Christmas Prep

Aunt Kelly read to the kids about the Elf on the Shelf. When we got home from our vacation, our elf was here waiting for us! The girls look forward to seeing where he will be each morning.

Decorating gingerbread houses. The girls had full decorative control over their houses this year. I only helped with royal icing when necessary or instructed (by them) to do so. Can you see Sydney's "cannon" on her roof. That is there to deter bad guys.

Pecan Picking 2010

Annual Pecan Pickup
It was really warm this year which made picking up pecans really enjoyable. This year we went before our Thanksgiving meal because there was rain forecasted for the afternoon.

Family Jewel(tone)s

I like to take our family pictures around Thanksgiving so we can send them out with our Christmas cards. This year we had studio portraits taken of us, but I still wanted to take some casual pics. Here is what we were able to capture!

Thanksgiving 2010

We spent Thanksgiving in Monroe, LA with Mike's Aunt Kelly and Uncle Emmett. Aaron raked up some leaves for the girls to jump in. They also enjoyed riding bikes and scooters outside.

Aunt Kelly and her baby boys. Two of those babies will be leaving for college next year!

Mike and his brother, Matt.

All of the little cousins. The girls are wearing their turkey shirts I made for them. Reagan is super thrilled to be in this picture.

Gig'Em Aggies!

We drove down to College Station last weekend so that Mike could attend the A&M v. Nebraska football game. We drove 13 hours on Friday. It was a very eventful drive and not enjoyably so. Sydney threw up 2 times, Kathryn threw up once (after watching Sydney throw up), and Reagan cried for the second half of the trip. Despite our issues, we made pretty good time to Buffalo, where our hotel was. On Saturday, we got up and ate breakfast, went swimming, then drove over to CS. We met Mike's dad, Corrie, and Mike's mom there. It was fun to walk around campus and show the girls where we went to college.

Here we are under the Century Tree.

Grandma Karen and Reagan. The big girls were enjoying the KidZone where they had two inflateables set up.

Getting ready for spirit walk. Here is Reagan with Harry and Corrie. The entire band showed up for spirit walk and the girls loved hearing them play. It was super loud, but it didn't bother any of the girls, not even Reagan. There was fly-over during spirit walk and they had their after burners on and that was SUPER loud. Like, damage your hearing loud. The girls got to give some of the football players high five as they walked into the stadium.

The girls and I hung out in College Station while Mike and his mom went to the game. We went out to eat, and they watched videos in the van while I drove around and remembered my old stompin' ground. I really couldn't have asked for them to behave any better. They fell asleep and I waited in a quiet car until Mike got out of the game!

November 2010

I am all finished breast-feeding Reagan, so she is learning to use the bottle again.

Kathryn at her Veteran's Day Assembly. Their music teacher taught them a Military song medley that they performed for the veterans and parents. It was very fun to hear her singing them and to learn them better ourselves! Sydney picked them up quickly, too.

The girls in their pretty pillow-case dresses from Grandma Dean, ready for church.

The girls did a round of swim lessons this fall. Sydney is in Level 1 and Kathryn is in Level 3. Kathryn learned how to side-breath and is really improving on her crawl stroke. Sydney's teacher said she just became a fish over the course of her lessons. She loved jumping out into the water and swimming with her face in.

BMX (how old is my husband?)

So...Mike has started riding his BMX bike again...after 15 years! Oddly enough, his current boss also races BMX! He couldn't help but help Mike find a good deal on a new bike and invite him out to the track! He's only been out twice, but has really enjoyed it. (And of course, he's still pretty good!) The girls loved watching him ride. They also loved watching that little boy that is on the far right of the pic. Kathryn really wanted to get out there and ride her Barbie bike around.

This is Mike's new helmet. Reagan is deathly afraid of it...on someone's head, or just sitting on the counter. The other girls aren't afraid though!

Halloween!

We had fun celebrating Halloween all month long! We decorated our house and ate lots of candy! We attended our ward's Trunk or Treat on Saturday morning. Here are all of us girls! Kathryn the doctor, Sydney the bride, Reagan the ladybug, and Emily the majorette!

I had a lot of fun getting their costumes together. For Kathryn I found an adult size pair of scrub pants and a white coat and sewed them down to her size. I made her cap out of the material I cut off the pants. I made her hospital badge and her pager is a pedometer! For Sydney we found her dress at the thrift store and I only had to hem it up a little. I also made her veil and bouquet!

On Sunday evening we visited the nursing home that's just down the street from us. We paraded around the dining room and wished the residents a happy halloween! Then we had dinner with our friends, the Fowlers. After dinner and dessert, we trick-or-treated for about an hour. The girls had a lot of fun running up to the houses, while we stayed on the sidewalk and waited. Luckily, they live just down the street from us, so we were able to get home quickly and get the girls to bed around 8:15! Double luckily, our Nonnie is here visiting, so she took Reagan home after dinner so that she could go to sleep!

Reagan is almost cruising!

Shaw Park Tree Top Playground Opening

On Saturday we attended the opening of Shaw Park's Tree Top Playground opening. This is another accessible playground that our friends (the Blakemores/Unlimited Play) helped to create. They gave out those cute stuffed monkeys, had free food, a balloon man, and lots of snacks.

Kathryn's Fall Party

Friday was Kathryn's Fall Party in Miss Reside's class. We had pizza, played games, made ghost suckers, and gave the kids a fun goody bag.

Kathryn at the ghost-sucker making station.

Kathryn making her witches brew. This was the game that I was in charge of. The kids had to use the straw to suck up the paper cut-outs and drop them in the cauldron.

Kathryn getting ready to play hot pumpkin!

Mikus Family Farm

Thursday was an early release day for Kathryn, so we went to Mikus Family Farm to enjoy their fall activities. The girls played in pools of corn, wheat, and soybeans. Reagan loved wiggling her fingers in it! The girls also had fun in the hay bale maze. It is one you have to crawl through and has a roof on it. They were afraid of it last year, but they really had fun in it this year. Kathryn had me time her, and she made it through in 24 seconds! We bought some mini-pumpkins and a beautiful mum for our front porch.