Thanksgiving

We all had a great time Thanksgiving Day. We had a houseful: Mom, Dad, Granny, Katie, Cindy, Bill, Liam, Bret, Jane, Bruce, and myself.

We had a big dinner with lots of leftovers. After dinner we had a little birthday party for Jane with the family. We had chocolate cupcakes, sang happy birthday, and Jane opened lots of presents.

Jane had a great time. She got Barbie, babies, baby clothes, a magna doodle, clogs, and even a stroller. She had a blast playing with everything. Bruce really liked the magna doodle, and there have been many fights over the stroller in the last 24 hours. Last night Jane went to sleep with her babies. She drew them pictures and told the stories with the magna doodle until everyone went to sleep.

Here are some pics of the messy kids with their desserts:

Jane with her pumpkin mouth


and Bruce with cupcake... everything

Birthday Parties and more

Saturday Jane went to two birthday parties. One was at a local toy store, Duck Duck Goose, where they had a build a bear party. Jane built MoMo - a pick tie dye looking bear that she loves. The second party was at Jump Zone where she will be having her own party in a few weeks.

Jane is busy planning for her party. Over the weekend she went from wanting Dora to Cinderella to Batman and back to Cinderella. She'll have to make a final decision when it's time to order the cake.

On Sunday we went to Lake Jocassee. The weather was beautiful, we didn't even need jackets on the water. Bret climbed up the boulders at a waterfall while the kids and I watched and played in the sand. We were all ready for baths by the end of the trip.

Bruce still does not enjoy riding in the boat. He doesn't like his lifejacket and he doesn't like sitting still. He spent most of the ride screaming and trying to climb over the edge of the boat. He was happiest when Bret got up so he could take the drivers seat. He climbed all the way up to the drivers seat in the up position and "drove" the boat for us. He also quickly learned which buttons made good noises (blower, raise/lower trim).

I'd have some good pictures to insert here, but we took out the camera and it had no batteries. We did get a few things on home video.

Time to buy new batteries...

Special Request

I should be writing a book review right now, but I'm having writers block. Since I have some time and I'm infront of the computer I thought I would post pictures of "the shed." Bret and Dad have been working on this for quite a while. Our boat now has a home...





While looking for the shed pictures I ran into a cute picture of Jane from a couple of months ago. She's doing a silly dance and is wearing Bret's Mickey Mouse t-shirt from when he was a kid. It won't be long before Bruce can wear it.



The rest of the family is asleep. I had better finish my work so I can join them.

Climbing Machine

Bruce has turned into a little climbing machine. He is climbing everything -- chairs, couches, upside down toy bins, window sills... Bret got a new tree stand this weekend and Bruce and Jane took a turn in it in the backyard. I've got pictures, but will add those later.

ETA picture:
(Jane insisted on the bow. She's been calling it her birthday bow)


Bruce is also constantly climbing on and off his rocking horse. He doesn't spend much time on it, just on and off, on and off -- I guess that is more fun. Today he climbed on stood up on the seat and bounced up and down and said, "I did it!" Very cute.

Escape

As I pulled into the driveway this evening, Hunter greeted me. He is now officially an escape doggy -- we'll have to see what happened.

Here is the escape doggy looking guilty:



Anyway, he was free when I arrived so he helped me bring in my new vacuum and set it up.



I've done a quick vacuum of the house and it picked up quite a bit (it's actually scary to see all that it picked up). I'm also amazed at how easy it was to set up and use. It takes no effort at all to use it. I can't believe I'm excited about vacuuming. I need to hurry up and get the whole house done well before the newness wears off.




...and a couple random pics of the kids


Bruce on the kitchen floor the other weekend


Jane before her bath

Halloween

All right, Halloween was a few days ago, but it's been a busy week. I had an exam last night so I spent the early part of the week studying.

We started the Halloween season at Boo in the Zoo a couple of weeks ago. Jane was a monkey and Bruce was Winnie the Poo.



The kids had a lot of fun. This was our first year going and I was surprised at how many people were there. We got there about 10 minutes before the gate opened and the line was already huge. I think it doubled by the time they did open. The kids were fairly patient and we got in pretty fast. Jane really enjoyed herself and the big bag of candy she walked away with.



The kids both had Halloween parties at school and Jane got to dress up in her monkey costume. After school we did a little trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

Haircuts

Bruce had his first haircut.

Before:


and After:


Jane also had her first real haircut.



Both of the kids look so grown up with their new haircuts. I don't know where my babies are going.