O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree....

After weeks of asking (they started in early November), we put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. The kids helped, which although I can't claim made the tree go up faster than usual, they really enjoyed helping with the process.

Sorting out the branches by letter/color (they amazing well with keeping the piles separate):

Putting the branches on:
Here comes the top of the tree:

Adding the angel on top:Decorating proved to be a bit of a challenge with two helpers, but we managed. Here's the finished product after we thinned out the ornaments from the bottom ;-)

Sparkle Berry, our Elf on the Shelf, also came back this year after Thanksgiving, and the kids have been enjoying finding his new spot each morning. The day he took up residence on the light fixture above the table, Jenna ate really, really well....he may be visiting that spot often (hehehe).

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Even with the 1st snow of the season, we braved the roads to help Grandma Barb celebrate her birthday. We ended up with a change of plans since Lynn & Tom were unable to join us, and also decided against driving to the Hubbel House for dinner. Instead we made the short trip to Timberlodge for dinner, and enjoyed the warmth of being inside versus in a car.

Here we are before dinner:

Grandma & the kids:

Opening presents:

Jenna (aka - bag head), what else are you going to do with an empty bag?:

Jenna spent a lot of time requesting that Grandpa spin her in one of their chairs....she loved it. After a while we told her no more spinning so she found dolls & stuffed animals and spun those in the chair instead.

No birthday celebration is complete without cake :-)

1st Snow

So I'm a little behind on posting.....

Back in November the kids were ecstatic to wake up to snow, and not just a little snow, but enough snow to build snowmen, forts, etc. in. Plus it was warm enough to actually play outside for a long time (well over an hour).

Here's miss Jenna all ready to go (just a little Christmas Story-ish):

Snow!!

Building a fort:

It was so much fun to watch the kids play together outside. There were little 'projects' all over the yard. We had snow angels, snowmen, sled tracks, and the start of a fort. They were sopping wet, and tuckered out by the time they came in, but you could tell they had a blast.

museum

After dance class last week Jenna said she wanted to go to the Children's museum, so we headed over to check it out. It was the 1st time that we'd been there w/o Andrew, so it was a little strange for me, but Jenna seemed to enjoy being able to go where ever she wanted w/o having to convince an older brother he needed to follow her. Here are some pictures from our visit:

Driving the bus:

Boat racing:

Checking out the slide in the beaver dam:

Getting her groove on, on the video screen:

One of her favorite parts of the day was painting her face at the spark cart....she thoroughly enjoyed all the color options, and was VERY proud of the job she did.

She wants to go back again soon, but says she wants Andrew to go with...isn't she sweet? So we're planning for a Friday evening or Saturday trip.

Halloween 2010

This year Elmo & Batman were in the house for Halloween. Both kids loved their costumes, and it took convincing to get them off. We participated in the annual neighborhood Halloween parade, and the kids made out like bandits. The both made me laugh when people would let them pick out their own candy....each of them would carefully select 1 piece of candy, and would make sure it was something they liked. Most people looked at them like they were nuts since a lot of other kids would just reach in and grab a handful.

The neighbors joined us for the parade, and the kids really enjoyed having Macie ride with them. Macie wasn't too impressed with her costume, but seemed to enjoy the ride.

After the parade, Grandma & Grandpa took over and Bruce and I were able to sneak away for a bit. We enjoyed dinner out with neighbors, and the kids enjoyed their their time with Grandma & Grandpa.

Andrew & Grandpa had fun shooting Andrew's BB gun at some of the pumpkins. Both of them seemed to enjoy it. It brought back memories of going out to the gravel pit with my dad when I was younger to zero in his guns. Plus I don't know who had the bigger smile, Andrew or Grandpa.

We hope that everyone had a good Halloween, we sure did!

Carving Pumpkins

The kids had a blast carving pumpkins this year. We were lucky and were able to grow the pumpkins in the garden, so there were 'big' decisions about which one each of them would get. Jenna chose the 'baby' pumpkin, while Andrew chose one of the bigger ones.

Jenna wasn't very impressed with cleaning the pumpkins out, and opted to have Andrew & Bruce do that for her. She loved that I gave her a marker to draw a face on the pumpkin tho.....he was a very marked up pumpkin by the time she was done with him! Side note - look she let me put a pony tail in her hair!!! She even kept it in for the rest of night - amazing, but apparently it was a fluke since she hasn't let me put anything other than barrettes in her hair since.

Andrew seemed to enjoy getting all slimy taking the 'guts' out of the pumpkins, and did a really good job cleaning them out. He insisted he carve his own pumpkin this year (we did help a little), so I was glad we had some safety knives on hand. He did a good job carving, although after we thought we were done, he decided to carve a big chunk out of the back of the pumpkin, which we weren't sure what it was supposed to be (that's why you can see thru the nose on his pumpkin).

The kids and the finished pumpkins

Almost spooky :-)

Out on the front porch with the pumpkins....Andrew was trying to hide behind them.

WI Dells

Andrew had 3 days off of school last week, so we decided to make good use of it by taking the kids to the WI Dells for the 1st time. It was a blast! The kids are already trying to get us to go back right away. Here are some pictures from our time in the Dells:

With the Gorilla on the way to the water park:

Miss Jenna:

WaHOO! That was fun!

WEEEEEEEE:

Bruce, Jenna (she's between the boys) & Andrew on one of the raft rides (the kids LOVED it!):

Andrew on the flow-rider:

Family:

Andrew amazed us by wanting to learn to 'surf' on the flow-rider. He did awesome! We were impressed that he could even do it, let alone wanted to do it more than once since you WILL wipe-out. He's still talking about it!

Jenna took a while to warm up to all the water spraying everywhere, but once she got used to it she loved climbing up the play structure & going down the big slides (over & over & over).

Both kids liked the wave pool, and lazy river, and kept requesting to go down the raft rides. Overall is was a great way to spend some of Andrew's time off & it was a great kick off to the weekend!