The Day After Thanksgiving

Who can resist a slot car track? Not this Grandpa. Xander invited Gramps over to come play with his new track and Gramps was happy to take the opportunity. 

 Even Grandma got in the action, although she quickly realized like I did that you end up being the one the fixes the track and retrieves the cars.

 Lily's black eye (from falling off a chair and hitting a table) is getting better everyday. On a side note I LOVE these personalized hair clips I bought her off etsy! I ended up ordering four... I know too many. I got one with Lily Bug, 2 with just Lily, and one with Lillian and one for my niece for Christmas. They are super cute. 

thanksgiving day~stop #2

After a delicious lunch at my mom's sister's house we headed down to the farm to Jason's parents house for another huge meal and fun with family. My SIL's, Renee, family joined us this year.

Gram made each of the grandkids their name out of Jello jugglers...yum! 

 Xander and Lily watched silly video clips with Gramps on the computer. 

 Xander took his Captain America costume with him from home, but Lily enjoyed wearing it around. She is pretty super. 

 Jason's cousin, Mark, happen to be in town from San Diego and spent Thanksgiving with us. Xander enjoyed showing him Star Wars Angry Birds. 

 Lily and Gramps relaxing after a long day and Lily playing on his iphone. 

Just Another Day

Xander found a rouge ladybug in our house and decided to befriend it. He has played with for quite some time. He really wants to keep it and wanted me find it some food. I had to think about that one and then look it up. I mean who has ever considered what a lady bug eats before. They actually eat other small insects incase you were wondering. It is getting really loved on right now by two small children so I am not really sure if it will see a next meal. 

 Apparently Xander was getting too much camera attention so Lily grabbed this mask and asked me to take her picture. Do you see all the posted notes I let her stick to the window earlier in the day? Nice. 

happy thanksgiving~#1

Jason used his Menards rebate bucks to buy slot car track that was on sale. He had one as a kid.  Jason and the kids spent Thanksgiving morning assembling it. Xander was really into putting the white stickers that were the dashes in the road on and was pretty disappointment when we had to leave and he had to stop. He hates to be stopped in the middle of a project. I can relate. I love watching them play, but I realized quickly that if I didn't leave the room I was going to be the one putting the cars back on the track every time they fell off. 

 Jason always claims he is getting the toys for the kids, but he loves them just as much. 

For our first Thanksgiving Day stop we headed to my mom's sister's house. Here is my mom with her sisters Judy and Angie. My Aunt Angie has breast cancer too and unlike my mom's it is an aggressive kind. Even though she caught it early and had a double masectomoy it managed to travel through her blood stream. She is undergoing a second round of chemo now. However, this chemo seems to having a positive results. I have to be honest and say I pretty much hate the words, "breast cancer" and "cancer" all together. They went from something I never really gave much thought to to something I think about often. We continue to pray for my aunt. Her son, Matson, is only eight and I know her goal is to see him get married one day. 

 Ok, all that to say we really did have a good day and it wasn't sad or somber like I had pictured it in my head. My mom brought Xander a Darth Vader action figure, which he of course loves. 

My parents also gave the kids a card with two dollars a piece. Lily carried her money around for quite awhile saying, "money, money, money". She also pointed to George Washington's face on the front and asked my dad who it was. If you show her a dollar now she is point and say, "George". 

 Here is a picture of me, my younger sister Nora, Mom, and Lily

 Lily loves her grandma

 Here is my family (minus my youngest brother). This was on the only picture where my dad wasn't making a silly face. 

I feel like I have so incredible much to me thankful for. I have to say ever since my mom was diagnosed a little over a year ago I have never been as thankful for my health as I have been this past year. I teach our kindergarten Sunday school class at church and recently there was a lesson on Naaman. They lesson started out with telling that Naaman was a very very rich man, who had a wife, and children but he was sad. He was sad because despite all his money he had a sickness that no one could cure him of. It really hit home. If we are sick it sheds a different light onto everything else in out lives. The good news is the God that healed Naaman is still healing today. 

Little But Mighty

I seriously don't know what makes her look tougher: her brother's Spiderman costume, her huge black eye, or her big pink bow?

