Winter and Christmas time! December 2013

Well, I guess we'll start with a picture from Madolyn's Kindergarten Pow Wow at school right before Thanksgiving.  She loved her party and really liked her new Indian outfit and wore it for the next few days after her party.

Christmas time means Christmas sugar cookie making by these little bakers who are so creative and put it to use rolling, cutting and decorating their cookies.  This is one of their favorite things to do.

 We usually try to do the cookie making during Drew's nap, so here's a little pic of something he likes to do- wear shoes (in this case, Dad's).

We have had a bunch of snow this December and the girls had been wanting to make a snowman each time.  We finally had some good packing snow so Dad helped the kiddles build a nice tall one.                                                    

First big snow of the season that the kids were able to go out and play in.   Drew's first time in his one- piece snowsuit and boots.  It took him awhile to figure out he could actually move in them and then quite enjoyed wandering from place to place in the snow.  They love being outside in the snow, so when it's not freezing cold and just cold, we bundle them up and out they go into the snow.

 Snow angels!

 Our friends/neighbors, the Larsens were out playing and shoveling snow as well and the kids all ran around and played in it and took turns riding on the sled behind their four wheeler.

 Some pictures in front of the Christmas tree for our Christmas card this year.

Due to our lack of hills in the surrounding area, I had to improvise a sledding trip as promised to the girls.  I was busy working in the basement so I decided to pull them around in the backyard for a bit.  It started out great until the yells of "Faster Daddy! Faster!" filled the air.  I'll tell you what, if you are looking for a workout, try doing sprints in the snow while pulling a sled with two little girls in it.

 For a much needed rest, we decided to shovel the snow off of the trampoline so the springs wouldn't be stretched out.

The Pumpkin Patch- October 28th, 2013

The girls really loved the pumpkin patch near our house last year and so we had been planning on going again this year.  Madolyn got to go with her Kindergarten class for a field trip and so she had one small pumpkin.  We were planning on getting a couple bigger ones to go with it.  By the time we had a chance to go it was probably the coldest day of fall so far.  But we went anyway, cold wind and all.  The kids still loved it and ran around petting the animals, going down the slide, and running through the hay and corn mazes.  By the time we finished all that we were frozen and so we didn't venture out to the pumpkin field and decided we would just run to the store and grab some pumpkins there along with some doughnuts.  We didn't have luck at our first store.  There were only a few half rotted pumpkins left in the bins so we headed to another store where I had seen some earlier in the day and they were just about sold out of pumpkins too.  They happened to have a couple of warty non-rotting pumpkins left in the bin so that's what we came home with.  The girls didn't care, they loved them anyway.  Home we went where we warmed up with hot chocolate and doughnuts.

Halloween October 2013

Avery and Madolyn have been sooo excited for Halloween this year.  Yesterday we baked and decorated Halloween sugar cookies and Tuesday we carved/painted pumpkins, and Monday we make paper pumpkins and they loved doing all the projects and were great working on them.  We had to do them each day during Drew's nap so he wouldn't try to climb up and get into everything.  They both got up early this morning and went straight to the kitchen where they drew, colored and cut Halloween pictures for us.  Then they came in to give them to us.  For costumes Avery wanted to be Ariel and Madolyn a pirate princess.  Drew didn't get to choose, but he was a blue monster which is fitting for him.  They were dressed up all day.  Madolyn had a costume parade at school this morning that we went and watched and then a class Halloween party where she played games and made a Halloween house.  Avery dressed up first thing this morning as well and wore her costume all morning as she and Drew ran errands with me.  For dinner we've kind of made it a tradition to have broccoli soup and bread bowls, and so we continued it this year.  After we got cleaned up, Jordan took the kiddles around the neighborhood trick or treating while I passed out candy at home.  They came home with full buckets for only being gone a short while.  We didn't have a ton of trick or treaters, but a nice amount.  The kids loved answering the door when trick or treaters would come by.  I think they had a fabulous Halloween!

Waiting for Madolyn's Halloween costume parade to start.

 Getting ready to go trick or treating!

 Our morning Halloween pictures.

Making sugar cookies!

 Carving/decorating pumpkins.