Cookie Day!!

Every year, the preschool has a cookie day. Parents bring in sugar cookies and the kids get to decorate them to their heart's delight! Today was the day for Maddie & Will...they just finished their lunch and are in the process of gobbling down one of these masterpieces!!

Visiting Santa

We went to visit Santa at our local Happy Joes (pizza) last night. While the visit wasn't as festive as we had hoped, it was still fun...we ate pizza & ice cream (special thanks to Becki's mom for having the waitress sing happy birthday to Becki!), met Santa & play in the game room. The evening was "sponsored" by the local humane society...so there were 2 little kittens to hold and love on. They were very cute.

Maddie ran to Santa and sat on the extra chair...she was the first one! She totally shocked us since she is generally quiet and shy when it comes to meeting other people.

Will ran up as well & loved seeing Santa but let Santa hold the cat (after watching the cat climb up Maddie!)

Katie - tentative but still sat for the picture...

Alex would only go up if I went (on Grammy's suggestion). I have many pictures where she is missing - she is generally shy about this kind of stuff.

More Home Stuff

We are ending 2009 with a whirlwind of house activity! The past few weeks, we have taken up the old carpet, sanded the floors (living room, dining room, hallway & second bedroom), stained and finished with polyurathane. It has been a long, tedious (and very dirty!) process...but we are nearing the end! Becki has been adding the polyurathane after the kids go to bed so it will be dry by morning. We have 3 more nights of hallway & 2 more nights of second bedroom to go. They are beautiful floors but we are tentative to use them too much right now! The polyurathane seems to be sealing them okay - it is just slow! For that reason, we have been having picnics in the kitchen!

We ordered triple bunkbeds for the girls (we are moving the three girls into the 2nd bedroom and Will downstairs). We will be purchasing two mattresses for the twins beds - maybe this weekend? I will post pictures once their rooms are done. Here is the big truck delivering the beds.

We are still waiting for our main house work to start - new windows, siding and enclosure of front porch. The windows should be delivered today and hopefully put in sometime next week. After that, everything should move fast!

Date Night

The past few weeks have been pretty rough for me (Becki). I have been fighting an upper respitory infection for 3 weeks now as well as migraines (due to the the congestion). I had signed up to attend a Mother Daughter night at our local Chick Fil A but decided at the last minute that I still wasn't feeling well enough to go and enjoy it. I asked my mom if she would be willing to take the two older girls (I had signed up all 3 girls, but knew that it would be easier on Mom to only have the older 2). Mom showed up for their date with these beautiful flowers....

The girls had a wonderful time. They got to try on some Mary Kay cosmetics, get their pictures taken and take a horse/carriage ride. Wonderful memories.

We continue to plug away at the house. Matt & I pulled up the carpet in the front room last weekend. We need to pull up the carpet in the twin's bedroom next. We will be moving all 3 girls into this room in the next month. It is painted pink!! Their new triple bunk bed will be arriving Monday. Then the process of condensing clothes, shoes, etc, etc, etc will begin. I am looking forward to having that DONE!!

More Fall Activities

We ended up celebrating Halloween three days in a row!! Thursday, Matt's company opened it's doors to let the little kiddos parade through in their costumes (and of course received LOTS of candy!!). Our local Chick-Fil-A offered free meals to kids in their costumes that night...so we headed over there for dinner.

Dinosaur Will, Froggy Maddie, Dr Alex (Vet), Fairy Katie

Friday, the kids went trick-or-treating to Grammy & Grandads, Aunt Barb & Uncle Willy's and ended our time at Aunt Fran & Uncle John's. It was a beautiful night, so we walked around Fran & John's neighborhood also.

Saturday (actual Halloween), we headed to the Fall Festivals at Heritage (Teri & Steve's church) and 1st Evangelical Free (church where the kids go to preschool). Lots of games, bounce houses, candy, etc!! Mom even drove the simulation race car with Katie in her lap - they had a BLAST!! Before leaving for the festivals, we carved our pumpkin. It had been a crazy week with our construction projects, painting, etc...so it had been put off until the last minute. Matt had each of the kids draw a face part and then he carved it.

Alex & (cousin) Judah loved the petting zoo. They spent most of their time in here! I guess it was fitting that she was a vet for Halloween!

Maddie being attacked by the goats!! (she is laughing in the picture...surprisingly, she loved it!)

Becki's Mom & Katie trying out the race car...another big hit!!

Katie trying her luck at some of the games.

Will & Maddie on the bounce slide - they went up and down for an hour!