Thankful

Better late than never!  We had a big celebration before Thanksgiving, where each girl had something special at school on the same day!  So, I went to see Colonial Day with Natalie while Woody had Thanksgiving party with Nicole.  Natalie had fun on her time, dressed as a Colonial lady.  They had a picnic scheduled as one of the activities.  Since it was cold, the picnic was inside instead of outside.

They then had activities inside where they made colonial toys, made butter, and learned more about colonial times.  They then went outside in the late part of the day because it had warmed up a bit, and played games outside that the colonial children would have done.

Nicole had a lot of fun at her celebration, dressing up and learning about thankfulness of the early settlers.

She had made several crafts with her class, and now they were celebrating with some good food.

And, no celebration is complete without turkey cookies, of course!

The Race

Woody was trained and ready for his first half marathon.  We came out to support (the bribe of hot chocolate helped the girls want to get out on a cold Saturday morning!).  There were about 140 runners signed up and ready.  It was quite exciting to see him line up and run off with the other runners at the start.  It went through a lot of wooded trails, so we were waiting for the next time we would meet him would be about an hour into the race.

We went to the meeting place and arrived before anyone else.  We saw the first runner pass way ahead of anyone.  It was about 5 minutes before the second runner.  It was fun to cheer everyone on!  Then, I saw him coming and was so surprised.  All I could yell was, "Honey, you are in the top 10!"  He was running 7th place at the time.  That fueled our fire to cheer for Daddy and really made it exciting!

We drove to the next point in anticipation.  We saw the first man come by.  The second runner was about 2 minutes behind at this point.  I kept waiting to see the 3rd man come by that I had seen at the prior stop.  But, lo and behold, here came Woody!  He had passed more runners!

He held 3rd until the end.  Wow, definitely a lot of prayers answered for his safety and endurance.  We cheered him at the finish line and enjoyed the post race celebration activities!

The Project

Wow, there has been a lot of activity in our back yard lately.  Woody has salvaged some good lumber and recycled it into a tree house for the girls.  They have loved watching him build the tree house.  And, learn to help too!  The other day, it was ready to start painting it.  The girls were all ready for that.  It really makes you realize that they really enjoy helping and being a part of everything we do.  And, they did a great job!  Surprisingly, Nicole stayed on longer than Natalie.  She painted until the sun went down!

 Of course, Nicole was much more painted than anyone else by the end of it!   It will be exciting once it is completed!

Season Fun

We have had a lot of seasonal fun this year!  A fun hayride and decorating pumpkin time at Cousin Nate's birthday party were some of the highlights!  The girls really had fun with their cousins and friends with the seasonal theme.

So, we had to get out the pumpkin seeds of another pumpkin and toast them while decorating two sides of the pumpkin, one for each girl.

Next, a little dress up time.  The girls wanted to have princess for this year, both of them!  No other costume would do.  So, they dressed up as princesses and we went to our church's fall festival.

Riding the train was one highlight, also the girls did a lot of bouncing on inflatables.

So big to see both of them in one ride all by themselves!

Next, some fair type activities to win candy prizes.  The girls did this for quite a while.  Much neater than trickortreating in my book!

And, a neat touch, a horse ride for each of them.  We did this last to save the best for last!

Happy Trails!

October School Activities

Wow, school has certainly been busy!  With both in some sort of school, we have had a lot of activities since the start.  One activity was Nicole taking home the "class pet," Buster, for a weekend.  We took him to an event at the state park for a kid type fair day with some little games with prizes.  Buster, Nicole, and Natalie had a lot of fun!

The next event for Nicole was farmer day.  She had fun dressing up as a farmer.

And, after farmer day was the first field trip to an actual animal farm!  Here she is getting ready to go on the bus to the farm on that special day.

Back off the bus!

At the farm, the main event was riding on a horse-drawn carriage around the farm to look at a lot of different animals while a guide talked.  It was a lot of fun!

Mommy had fun with her special youngest one!

Then, we saw some displays of farming implements and different types of wagons, some reproductions and one was an actual one (no kids allowed to touch that one!).  This one was a reproduction of one at the Smithsonian.

The whole class had fun going, although one little girl didn't want her picture made.  Here's the rest of the field-trippers!

Next, it was time for Natalie's fun day at school.  Grandma & Grandpa were there to help and enjoy too.

Natalie sang a song with her class for a competition, then we were free to do rides, bouncies, and eat.  It was a lot of fun to go around with both girls and see them have fun!

Then, Natalie wanted to have a feather.  I don't know if I quite understand this latest fad...makes me think of Yankee Doodle.  However, it was fun and helped raise some money for the school.  Nicole had her face painted while Natalie had a feather!

Then, back to a Harvest Party for Nicole.  It was fun to celebrate the season with her classmates (all of them, this time!).  She made a really cute paper bag pumpkin and a neat placemat.

Happy times!

First Days

Ah, the summer went by so fast!  And, now we are into school.  Nicole did very well starting out K3.  She walked right in without any hesitation from the first day.  It must have helped all those times seeing big sister go and come back happily from school!

Natalie's first day, first lunchbag, and the start of her 1st grade!  Wow, so grown up!!

Just a-swimmin'

Wow, I'm only very late to write about swim lessons this year.  We had a great time with swim lessons.  This was the first year for Nicole to have swim lessons.  I was a little worried she would not like it or want to go back to Mommy.  But, she was fine from day 1.  I am sure that it helped that she was right beside big sister's class and could see her.  And, I stayed there looking at her and Natalie the whole time too.

They both had fun, although I didn't get a very good picture of Natalie as well.  They both did really well and improved their skills a lot! 
Oh, the summer went by fast, didn't it!