Holiday Preparations

Nan came down for cookie baking and brought the girls these aprons, so cute! We made 85 Christmas Biscuits (soft sugar cookies) sort of by accident, halving that recipe next year! We made almost that many Hungarian Butter Cookies and a double batch of Molasses cookies. The molasses died in the oven, this week we're going to try a recipe with less baking soda.

Kerewin was lurking under the table and came out a little spotted

More from the trip

These were on Ellie's camera!

Pennies they squished in a machine in West Virginia

Elusive Grandma and Julianne

Emily

Logan

Elliet

Thanksgiving

We look forward to this holiday all year long! We spend too few days with Jedd's family. We stay up late talking, we play board games everyday, the cousins run around together all day, it's really pretty perfect!

Luke and Logan at the duck pond

Walking to the duck pond

Grandma and Papaw rented a bouncy house
for one full day!

Jedd stayed in to protect Kenai

Emily striking a Word Girl pose

Playing checkers

Logan and Ziva

Emily and Ziva

Logan pulling Luke

They always want to play in the back of Papaw's truck

In her Uncle Jeremy's old rocker

Movie time, we watched Up a couple of times, Julianne called it "BLOONS!!"

Kenai gets around with her cuddling

Logan with Uncle Jedd

Ready for the DNC

Helping with the rolls

Aunt Kathy with the hardest job, supervising the help!

Posting Light

I haven't posted much here lately. I post everything to Facebook and then it feels redundant to put it here. I will probably try and pick up the posting here though because I'd like to get these printed and bound at some point.

Ziva and her silly daddy

Wow, so cute!

I thought she would stir and bang. She had other plans.

Elliet asked me to take this with her camera

Trick or Treat!

This year was our third year to go trick or treating with Flipper and Jayden. We always have a great time and this year was no exception! The girls planned to go as princesses. Of course, I encouraged this since we had just bought princess costumes for their friend's birthday party! It was pretty chilly out so they were princesses under their jackets.

Kenai wanted to keep her tshirt on underneath.

I did Elliet's makeup when she dressed up for Awana earlier in the week
but this time we were running late. Fortunately there's always time for colored hairspray!

Ready to go! Jayden's a rock star. We tried to get him to wear Kenai's rat
costume from last year but he insisted it was a rabbit and refused to wear it!
So we spiked his hair and sprayed it red. With the new leather jacket, he looked good!

Jayden was the star of the show. He would run up to the door yelling, "trick or treat! trick or treat! trick or treat!" And the "Thank You!!!" He was so excited he'd run back to us and 2 or 3 times he tripped and spilled his candy all over the yard! People could have been handing out marbles and he would have been just as excited.

Pretty girls!

Ready to go home

The loot

September

Ziva looking adorable in her Bengals
gear from Uncle Brent and Aunt Lisa

Headed to a princess birthday party

Sometimes Kenai and I get a little bored sitting in the van
waiting for Elliet to get out of school. Those are the times I
really love having the iPhone with it's games and camera...

We were being pirates, "ARRR!!"

Ziva's been doing a lot of imitation play.
She brushes her hair, aims the remote at the tv
and loves trying to carry a purse on her shoulder.

Elliet was student of the week so we got to come eat lunch with her at school!

Now that we are back in school, we visit the library every week.

Kenai wanted to make this box into a robot.
They got a lot of use out of it!

Eventually the box became this:

Some sort of bunny death chamber? Who knows.

Ziva Turns One!

Mostly Ziva. It IS her birthday!

Looking for a cuddle

If she doesn't get it she'll rub underwear in your face...

Looking for the puppy

There she is!

So pretty!

Silly girls with French braids. They wouldn't let me get a profile!

School

Elliet started first grade a few weeks ago. We were nervous about the big class and the long day but she is doing very well. She was bummed at first by all the learning they had to do, "It's not like my old school." She's getting used to the work and she's making some friends so I hope we'll have a great year. Kenai started preschool this morning and loved it. She is in the small co-op nursery school that Elliet went to for Kindergarten and I'm sure she's gonna have a great year.

Let's Catch Up, Shall We?

"Three for me..."

At my cousin's wedding, the girls wanted their picture with "the princess"

St. Louis Arch

Magic House

Loved these pulley seats when I was a kid!

Getting packed for the trip. As Kenai says whenever we leave the house,
"Mommy, don't forget Ziva!"

Elliet's big birthday party (#6!)

Can't believe everyone got a swing!

Kenai's swing

Elliet's swing

Keegan

Rachel

Ziva with Leah

Savannah and Aida

Coming home from a weekend in Dayton

Elliet's Birthday

We were in Dayton for Ellie's birthday this year (6!)

Jedd was hiding her gift behind his back. This is Kenai saying,
"I ssaaaaawwww it!!!"

This thing is awesome! You can build it any way you want.
It's like giant tinkertoys.

Throw a sheet over the top and you have a cool fort! She loves it!

Creekin'

One of my favorite things to do with the girls!

We practiced casting, Ellie's getting it but Kenai was mostly bored and frustrated

Elliet went as deep as she could go, looking for tadpoles and minnows

Kenai preferred the shore where she could find shells