Happy Thanksgiving!

Ahoy-hoy!  Hope everyone is doing great!  We had a good week here, and it all started with a snow storm!  Hooray!  It snowed on Tuesday, but we didn't end up heading out until Wednesday morning.  We even brought Grayson out for a little bit for his first snow adventure!

Here's Brooke holding Grayson again!  She loves it!

So back to Wednesday.  We even let Grayson try sledding for just a bit.  Brooke held him and I pulled them a few feet.  Also, Monica's friend, Christine, sent us that warmth suite and it arrived Tuesday, just in time to be used!  While out in the snow, the girls also decided to sled like Olaf, as he slides on his stomach down a hill in Frozen.  Pretty impressive.

We did most all the snow things, including snow angels, sledding and a snow ball fight.  The girls even wanted to sled down the sloppy side of our yard instead of just being pulled in circles.  Brooke even helped push Winry down the hill at least once.

On Thursday we cooked up a Thanksgiving feast for the 5 of us.  While things were cooking we spent time together as a family, and we even watched Mouse on the Mayflower, our Thanksgiving tradition!  It's an old cartoon from the 1960s, and I saw something about it last year and we watched it then.  2 years in a row, serious tradition!  Anyway, Winry fell asleep on the couch during the movie.  She looked a bit like this.

Shortly after we finished Tyson and Tina showed up to share some of their Thanksgiving wares and take some of ours.  My dad came out to help with their addition for the week, and took the opportunity to hold Grayson for a minute or two.  If you only looked at the top of their heads, it would be hard to tell who was older!

Back in the house, and a few hours later, Thanksgiving was ready!  Here's Monica with the bounty she prepared.  Everything was super great, and everyone loved it!

I mean everyone!  Jelly even got to have some of the turkey.  She loved it.

After dinner we let the kids do the wishbone.  It went great!  In the end, I won the wishbone!  However, I didn't have my wish true enough in my heart and it failed...

I forgot to mention that when my Dad came, he also dropped off a bad from Niki.  It was full of some care bear stuff she had!  The girls have LOVED them!!  Here's Winry the next morning making sure Champ bear is doing well.

Also, along with the food, Tyson and Tina brought us some crafts to do.  We did them the day after Thanksgiving, just in time to put them in a box to use to decorate next year.  Here's the turkey I made!

Brooke and Winry love to play with Grayson.  This past week Winry was helping him do the wheel on the bus, etc.  I missed when they actually did the wheels though.

On Saturday we went and got our Christmas tree!  We picked it up earlier in the day and spent the rest of the day decorating the tree, putting lights up around the house, and sprucing up present!  Brooke and Monica are on a quest to put curly ribbons or a bow on every present under the tree.  Also, they're aiming to add a sticker to/from label.

That evening I got dog piled on.  Fortunately everyone is still small enough that it was actually fun.  Also, shortly after they got up Winry started to spin on the floor.  No clue where that came form, but it was great to watch.

Today we headed to the trail to go for a walk as a family.  Grayson started losing it once we got as far from the car as we were going.  Seems appropriate.  I don't actually think he was cold in his car seat, but he was happier being bundled up in my jacket, so this is how I carried him back to the car.  However, I didn't realize I hunched over to get him in, and about half way back to the car my back really started to feel it...  We made it though.

I currently hear Grayson grunting on the monitor, and Monica is up there trying to sleep.  I probably should go to sleep as well, but most likely I'll bring Grayson down to hang out for a bit to let Monica get some uninterrupted sleep for a bit.  I better be off!  Write to you all next week!

Brooke Turns 5!!

Hello! This post again comes to you curtesy of one handed typing, so I'll likely be a bit brief.  This past week was Brooke's birthday! Wahoo!  We had such a great day, and it was wonderful to celebrate such a wonderful little girl!  Here's the little cutie blowing out her candles!

Rewinding to Monday Monica got this picture of Grayson.  He'd looking studly, as usual.  Monday evening Brooke has her dance class, and after she was showing us a new dance they started working on.  I'm guessing that will be the dance they do for their parents at the winter showcase assuming that happens this year.  Also, we watched Frozen (yes, the first one) sometime recently and Winry definitely didn't remember seeing it before, and so we're going through the Frozen phase all over again!  It's kind of fun, especially since Winry loves to sing "Let it Go!"

