Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank You Tanner B

Thank you Tanner, for practicing your piano this morning without any Mom-nags , prods, bribes or threats. I can not tell you how much it meant to me to hear you playing while I was getting ready. On top of that you warmed my heart when I overheard you telling Andrew that you really don't mind piano and even think you are pretty good at it. I do too. Keep up the practice!

(I am thinking of the tunes I heard this morning instead of the fact that I just managed to drop a glass jar of tomato sauce on the garage floor. It shattered, of course, and splattered me and the van and everything within 10 feet with red gore. I am also not going to think about how much fun it was to mop it up. Mopping the concrete garage floor is wrong. But I am going to pray that I reached every tiny little shard of glass the next time I back out.)

Pre-K Field Trip

I have done this exact same field trip with each of my children, just with different teachers and classmates to share it with. But I have to say that it never gets old. There is something about singing fall nursery rhymes on a hay ride that I just love. So once again this year we set out to sing songs and roast marshmallows and bury kids in the corn. Margaret loved every second of it. She has a wonderful class and two of the best teachers I have ever met. They obviously love their job, and get a lot of friendship and admiration in return.

Halloween

My Minions and Rapunzel had a great Halloween weekend. We trunk-or-treated (twice) and trick-or-treated (once). We now have enough chocolate to last us until Easter, or at least Valentine's Day.
I love the wonder of Halloween. Walking through our neighborhood in the near dark and stopping to chat with friends can't be beat. Neither can running into best buddies and joining them on the romp. Some of our friends were making doughnuts at their house and you know I could not refuse a sample (all right, maybe it was a plateful).
I have to say I also love that Halloween is done. I can rip down our ever-so-tacky spiderwebbing from the front porch and move on to other things. Right now I am surrounded by paint brushes and miles of baseboard that I should be painting. We are finishing out our basement as we prepare for our new arrival. This is a fun project and the boys have been excited about helping. Their new room now has a ceiling, paint and doors. We are hoping to get everything done in time to move them over Christmas break. They are conspiring like theives about the fun they are going to have living so far away from the rest of us.

Halloween of Old

I just could not let the season pass without sharing this blast from the past. Jason has lots of fond memories of this time of year. I can see why! He is Darth Vader on the right with his brothers on the left and some buddies in the middle.
(Jason is always telling me he sees so much of his twin brother in Andrew. Looking at this picture, I would have to agree. Uncle Ryan is Han Solo on the left. Same little build as our Andrew for sure.)

It Is A Boy!

This is the whole crew waiting in the parking garage, on our way to meet our new baby via ultrasound. The kids were guessing pink. They wanted "even teams." Although Andrew changed his vote at the last minute to pink and blue. That way he would be right either way.

I really wanted the kids to be able to see the baby moving, so they all came along. Tanner was fascinated by everything. Andrew was excited to hear the gender news. Margaret did not comprehend the word "boy".

But here he is. Our little boy. Now we can not wait to meet you in March!

Michigan Love

Last month we took a great weekend trip to Michigan. It was so hard to jump back into our normal routine around here after such a blissful 5 days together.
All the pieces for a wonderful family get-away just fell into place, (I love when that happens!) with the kids being out of school 4 days and Jason being able to get away from work without too much trouble. So we headed to Lake Michigan with a stop in Chicago. Where we squeezed in an afternoon at the Shed Aquarium. The kids loved seeing all of the fish and I loved staring at their faces, as they soaked it all in.


We had been wanting to explore the Northwest Lakeshore for some time, and boy are we glad we did. It was beautiful. For us it was an ideal getaway spot. The trees, the water, the sand, the dunes, the warm air. It was really, really perfect! We hiked the Sleeping Bear Dunes which seemed to go on forever. As soon as I thought we were at the top, yet another plateau of sand came into view. Going up was hard, but running back down made it worth it.
This lighthouse was a great car stop. We stretched our legs, threw rocks in the lake and were so glad to finally be in Michigan.
The kids loved playing on the beach most of all. We flew kites, buried Tanner, dared each other to take dips in the icy water and sat here to watch the sunsets each night.
Jason and I love when our family trips involve nature and getting the kids to recognize and appreciate its beauty. It seems like in those quiet moments when we achieve our goal, that is when our best memories are made.
This hike was a personal highlight of the trip. The leaves were so bright that the air was glowing. Someone left great hiking sticks at the trailhead for us and we pretended to be real hikers as we treked through the woods. So we scouted out some great sticks of our own and left then behind for the next group to come along.
This was a much needed and much appreciated trip for our family. We LOVE Michigan and can not wait to go back. I definitely see a family tradition in the making.