Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was a wonderful, wonderful day.  We spent it with Joel, Kelly, Ruby, and Ben at the construction zone, I mean, our house.  I was going to say something about this being the first and last Thanksgiving dinner served in a dining room without a floor but Luke and I are having a lot of fun with this renovation.  It's plausible there might be more plywood-subfloor-holiday-dining-hosting in our future.  Consider yourself warned.

Back to Thanksgiving...to sum things up, my heart is full, I have much to be grateful for, and we had a really fun day with our family.

Singing 'Thank You, Father' before our meal.

As soon as we start singing the prayer he folds his hands and joins in with "aaaaaahhhhhh".

Last year Kelly created a Thanksgiving tablecloth and had all her guests sign their names and list what they were thankful for.  She brought it to our meal this year and we got to contribute.

Levi is interested in anything his Daddy is doing.

As he was unable to tell us what he is thankful for, we traced Milo's little hand for his contribution.  Ruby was able to write out part of her own list this year.  Included: my family, kindergarten, my pillow pet, Teddy, Lamby, and Mama.   Levi's says he's thankful for playing rescue games, all my toys, my new bike, my suitcase.  Ben is thankful for Bobby and his other dogs, crazy dancing, and worms.

Luke's entry.

We took a walk down to the neighborhood park at dusk.

In addition to the wagon we took the scooter and the bike.

Whee!  Downhill is much more fun than uphill.  Isnt' she adorable??  Ok, and look at her shins- covered in drywall dust from crawling around at our house!

Every so often we'd stop and all the kids would rotate.  Milo was content for awhile to stay in the wagon but before too long he made it quite clear that he also wanted a turn on the scooter.

At the park, Kelly going up and over the climbing wall.  Didn't know I was going to get a picture of that, didya?

He's getting so big.

Sliding race.  I didn't correct the creepy effect the flash had on their eyes.  I hope it doesn't cause any nightmares. 

Ben had just been entertaining us with some crazy dancing.

After a long walk/scooter/bike ride and some dinner, the kids were pretty tired out.

Joel and Kelly put their kiddos to sleep at our house and the adults stayed up late playing games. 

Sleep-Over

We had a cousins sleep-over while Joel and Kelly took a quick get-away.  It was a lot of fun to have Ruby and Ben over.  We took them to one of our favorite parks near us. 

back at the house, wearing ear protection.  LOVE the smooshy cheeks.

Here's your cardboard box, kids!  Have at it.

Baby Kosse!

Our little nephew, Kosse (/Koe-see/), arrived on Thursday evening.  Corrine is recovering well and looks wonderful.  He surprised everybody by deciding to come over three weeks before his due date but at 6# 14oz and 19.25 inches long is quite healthy.  Luke went in to work at 5am on Friday to finish some things up and when he was done with a morning meeting we all loaded up in the car and headed down to Arkansas.  We were so happy and delighted to meet this little boy we had been praying for.

He's so adorable and sweet.

I soaked up every second of cuddling.

 

Super Gran!

Don't I look proud??

He has a lot of dark hair.

Whenever I see Luke holding a baby I melt.

Proud Mama holding Kosse in one of those brief moments that he had his eyes open.

'Kosse' means 'Lion'.

11/11/11

This Veteran's day the boys and I went with Grandpa D. and Grammie F. to the parade in Leavenworth.  It was quite the event.  The newspaper estimated that there were over 15,000 people in attendance.  There were something like 200 entries and it took 1.5 hours.  The boys were so good and were interested the whole time.  I was glad for them to see us honor our veterans.  They were glad to see up close some of their very favorite things: cars, horses, motorcycles, soldiers, and drums.  Also, let's not forget, THE CANDY.

The boys have enjoyed getting to spend time with Grammie while she's visiting.

At 11 everything halted while all the buglers played Taps.  I got goosebumps.

The weather was beautiful.

Milo started waving back at the parade participants.  It made my heart squeal from the cuteness.

This float was remarkable- soldiers posing as the iconic Iwo Jima photograph. 

Milo enjoying his sucker and watching local girl scout troups marching along.

Yay!  Parades!

This entry was a dog that rides on the back of a pony.  I thought it deserving of a photograph.

More Wedding

Lea and Ryan sent us some of the pictures their photographer took at the wedding.  I thought I'd share a few.