Thanksmas

We had a GREAT time with Drew's family over Thanksgiving.  Everyone flew in Wednesday evening and left Saturday afternoon.  Unfortunately, I came down with some sort of illness while everyone was here and wasn't around as much as I would have liked.  :(  But, nevertheless, I enjoyed the time I did get with them, as did Drew and the kids.

These are pictures off Cathy's camera from our weekend together.  The last five pictures are from our camera. 

Cathy and Grant

Cathy brought some fun things for the kids (and adults!) to play with, like these facial hair stickers.  Too funny!

Love it!

B was reading one of her kids' favorite Halloween books from their childhood - Rabbit and Skunk and Spooks.  It was fun for Drew to hear his Mom read the story again.

Family Meal Time

Playtime!

Oops...forgot to turn this picture before adding it.

Love this!  It just captures his fun-loving personality.

Dress-up time

The lovely ladies working in the kitchen - thanks for all you did while I was sick in bed!!

Natalie enjoying the kid's swing.

B brought a big Christmas coloring and activity book and then had the kids (and adults) color some place mats for our meal.  I don't care how old you are, coloring is always fun and makes you feel like a kid again!

Jenna loved the color-by-number pictures.

Great picture of Mom, Brian, and Natalie!

Great picture of the two of them with a beautiful sunset in the background.

Getting ready for the Christmas portion of our get together.  The numbered presents are all laid out and ready!

Grant sitting in his new camping chair from B.

Present guessing time!

Jenna was so excited about her dress and Princess underwear from B!!

Great picture of Grant!

One of Grant's present - a stomp rocket from Aunt Cathy.  So much fun!

Jenna snuggling on the couch with Aunt Cathy.

Cathy is contemplating buying a motorcycle, so she took Drew's dirt bike out for a spin.  I love the look on her face!

Playtime with Daddy

Family picture (minus James).  We missed you James!

Who needs toys when you have a box?

Jenna sitting in her camping chair from B.

Jenna helped B with her "power list" - telling us (adult) kids whether we guessed the right present.

Jenna and B playing Memory using her new Go Fish cards.

Grant got some tools from B, so he was fixing our refrigerator for us.  Thanks bud!  ;)

As always, we LOVED having everyone here and look forward to when we'll all be together again.

Random October

Here are some random pictures from October - I couldn't resist posting these!  I love my kids!

Grant in the dress-up clothes.  At least he's wearing the cowboy hat, even if it is with the blue Cinderella skirt.  ;)

We were watching some movie or TV show, along with a popcorn snack.  Look at those intense stares!

Grant pulled out the muffin tin and baking cups all by himself and started putting them in the spots.  It turned into a great fine motor activity, as well as something to keep him busy!

Each year we participate in Operation Christmas Child.  We decided we'd fill a box for a child in each of their age ranges.  It's such a great ministry and opportunity to talk to the kids about giving to those in need.

It was sprinkling just a little, but Jenna wanted to put on her raincoat, boots, and use her umbrella. She had fun tromping around in the backyard.

This was Jenna's first stick figure drawing.  She had gotten the paper on her own and drawn this picture when she showed it to me.  She said she drew Daddy holding a bowl of cereal.  I love it!

Drew was going dirt biking, so the kids and I went out to watch him get ready.  Of course they wanted to sit on the bike too!

Sorry to break it to you guys, but Mommy will not be ready for you to join Daddy for quite a few years from now!!!

We recently tackled some home improvement projects - one being painting the kid's bathroom and tiling the floor.  Jenna wanted to help touch-up the baseboards, so Drew (bravely) gave her a small paintbrush and let her help some. 

Pizza time!

Week 14 - Letter J

Last week we went through the letter J - for Jesus.  I thought that would be a good start to the month of December.

The memory verse for the week was John 14:6 - "Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life..."

Letter J computer game

Wikki Stix

Grant wanted to do the wikki stix too...

Nativity lacing card

Cut and paste

Letter writing

Pre-writing page - can you tell she rushed through this one?

Do-a-dot markers - She thought the lowercase j was missing a dot between the top of the j and the dot, so she took it upon herself to add it.  ;)

Color puzzles

Geoboard - I love how she made the dot for the lowercase J.

This obviously didn't turn out quite like a J, but we tried.  :)

I was so proud of her with the patterns this week.  I had left the room and when I came back in, she already had them done...correctly.

Here's a close-up of the patterns.

Number cards - She added the correct number of stars to each card.

Working hard on counting the stars.

Letter Maze - I tried to find some "festive" stickers.

Letter J Pattern Blocks

Poke page - I love the look on her face in this picture  - "Mom, I'm trying to work."  ;)

Now that's better!

For her ABC book, she glued jewels to the letter J.  Of course she picked out all the pinks and purples to use - her favorite colors.

Letter J Puzzle

She practiced writing the word JESUS

Tracing page - again, another one she rushed through when I wasn't in the room to check on her. 

Cutting page

Coloring page

For the magnet page, she picked out the jewels on her own and used them to fill in the blanks.  I thought that was a great idea!

Upper-case and lower-case sorting

For the graphing pages, I just had her put the correct number cards next to the pictures.

As usual, at the end of the week, we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and put up the letter J on our tree.

This week and next will be pretty low-key.  I figured with Christmas just around the corner, we'd be busy enough without trying to do a lot of school activities each day.  Plus we have an advent calendar that contains some type of Christmas activity that we do each day, so that also gives us something to do.