November Days

Wow!  November is passing in a blur and Thanksgiving is only a few days away!  It's an exciting time of the year with little ones.  The anticipation of the long Thanksgiving weekend with all of it's activities, followed by the start of Christmas season, is quite exciting!  In the meantime, this is what has filled our November days.

We enjoyed a visit from Ed's mom.  She always keeps them busy with games, Playdoh, art, outdoor fun and almost anything they request to play.  We decided to take a break and get outside for a walk one day.  We walked our favorite route downtown.

 We spent a bit of time at the park getting some energy out:)

And then stopped by the Popcorn man downtown and brought some popcorn home for an afternoon snack.  That was pretty yummy!

With the early cold snap, we started our fireplace insert and are going to see if we can offset some of our electric bill this winter by using this sometimes.  There's nothing like the warmth from a wood fire!

I had the kids help me make a meal last week.  They each got to pick something they wanted to make and took turns with me in the kitchen.  Emmeline made a sprinkle cake for dessert, since one of her favorite things ever are sprinkles!

 Mollie made fruit kabobs.  She's definitely my fruit lover!

And Sam helped with homemade macaroni and cheese and gave me a hand with some meatloaf muffins.  It definitely tries my patience :), but it was fun to have them help with the meal.  I hope they all enjoy cooking as much as I do someday and I want them to know their way around the kitchen!

And with the early cold, came our first measurable snow.  The kids were just a bit more excited than we were:)  Mid-November is just way to early for snow in my book.  Something tells me that it's going to be another long winter.  Hopefully the joy of snowmen and snow angels will keep these 3 happy for through the winter.

We enjoyed a visit to see cousins Allis and Will.  The girls spent our Sunday there playing dress up to their hearts' content.  Sam and the boys spent their time playing Monopoly:)

The kids were very excited to receive an early Christmas box in the mail...can you tell by how they are all eagerly attacking this box?!?  Many, many thanks Ms. Barbara!

A bit blurry, but I wanted to capture this moment of the girls with their friend from school.  Sweet:)  We went to a little book exchange this weekend and the girls were so excited to see their friend had come too.  Emmeline especially is great buddies with her and has even started wearing ponytails because Brooklyn wears them:)  I hope this is a friendship that will continue to grow.

Since Sam has been on a game kick, Ed decided to sit down and teach him one of his favorite games, Settlers of Catan.  It's not an easy game, one that I don't do well at, but Sam picked it up quite well and enjoyed playing.  Uncle Chris, watch out, as Sam might be ready to take you on during the next game!

The girls continue to love to color and draw, especially Emmeline.  I love their unique individual styles and had to capture this moment where they both were copying the pictures on the cover of the pad of paper. 

Now here we are at the beginning of Thanksgiving week!  A few short days of school and then the Thanksgiving fun will begin.  I can't wait to hear what the kids come up with for their list of what they are thankful for this year!  Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We are working hard here on being thankful for what we have and trying not to focus on what we wish we did have (or think we need).  It's not an easy thing to do, especially in our world today that has such a focus on material things.  I've been praying for contentment, because God has blessed us in so many ways!