There's a....

Mouse in the Tahoe & an elf on the shelf! A mouse decided to take up residence in the Tahoe. We're not sure how he got in there, but we spent Friday afternoon taking everything out of the Tahoe, vacuuming up his mess, and then setting traps in it. We got him! Now we've set more traps just to make sure he was the only one (we're pretty sure he was).

We also adopted an elf (see pic below). He's one of Santa's helpers and will be reporting back to the north pole every night on how the kids behaved, and what they would like for Christmas. It's our 1st year doing "Elf on the Shelf", but so far the kids like it.

Introducing Sparkle Berry (the kids named him):

We put the Christmas tree up today.....

The kids loved helping, and did a great job. Once the tree was up, and Bruce got the lights on, it was time to put the ornaments on.

Here's Andrew w/ his ornament for this year:

Here's Jenna w/ her ornament (she's admiring that she picked one with a puppy & a baby):

Here are a couple of other pics from today:

Preschool Thanksgiving

On Monday, Andrew had a Thanksgiving 'feast' at school. He had lots of special guests since all the grandparents came to enjoy the 'feast' with him. He loved being able to show all the Grandpa's and Grandma's his school, and I think they enjoyed seeing where he is now spending 3 days a week, and meeting his teacher.

In his costume:

Showing off his Pilgrim hat (it had candy inside - very exciting!):

The class:

Andrew's fan club:

After the program at school, we took the grandparents out for lunch. Jenna soaked up all the attention of being the only grandchild present (Andrew was finishing out his day at school). It also happened to be my Dad's birthday, so here's Jenna w/ the birthday boy:

School Conferences

We had our 1st school conferences for Andrew yesterday....he's doing great (but we already knew that)! It was nice to have his teacher confirm what we already suspected.....we've got a very smart little boy. She said that she loves how consistent he is (attitude wise), and enjoys seeing his big smile every day. He does awesome at following directions, and listening even when there are several steps he needs to follow. She shared some of the artwork that they've been doing in class, and it was neat to see his coloring change as the weeks progressed (from a little outside the lines, to in the lines, and from everything 1 color to using different colors). He's showing interest in reading so she's helping him develop those skills, and is doing great with math.
Bruce and I are so proud of him!

Boys day

Bruce and Andrew went down to the Winona area yesterday while Jenna and I went to daycare and work. The boys sound like they had a really good time walking around the woods and hanging Bruce's deer stand. Andrew is pretty funny when he talks about how big the hill was that he had to climb up, and at first described it as a mountain (it was a bluff). He even talked Bruce into taking him out for lunch at Godfathers (my favorite pizza place). Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Andrew decided he needed to bring a 'stick' home from the woods.....
They stopped at the apple orchard on the way home too. Here's Andrew enjoying his carmel apple:

All in all I think both of them had a fun day.

Sadie's 7!

Yep, our slightly neurotic, but awesome little white dog turn 7 last week. We celebrated by making her cupcakes:

After bath time, it was cupcake time. We even gave Sadie her very own cupcake:
Here's a picture of the birthday dog (she doesn't look 7 does she?):
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE! We love you - even when you drive us slightly crazy with your barking and licking :) Thanks for being such a great dog.

tackle frisbee?

The kids were throwing a frisbee for Sadie yesterday afternoon, when they decided it was more fun to chase after it themselves. Jenna happened to reach the frisbee 1st, so she picked it up and started running.....only to be tackled by Andrew! When we asked Andrew why he did that his response was "She was running". Maybe he's been watching and playing football too much :)

Happy Halloween

We had fun in our neighborhood Halloween trick-or-treating parade again this year. You couldn't really tell what anyone was dressed up as due to having to be bundles up, but I think everyone still had fun, despite of the cold. After warming up, the kids dumped out their bags so they could check everything out:

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, we decided to make some special trick-or-treating stops....here's the 1st one:

I think that Grandma was surprised to see us, but enjoyed having the kids visit, and the kids enjoyed seeing Grandma Dee.
Next we headed down to Owatonna:

The kids enjoyed their special trick-or-treat bags that Grandma & Grandpa gave them, and Andrew really liked helping hand out candy. Jenna enjoyed the special Halloween cupcakes that they gave us for dessert.

For the last stop we headed back to Faribo:

I don't know who Jenna was more excited to see, Grandma or Tigger. The kids helped Grandma hand out candy too. Andrew did a great job counting out the number of pieces to hand out. Jenna wasn't too sure of anyone that came to the door in a scarier costume, so she let Andrew pass the candy out to them. After all that fun, we headed home. Andrew fell asleep with in 10 minutes, but Jenna held out for at least a 1/2 hour. We hope that everyone had a great Halloween - we did!