turned 4 this past weekend! We celebrated just like a frozen princess :-) Her best friend Madison was also turning 4 so we turned it into a double birthday party for Queen Elsa (Madison) and Princess Anna (Megan)! We had the party at the local roller skating rink and they had 20 friends there to help them celebrate!

 A Picture of the cake....

 Lots of chaos while we opened gifts!

 After roller skating for three hours we all needed a little help from Daddy to make it around the track!

 When the party was over she was one tired girl! We are glad we made such happy memories with Madison because her family moved to Virginia the following day :-(

On her actual birthday we had birthday pancakes and went out to Pier Park on the beach to celebrate. She took her birthday money and chose a Leap pad tablet and then we ate supper at Chic-Fil-A. We finished the night off with a trip to the Frozen Yogurt store. She had a great time and is all ready to start K-4 next week!

Home

We got to take a two week trip home in July :-) It was such a nice time visiting with family!

 We got to squeeze our Great-Grandma,

 Visit with Grammy Mary,

 And swing with Mimi and Papa!

 We made silly faces with our cousins while we watched a double rainbow.

 Speaking of cousins...there were alot of cousins!

 We played with Teipen cousins,

 Amis cousins,

 And even got to love on brand new cousins!

 There was four wheeler riding,

 Fake cow milking,

 And lots of trips to the park :-)

We also went canoeing and hiking at Turkey Run State Park, swam, fished, went to an Indianapolis Indians game, camped, watched movies, had cousin sleepovers, went shopping, got pedicures, lots of eating out, threw a baby shower, took family pictures, had a cookout with the Teipens, water balloon fights, played volleyball, went to a church picnic, and saw a very exciting Fourth of July fireworks display :-) Are you tired from reading that? Because we are still recovering from all the fun we had in those two weeks! The kids are begging to go back and have some more fun...I'm glad we were able to spend time with family and make memories that will last a lifetime!