Tuesday was the big day!  It was Brooke's da!  For breakfast Brooke chose to have Froot Loops!  She at first wanted Froot Loop pancakes again, but Monica remind her that the Froot Loops get pretty hard/not great in that process, and so we opted for cereal instead!  We also had orange juice, and as you can tell it was a big hit!

We did present right after breakfast, because who wants to wait to see all the great stuff they got?  Winry got Brooke a Lego set that builds as a little book.  The one she got was Little Mermaid themed, and Brooke basically built a Polly Pocket type toy in the end.  Brooke absolutely LOVES it!  Look at the excitement on her face.

The other best present expression was when Brooke opened this turtle.  Norwex sold some of these, and it's made of recycled/unused pieces of Norwex fabric.  Brooke saw it months ago when it was announced (she attended part of Monica's Norwex conference with her online) and LOVED it, so Monica snatched one as they were limited time items.  Brooke definitely remembered it and was excited to have it!

Amongst other things Brooke got a princess dress (Tiana from Princess and the Frog) and a doll princess dress (Cinderella)!  She was very excited for tat as well, and wore her dress most of the day.

Monica snuck a free moment in on Brooke's birthday to capture Grayson living the thug life.

After I finished working we went in the back yard to do a piñata and play some soccer.  Everyone got a turn to hit the pinata.  Brooke went first of course, followed by Winry.  While we were working on it Monica and Grayson came out to give it a shot.  In the end I had to deliver a few dumdum shattering blows to get it open, resulting in Starbursts, powder, paper, and sucker sticks in the lawn.  I think 3 of the suckers survived in tact...  The important thing is that the candy came out!  After the piñata we played soccer until dinner was ready.  Brooke's really been enjoying it and loves her new goal.  She even showed me some of her best moves!

After dinner we played Mario Kart so Brooke could try out her new PINK controller!  It greatly improved her game :).  After we finished it was time to light the candles, sing Happy Birthday, and cut the cake!  When asked, Brooke said she had a superb day all day long, so we did a great job making everything special!  I love you so much Brooke!  May your 5th year be as fun, loving, helpful and wonderful as 4 was!

Wednesday was the day when you realize that change is gradual, and now a sudden step on one's birthday.  Why would I say that? Because Wednesday's lunch venue was naturally.... under the table.  The girls did this a few times this week, and maybe in the past, but Wednesday was the first time I saw it in action!

The girls also did some yoga, immediately followed by nap-ga.

We've tried to enjoy the warmer weather this past week and go play outside every day.  On Thursday that meant going in the front yard to let the girls run around, which turned into the girls running their push broom up and down the driveway.

The girls took a bath that night, and even got bubbles!  It had been a while since bubbles, so now they're all about baths so long as 1) we don't wash their hair and 2) we use bubbles.  At least it's something.

Grayson turned a month old on Saturday?!?!?!  Crazy!  I can hardly believe it.  This means that Monica took some 1 month pictures!  Yeah, on the exact day, we're finally getting good at this!  Anyway, I grabbed a few of my favorites to put here.

"funny comment!"  HAHAHA, right?!  But really, I don't actually have something to say for each of these pictures.

But it feels weird to not at least put something!  Look how high up he's got that head!!

Brooke and Winry watched the photo shot, and needed to do their own after.  Here's one of Brooke's pictures.

And here's one of Winry's!  In related news, Brooke is at the point where you can trust her to take a picture in a pinch!

On Saturday Jelly climbed up into Brooke's bed for the first time!  I guess she's been seen on the stairs before, but she's never actually gone all the way up.  Saturday it was time to go take a nap in a high place!

Today Winry was sitting in the girls rocking chair with a blanket during one of our church calls.  She just looks so grown up!!

Alright, I think you're all caught up now!  Thanks for sticking with me.  Monica already went to bed, so this will go out unedited and I'll have her proof read it tomorrow.  Have a wonderful week ahead!

