Thanksgiving Prep

This year we are heading down to Colorado Springs to spend Thanksgiving with my family. My mom does a majority of the cooking, but she has allowed me to make some items for the meal. YEAH! I am making pumpkin pie, cauliflower casserole (I don't even like cauliflower, but found this INCREDIBLE recipe last year for Easter that I couldn't pass up making again for another special occasion), cinnamon rolls and Chris's favorite, Grandma Mary's Holiday Rolls (my name for them anyway). I try to make them for any holiday that we are not going to be at his house for, because like I said they are his favorite! Anyway, this time around I think that they might have turned out the best that they ever have. But, we shall see tomorrow. I also thought that it would be fun to make some "hand" turkey's with the kiddos today. I think that they ended up having a good time:

Jonathan was really proud of what he had made:All three finished "products!"

Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

Creativity

As my tummy continues to grow larger and larger, the ease of sitting down on the floor playing with the kiddos gets harder and harder. So, I have had to improvise in how to play with the kids. These past few weeks we have been spending quite a bit of time at the kitchen table doing "crafty" things. There has been a lot of coloring, playing with stickers, putting together puzzles, playing board games, finger painting, etc... Here is a quick glimpse of some of the creativity we have been having.

My mom purchased this GREAT 'create your own sock puppet' set. It was probably one of the best things I have done with the kids in awhile. We all had a blast, there was no prep and hardly any clean up and it was super easy:

Playdough is always a classic:

And finally, stickers, coloring books and crayons!

First Snow!

Last week our house received our "first snow!" Even though it was a slight dusting, the kids were overjoyed and more than excited to play in it. So, I got them all bundled up... and they played outside for awhile. Looked like they had fun, until Jonathan threw a snowball in Catherine's face.All bundled up and ready to go!

Baking season!

The "Baking Bug" has bit me big time these past two months! I received a wonderful baking cookbook for my birthday and I am on a mission to bake as many of them as I can! The kids have been having a blast helping me on my "mission." Unfortunately, I always think of taking pictures of the progress on the actual mixing, baking and after shots (before it all gets consumed)... but I always fail at doing so. I do have these pictures of the kids helping, though. I thought that they were really cute!!

I was making banana bread, so Jonathan was adding the flour and Catherine was mashing the bananas:This time was making a brioche bread, which is basically butter, flour, butter, yeast and more butter (hence the reason why there arn't any ingredients on the counter). It needed to knead for about 15 minutes... the kids had a GRAND time dropping the tablespoons of butter one at a time and watching it mix for so long:

Playin' in the leaves

A couple of weeks ago all of our leaves fell off the trees in our backyard. Jonathan very vividly, and quickly, remembered how much fun it was to play in the pile of leaves last year. He begged and begged and begged to go outside and jump into a pile of leaves. Unfortunately, I was fairly sick for a few days and Chris was out of town... so Jonathan waited to patiently. As soon as dad walked in the door from his business excursion he was out the door again with the kids raking leaves for them to play in. They had a good two days of jumping and playing until Chris bagged them up! It's the small things in life that makes our kids so happy.

The kids waiting so patiently for Daddy to finish raking:They loved jumping off the wall into the pile of leaves. Dangerous?? Probably. But, no one got hurt.The next day the pile continued to grow with Chris raking the entire yard.And yes, Jonathan did pull out his helmet- just to be safe in jumping off the wall- and his fishing pole. And another yes, he did jump off the wall with his fishing pole in hand- several times. Dangerous? probably. Again, no one got hurt. But, were they ever happy!

Pumpkin Patch

Chris took the kids to the pumpkin patch the other day (while I had some much needed "time-off.") And, it looks like they had a blast! They did everything, except for the actual pumpkin patch.

There was an area to see and pet the animals:Hay bales to jump on:A wagon ride:And, a jumpy elephant:

Gotta give props to Chris for taking the kiddos someplace totally fun AND taking pictures!

Halloween

This past Halloween the kids had a blast! Catherine dressed up like an elephant (following suit with Jonathan last year) and Jonathan was Buzz Lightyear. They were both overjoyed with their costumes and rearing to go Trick or Treating- hence the reason why I couldn't get a good picture of them in their costumes...they wanted to leave.Catherine was only interested in going to a few houses, but Jonathan wanted to go to quite a few. So, Chris headed back to the house to hand out candy (his favorite part of Halloween) and I kept walking around with Buzz (my favorite part of Halloween), I mean Jonathan.Upon returning from Trick or Treating, the candy was dumped all out on the floor, and they ate and ate and ate. They had fun, but couldn't hold still for anything!Not only did they enjoy eating the candy but handing it out!! Jonathan LOVED asking people what they were dressed like and putting candy into bags. They both stood at the door waiting for people to walk up our driveway and then would annouce that someone was coming. (We estimated about 75 trick or treaters that evening)

Jonathan and Catherine received some Halloween cards from my parents which turned into pumpkin masks... a HUGE hit!