Thanksgiving, my birthday, and other stuff

I realized that I forgot to write about Thanksgiving. Oops! We went again to the Metro Richmond Zoo, also known as the Andelin Zoo to us (Hooray!), and spent Thanksgiving with my Uncle Jim and Aunt Sherry. For someone who used to claim photography as a hobby, I sure didn't take many pictures, but here's one I did take on my phone. You may have seen it already because I posted it on facebook, but since Luke is so cute I'll share it here too.

 Of course, the turkey eating induced a tryptophan-coma in the boys.

Thursday evening I went with Aunt Sherry, Erin, and Taylor to do some Black Friday shopping. Don't tell the kids, but I got a TV! It was one of the WalMart doorbusters. 32-inch for $148.

We drove back to Cary Friday afternoon so we could be home for my Saturday morning orchestra rehearsal. I was able to play in a performance of the Messiah a couple weeks ago that our Stake put on. It was really fun to get out my violin again and play in an orchestra! It's been about 7 years since I've done that.

And of course, on December 5th, I turned 27. Dan cooked breakfast for me and gave me some chocolates and lotion. Quincy and Jen sent me the awesome new cookbook by the ladies at Our Best Bites. We've tried a couple recipes out of it already and they've been delicious! My parents and Dan's parents also sent generous gifts. I feel lucky to have awesome in-laws that always remember my birthday :).

We've been trying to do lots of fun Christmasy things this year, and so far we've made Christmas sugar cookies and decorated them:

There's a problem with his cookie-cutter method!

Couldn't even wait to change out of his work clothes :)

For next year we've decided we need some green and red sprinkles. We've got the pink and purple covered, though!

We also strung popcorn on string for a garland for our tree, made some homemade ornaments, went to the Stake Nativity and Messiah performance, wrote letters to Santa, went to the ward Christmas party, read several Christmas stories, and cut out some snowflakes. Violet cut out at least 20. Then yesterday she went with Dan to his office (he had to do a conference call on Saturday) and decorated his door with them. She kept herself busy for a couple hours there! I'm hoping they institute "bring your child to work day" there now.

Her first snowflake.

Today we finished putting our Christmas letters and cards in envelopes (need to remember to stick those in the mail tomorrow!), and I am still in the midst of making our stockings. I've made three so far, but I only really like how one turned out. This one:

Even though we're far from our families, we're still loving the holiday season! Now we just need to finish our shopping :).

December is Here!

This year we will be spending Christmas by ourselves for the first time. We are excited to start some of our own traditions and make some great memories.

Yesterday we got our tree.

From Wal-Mart. We're ghetto like that. And frugal. $28 for a six-footer. I think it was a good deal.

I know one little boy who loves it already.

Guess what else? I made a wreath.

Took me ages and ages to wrap all that yarn. And I think I used the wrong kind of wreath form--it was straw, and thus kind of lumpy under just a layer of yarn. Apparently they have foam ones too. But it was fun and I think it is cute in an imperfect sort of way. Violet really really wanted me to put the berries on the top, sticking straight up. Luckily I talked her out of that.

We are also doing this Santa beard as our advent calendar.

What traditions are you doing for Christmas this year?

Early Birthday Present to Me

After a year and a half without a piano, this old lady has joined our home:

I don't like her quite as much as our piano in Chicago, but she'll do for now. It is wonderful to have a piano again!

Preschool Update

We've been having fun these last couple of months in our preschool!

Our leaf unit.

Learning about planets.

Going to the park. This is Ivy's first swing ride!

Matching each picture to the corresponding shadow. This one was trickier than I thought it would be for Luke.

Using our new Do-A-Dot markers. The Halloween pack can be found here.

Our friend Charisse came and had preschool with us one day! It was fun. The kids love her. And I do too :).

Finger painting over tape. We got the idea here.

Using Q-tips to "dot" our names.

I like these letter puzzles from Melissa & Doug.

Violet holding the flag while we sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee"

We often go rake the leaves as they are never-ending.

Violet's unprompted creation with pipe cleaners.

Luke (once again pants-less) climbed into Ivy's johnny jumper

Popcorn on the cob

Alphabet turkey. Those feathers took me hours to cut out. Wow that was a lot of work.

Foot and hand turkey.

Violet's first library card!

Toilet Paper Tube Thanksgiving Puppets. You can find the printable here.

And now, a video of Violet reciting a poem.

Halloween 2012

Yes, it is halfway through November. And I'm finally talking about Halloween.

Here is our family snapshot from the ward party. Can you figure out what we were? I thought it was pretty easy, but a LOT of people struggled. Particularly anyone over age 18. Think about it. Carefully. Thoughtfully. (How else do you think if not thoughtfully?!) But don't hurt yourself.

Try to ignore the bat wings behind Dan's head. And imagine wings on the children as theirs are currently hidden.

Ready to go trick or treatin' Halloween night! Our first time taking the kids for regular, door-to-door trick-or-treatin'. We finally met our neighbors. They didn't know what we were supposed to be either.

Luke calls his bag of goodies his "trick-or-treats." Unfortunately for him, most of the candy he got was at least partly chocolate (He doesn't like chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate?!!). We let the kids choose a piece of their loot for dessert occasionally and he is now out of all non-chocolate items.

The kids had lots of fun and it was great that we didn't have to bundle them up to go outside! We love this fall weather.

So was it that hard to figure out our costumes?

The Other Carolina

A couple weekends ago we went and visited our friends Johnny and Melinda in South Carolina! We made the drive on Friday evening after the kids and I went to the corn maze I posted about. It was great to be able to spend time with our friends and let our kids play together and get to know each other.

Saturday we went on a hike in the mountains up to some waterfalls. (That was actually back across the border in North Carolina.) Dan actually didn't tell me we were going hiking so I didn't bring proper footwear. But I rocked my boots anyway and luckily didn't end up with any blisters or even sore feet. The hike was so beautiful! Here are too many pictures.

These two were so cute together!

Then we went back to their place and went swimming (they live in a lake house!), canoeing, and had dinner around a campfire.

Luke was the first one in that cold water! He swam all the way to the end of the dock.

Violet and Aaron. Possible match-making going on here :).

Tin foil dinners!

Beautiful sunset!

We hope we can go back soon!