Brooke's Birthday Party

I can't believe it, but in two days Brooke will be 5!!!  What!?!  I can't believe she's getting so big!  This past Saturday we had a birthday party for her with a couple of her friends who are also in her dance class.  We figured if they see each other every Monday it was a safe group to be with.  Anyway, the weather was supposed to be nice initially, but as we got close to the day of, things changed, and we ended up getting winded out.  Brooke still had a great time and loved seeing her friend!  Thanks everyone who came!  I'll talk more about the party later.

Before we keep going, I'm going to add in a little disclaimer that initially was at the end, but I feel is a better explanation at the start, so you understand what's going on: Well, It's really late for me (11 pm), especially right now.  I've been falling in and out of sleep while writing this, so... sorry if some of the sentences are extra bad.  I definitely rewrote some of them several times, and would wake up and read the sentence I was typing and have no clue where I was trying to go with the sentence and delete it and restart.  I also fell asleep pushing keys and woke up to long strings of a single letter...I'm going to publish this to get it out today (I like them to publish on Sundays), but I'll have Monica proof read it tomorrow and make sure it all looks good.

So if you read anything that doesn't make sense...now you know why! Enjoy!

Last Sunday I was burping Grayson, and Brooke needed a burp cloth so she could burp Tiana.  Here we are, burping twins.

Don't worry.  Winry isn't one to be left out, so she got a bear and joined in as well.  So long as you have a burp cloth on your shoulder then you're burping a baby, right?

Jelly and Grayson got their cuddle time this past week.  Jelly didn't condone this, instead I set Grayson on her.  Jelly was a champ about it, and while she looked away and was decently wide eyed she never did anything to Grayson.  I knew she didn't want to be there, so I only left Grayson long enough for a picture.

Brooke, Winry and I headed to the backyard to play soccer this past week.  We took out Brooke's Unicorn soccer ball, and used some other little balls to mark the goals.  Both the girls loved it!  We're still working on not using hands, but I was a lenient referee and didn't call any hand balls.

Sunday night right before we came in for dinner, we could see a bright spot in the sky.  I looked up a sky map to see what it was, and it was Saturn!  We decided to get out the telescope.  It was our first time using it, and it didn't go great, but it was still fun!  Here's some stars we saw.

Brooke continues to love to hold Grayson!  Here they are bonding on the couch.

Monica had a decent number of fun pictures of Grayson from the past week.  They're probably mostly him sleeping, but I really liked this one!

Winry decided she just had to have this comb this past week.  As most people would do, she decided to stow it away between her toes... sigh.

One night I went in to check on the girls and Brooke pointed out that Winry was sleeping and had her hand out on her water.  

Here's a picture of Winry.  She just looked really cute in her outfit, not to mention that great look on her face.

On Saturday, Brooke dressed as a Unicorn, as her birthday with her friends was going to be there. (wait what?)

I brought our little pop up tent as a random though (...?).  I am so glad I did as it was VERY windy outside last Saturday.  The girls basically wanted to get in the tent immediately and stayed in there basically the whole time.  We had lunch in there, and then presents and everyone headed home.  We didn't end up getting to any of our games and activities because the wind was so strong.  Brooke was still SOOO happy about her party and loved it all.  

When we got home, Brooke and Winry decorated their cupcakes.  Then Brooke and Monica took the cupcakes and other activities around to Brooke's friends at their houses so they could do them too.

Brooke put candles in her cupcake and we sang happy birthday to her!

And here's Winry... doing this face!

Today we gave Grayson a bath for church.  Here he is after, all snug in his lion towel!  He didn't cry at all the whole time!  Maybe he was just happy to not be stinky anymore.  I'm sure he was very glad to get the spit up out of his hair at a minimum though!

Here's Jelly today.  She got a drink out of the sink, and she put her head all the way under.  She let the water run like all the way around her head before drinking it up.

Here's Grayson's clothing for today.  He was all ready for church and looked great.  He made it about half way through the day and had a blow out and transitioned into jammies.

Hope you got more sleep than us this week, have a great week!