Thanksgiving Eve

Is that a holiday? Well, it feels like when you don't have to go preschool. Let me tell you even Xander's three day a week/half day preschool has put a damper in our little playdate schedule. We took advantage of freed up schedule and headed to LeapFrogs with Brinley and Layna. Thankful it was only mildly busy. However, Lily is at the super fun age of wanting to do everything, but not being able to do it on her own without my fear of her being trampled by "big" kids. 

Xander's favorite thing is the "big" slide. Lily enjoyed bouncing with Brinley and going down the small slide with her. 

 Brinley is so good with Lily and is so caring. Lily really loves her. 

 Whew! All done bouncing: Xander, Brinley, Lily, and Layna

 After a special Chic-Fil-A lunch we got home and put Lily down for her nap. Xander and I headed outside to do some work (well I worked he played) thanks to the 65 degree weather. I love Ohio weather (sometimes). I got all the sanbox toys put away along with all the other outside toys we leave on the porch. They are safely tucked away in the garage ready for the snow. 

We even got some finger-painting in before Lily got up. Xander doing some thumbprint leaves on his thankful tree. 

Lily's Prayer

I am eating this girl up right now. She is simply so funny and adorable. She is always saying the cutest things and doing funny things. I want to freeze her in time. Every night when I put her to sleep we pray together. Tonight when I was done praying she said, "Lily bug pray now". Here was her prayer:

"Jesus...Dadoo, Mommy, Xander, ....safe...long long time...Grandma, Dadoo...Amen...Ok we eat now yum, yum, yum"

Here is the prayer I say every night with her:
"Dear Jesus, thank you for today. Thank you for Mommy, Dadoo, Xander, and Lily Bug. Thank you for making us a family. Please keep us healthy and safe so that we can be a family for long long time." We then pray for different family members and friends.

This is not what I pray before we eat, but I think I do say. "Ok let's eat". She makes me smile.

Life This Week

We really haven't been up to too much lately, which has been nice. Xander's soccer class ended this week and I am planning on skipping the next session around the holidays. Lily is really into "reading" books by herself lately. If she doesn't want you to read it she will take it out of your hands and say, "Lily Bug read it." I love her thinking face in the first picture. 

 Xander is completely immersed in his dressing up and playing pretend. He is normally in and out of some costume 90% of the time we are home. He is also super into coloring lately. He is doing a really nice job too. True to his other OCD tendencies he likes to color things exactly how they should be. Xander and Lily have also recently really started to play together. Sure they have kinda of always played together, but I am pretend play for about 30 mins. This week the took all the cushions off our old couch and Xander made a dock and they pretended off and on all morning to be boats. It's pretty neat to watch them. 

 These pictures are just because I cannot get enough of this girl and her cuteness. She has such a sparkly personality. This was her winter coat from last year (size 12-18 months) that fits her perfectly this winter and I am kind of glad because she looks so stinking cute in it. 

 Here are the pictures of them building the dock. I didn't get a good picture of the big dock, but the scattered other pillows are were ships can dock. This is Lily "docking". 

We also went out to eat at Panera on Thursday with friends and it was so nice. The "older" kids set at their own table and us moms were able to catch up some. 

Family Fun Fest

Our church had a Fall Family Fun Fest on Saturday put on by the youth group. The teens (leaders and their parents) did such a great job. My kids had a great time playing games and winning prizes. As were approaching church Xander said, "I bet when we get there I won't be able to believe my eyes."

Lily loved playing all the games. Look at her dominate the ringtoss game. Her tongue is out, so she must be concentrating pretty hard.

 Plinko is a little hard to play when you can't see, but Xander did really care. Actually, I am not really sure the game is harder if you can't see. 

 This was by far Xander's favorite game...life size Angry Birds. They did a great job painting exercise balls to look like the birds. 

 Lily liked the little bounce house the best. She even managed to learned how to climb up to the slide, which was pretty tricky because it was just foot holes and strap to hold onto. She was really proud of herself every time she did it and would look around smiling to everyone. 

 The hayride around church was pretty fun for them too.