Baby, It's Cold Outside...

Even though the first official day of winter is still 2 weeks away, it sure feels like winter outside! Which I'm LOVING!!! So I guess it's time to take down our Fall Fun for the Family list & put up our Winter Wonderland Wishes list.

This is Addy's first year of full day school. And I didn't realize how "restricting" school would be, lol. So because of school, most of our activites had to be done either on the weekends or with just me & Alex. And even though we did a lot of activities, we didn't get to do as much as we wanted to because of Addy's injured knee.

But here is what we did get to do....

go to the zoo

make fall crafts

have lunch with daddy

draw, paint & color (Addy's artwork)

go trick or treating

spin art
go to the Stomping Grounds

go to The Glazery (Addy painted a cat statue & made it a tiger!)

have a playdate with our cousins

go to a Halloween festival

make Rice Krispie treats

take a Gymboree class

go to Bounce Zone

get our faces painted

carve & paint pumpkins

play hopscotch

go to Gattitown (Alex stuffing his face, lol)

go to Dewberry Farms

make cookies

go to the library

& have a playdate with Clay

So as you can see, we did accomplish a lot!

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And here is our new list of fun things to do this winter....

decorate the Christmas tree

string popcorn garland

drive around & look at Christmas lights

open presents

ride the Polar Express train

go to the zoo

Children's museum

make ornaments

Christmas crafts

make cookies for Santa

visit grandparents

play with cousins

play date with friends

go ice skating

drink hot chocolate

build a fire in the fireplace

read Christmas stories

go to Stomping Grounds

celebrate New Years

watch Christmas movies

sing Christmas carols

go to the library

paint

color

make Valentine's cards

make Valentine crafts

I'm also going to add these to our list because I'm hoping it snows...

play in the snow

make a snowman

have a snowball fight

Reindeer Run & Jingle Jam

Saturday morning Addy's school hosted a 5K called the Reindeer Run & a carnival called the Jingle Jam. Nick & I both signed up for the run. And once again, we both did great! I placed as 2nd overall female with a time of 22:37. I won a gift card for a free massage & gift card to RoadID. Nick came in 9th in his age range with a time of 25:21. And now we're looking for another run to do soon!

Nick crossing the finish line

When we were done with the run, we ran home (yes, we did literally run) to get the kids for the Jingle Jam. Because we live within walking (and running) distance to the school, we walked back to the school for the carnival. There were lots of fun things for the kids to do like

the moonwalk

a blow-up obstacle course

the cake walk

the football throw

face painting

and the bean bag toss.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I LOVE CHRISTMAS! Not just Christmas, but the whole Christmas season. I love the lights, the music, the garland, stockings, Christmas goodies, Christmas movies, colder weather, Santa Claus & elves & picking out the perfect gift for all my loved ones.

Even though I don't really "care" for Thanksgiving, I do respect the holiday enough that I ALWAYS wait until after Thanksgiving to put up my Christmas decorations. So as soon as we got home from our trip to Beaumont for Thanksgiving I got to work decorating my house!

I put our Christmas tree up but sadly it sat there for almost a week before we got around to decorating it. I wanted to have more of a kid friendly tree with colored lights this year instead of white lights. So I bought 3 strands but that barely covered the bottom of the tree, lol. A few days later I bought 5 more boxes & that did the trick. And then Addy decided that she wanted popcorn garland. So I bought plain non butter popcorn & strung it on fishing line. It took almost 2 bags of popcorn & around 3 & 1/2 hours! It was a lot of work but I got it done! (And then the very next day, Pepper ate some of it!!!) And finally the tree was ready to be decorated!

So the other night I gathered everyone in the playroom, turned on the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer movie & we got to work decorating our Christmas tree!

And if I do say so myself, I think our Christmas tree looks GREAT!!!

Who's House, CiCi's House!

On Friday, November 25th, we went to mom's house for bookclub. It was Brooke's turn to host & the book was Alas Babylon. I really enjoyed this book!

As always, we had a great time at bookclub & the kids & I ended up staying at mom's for a few more hours. We played outside for most of the time and had lots of fun!

CiCi brought the kids to PopPop's garden and let them pick some veggies.

They picked eggplant, broccoli, zucchini,

& spinach. Alex helped pick &

Addy held the bowl.

Alex & Clark (aka Lex Luther & Superman)

My sweet beautiful babies!!!!

Mom drilled a few holes in her back fence so that the kids could see....

this! Chickens in her neighbor's backyard.

Alex picked an orange, started peeling it & then threw it on the ground. And this bee found it. I was fascinated with this bee because it let us get really close to it & would not fly away. Hannah was even able to pick the orange up & the bee didn't fly off. I guess if you have a STINGER on your hinny you don't have to be scared of humans, lol!

Cousins playing with play-doh

Addy made a snail

& a butterfly!

Alex playing in Chloe's exersaucer. (He's way too big for it!)

Allergy testing

Maryse has been having headaches a lot lately. So I took her to the allergy doctor. They allergy tested her for allergies to lots of different common allergens. She tested negative to everything. Good, but now what? Dr. Sandberg said that it is possible that Maryse could be "sensitive" to allergens in the air even though she's not allergic to them. So he put her on a nasal spray that she uses daily. We're hoping this will help but only time will tell.