November: Fall Fun, Grandparents Day, Thanksgiving Feast, Tree Decorating

 Loving on little sis...

 Ahh...the simple pleasures of childhood!

 Roar!!  Still loving the dinosaur costume. 

 Getting Baby Girl snuggled up in Bubs sleeping bag.  Our kids drag their pup tents and sleeping bags all over the house and set up camp.  :)

 Grandparent's Day

 Making a craft for the grandparents

 Grandparent's Day program

 Silly Bean all ready for her Thanksgiving Feast

 Guess the braids were bugging her...:) 

 Feasting...

With one of her BFF's at school...

 Our Thankful Tree

 Decorating for Christmas...it always looks worse before it looks better...

 How the kids like to disperse ornaments...

 Snackage...

The Bean's little tree for her room, which she decorated.  :)

We didn't have too much going on in November, but there were a few things to take pictures of!  First up, good old Fall fun: raking up leaves and jumping in them!  We do that a least a couple of times each Fall with the kids.  It's so fun!  And we have the added advantage of a sloped yard so they can jump in the leaves and roll down the hill.  I don't know how much actual raking ends up getting done, but we all have fun and make some memories.  :)

Next, Grandparent's Day at the Bean's school.  They usually have Grandparent's Day around Veteran's Day and do a little program in the auditorium.  The Bean was super excited that Mimi and Grandpaw got to come to her class and visit with her. 

Toward the end of the month the Bean had her Thanksgiving Feast at school.  They were supposed to dress like either Pilgrims or Indians, and thankfully the Bean's Halloween Indian costume from when she was 3 still fit!  (I really lucked out on the costume front this year!)  They had turkey, popcorn, grapes and cupcakes for their feast at school.  (That's what the original pilgrims ate, right?!?  With Caprisuns??) And they made placemats to eat on.  Also for Thanksgiving this year, we did a "thankful" tree.  I cut out leaf shapes on the die-cut machine at our church, and we each wrote down things we were thankful for on the leaves and hung them on our thankful tree.  (The "tree" was branches I found in our yard.) :)  It was fun hearing things Bubs and the Bean were thankful for...the Bean's list included lipgloss, God, and school.  Bubs list included peanut butter crackers, Daddy, and playing outside. 

And of course, most years after Thanksgiving Day, we start getting ready for Christmas, and this year was no exception!  We pulled all the decorations out and had fun getting in the Christmas spirit.  I always make hot chocolate and a snack...I can't really remember what the snack was, but judging from the pictures I'm guessing chocolate oatmeal cookies???  I do the "prep" while the kiddos eat and then they help me put on the ornaments.  Some re-distributing is usually necessary.  :) 

Now, on to December!

September: baby announcements, Bubs first day of school, random pics

Here we are at September already! :) It's only the last day of February as I type this. Better late than never.

September brought first smiles from Baby Girl, and Bubs had his first day of school. We also send out birth announcements, which is kind of a funny story. A friend of mine offered to do our announcements for free, and so we were emailing back and forth on all the details. Long story short, after I had them printed I realized the wrong birthdate was on there. I had told my friend Baby Girl's due date instead of her birthdate. Oh well! I guess I was more sleep deprived than I thought!

Bubs goes to 3 year old Mother's Day Out one morning a week, and he loves his teachers and going to class. He looks forward to it every week. He's not so much into learning or sitting still, but he loves the playground, snacktime, and especially playing with his friends. He is our social butterfly for sure. He will walk up to kids at the park, iJump, McWane, wherever and ask them to play. And in two minutes he's made a new best friend. :) We are interested to see how he does in K4 next year, when there will be actual learning and teaching taking place. He is doing better on his attention span though, and a few times a week we work on our letters. He recognizes his name now and can name the letters in it, and can even roughly trace them if I can get him to sit down long enough to do it. :) He knows all his colors and can count a little past ten. He's not big into arts and crafts like the Bean, but he does like painting and cutting with scissors. He's always very proud of the crafts he does in school and can't wait to show them to Daddy. Even though he requires a lot of my energy, I will be a little sad when he's in school three mornings a week next year! He is such a precious little boy, with his charming little grin!

Trying to get a pic for birth announcements...have I mentioned that I'm terrible at taking pictures??
Bubs assisting with the photoshoot...

This is the pic we ended up using for the birth anouncements...

I thought this one was sweet. Bubs LOVES Baby Girl and dotes on her a lot.

Baby Girl with her great-grandfather at my parent's house.

Bubs on his first day of school!

Snoozing away...Baby Girl prefers sleeping on her tummy...

What a sweet smile! Don't you just want to squeeze those cute cheeks?!

Nothing escapes the Bean's craftiness, including Baby Girl. Those hearts on her jammies are stickers. The Bean decorated Baby Girl when Mommy wasn't looking. :)

Just being precious...

Random pic having fun in the rain...

May Part 1 - end of school, Mother's Day, and Bub's party

May included end of school, Bub's 3rd b'day party at the Fire Station, Community Helper day at Bean's school, Mother's Day, and a trip to Mimi and Grandpaw's. Here are the first four!

We had Bub's 3rd b'day party at a fire station near our house. It was perfect because there was a playground adjacent to the fire station. We did a tour of the fire station (...during which the firefighters were called out!! We got to see the firefighters jumping in the truck with no shoes and sirens/lights going as the truck pulled away!! Pretty cool.) Then we had cake and ice cream and played at the park. Everyone had a great time!

Each of the kids had an end of the year class party. Bubs had a water day theme, so they wore their bathing suits. He had a blast! The Bean's class did ice cream sundaes, and the party mom went all out! I can't believe the school year is already over! I'll have one in K5, and one in 3 year old MDO, and a BABY next year! I am getting old. :)

Listening intently to the firefighter...

Playing in the firetruck

A future firefighter?? Lately Bubs says he either wants to be a firefighter or a doctor. :)

The whole fam...I think I'm 8 months pregnant in this pic...

They were pulling off about 30 seconds after the alarm sounded...no kidding!

Bubs and sweet cousin Sarah Grace

Here I am telling Bubs to "blow out your windows"...that's right, I said windows. My brain has not been functioning at full capacity since I've been pregnant!

Blowing out his "windows"...I mean, candles!

Cookie cake double doozies from Sam's Club...delish! Btw, that was Daddy's choice, not Bubs. :) I think Bubs would have chosen a Spiderman cake.

The guests

The park

Come on, I HAD to include this one!! If this is not a Kodak moment, what is?!?

Party favors included a fireman's hat and a cup full of candy and fire truck related stuff...

A couple of Bubs favorite gifts...a Spiderman cap, camo rain boots, and a gun. He has worn those boots and cap almost every day since.

We also celebrated Mother's Day with my mom (Mimi) on the same day Grant's birthday. We had a girlie lunch...chicken salad on croissants, fruit with marshmallow dip, and chocolate chip or lemon blueberry bread. And lots of leftover cookie cake.

Community helper day at school...Bean was a nurse.

Bub's last day of of school - water day!

Bean's end of the year school party - ice cream sundaes!

The spread

No party is complete without a pinata, right?? Doesn't every ice cream sundae party need candy chasers??

The Bean and Lynley, her K4 BFF

Sweet Mrs. Thompson! The Bean loved every minute of being in her class!