Little Big Man

We celebrated M's birthday after eating dinner on Thanksgiving Day.





The cousins hanging out together.



Trying to get the ever elusive Christmas card photo.



It was so fun to see how well all the cousins play together. Here they are doing crafts that they got from Grandma and Papa.



Makeovers were a hot theme for the cousins, too. They got their hair styled with gel and I was informed that they boys got to wear "boy lipstick"!



We discovered that the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special was on TV, so it was the perfect way to end the evening. The cousins and Uncle Dan all snuggled in together to watch the show.





The next morning I awoke to two empty sleeping bags on the floor. The kids had gotten themselves up and went upstairs to start playing with their cousins again.




Happy Birthday Big Boy! I can't believe you're 3!



We headed up to the cabin and M got to open more gifts up there (Oops! All I had was Christmas wrapping paper).





Our friends Ron and Jennifer and their son joined us up at the cabin. The kids enjoyed watching a movie together.



Jennifer and I went cross county skiing on the trails on our property a couple of times. This is what you get to look like when you cross country ski during hunting season. We didn't care! The weather was perfect, the snow was great, and the scenery was wonderful.



We actually saw a lot of wildlife right out our front window pretty much the whole weekend long. We had about 20 turkeys come up pretty close to the cabin several times and these deer came close a couple of times as well.



We had a really amazing sunset to watch during our drive home Sunday night. D said Grandma Stiehl told her that the clouds make pictures, and she said she saw a whale here. Do you see it?



Simply gorgeous!





M got to celebrate his birthday at ECFE class on Monday. He chose the crown to wear and got to put three candles on the birthday cake, which he told us was blueberry flavored.

Happy Thanksgiving!

M made the transition to a toddler bed from his crib last Saturday. He loves it. Bye-bye crib!



Steve finished our entryway/mudroom benches and storage area. It looks fab-u-lous and I just love it. It's always great to have more space to put things!



Cupcakes for my little monkey, who is turning 3 the day after Thanskgiving.



My sister and her family hosted Thanksgiving this year. The food and company were all wonderful.







Our hosts.



The boy cousins eating dinner together.

Cousins at our House

Cousins Rob and Haley were in town for her film premiere of The Telephone Game at the Heights Theater and were able to stop by at our house for breakfast Saturday morning. D and M were excited to play with more cousins!

Cousins at the Cabin

My sister's family came up to our cabin this weekend and stayed overnight on Saturday. The cousins had lots of fun exploring outside and playing together inside.

Fall Ball and Pumpkin Patch

Well, this is the first year we did anything with pumpkins and I guess we went all out. In addition to the Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin Heads, we carved pumpkins. Here is M scooping out the seeds and goop.



Super goopey!



D loved feeling the insides of the pumpkin.





Daddy asked what kind of faces they wanted and he made the pumpkins look great. M wanted a scary face and D wanted a happy face.



Mr. Lion is ready for the ECFE Fall Ball.




And Ms. D is Raggedy Ann.





My parents came over Halloween evening for dinner and to go to the Pumpkin Patch activity our church has every year.




Even Daddy got into the spirit of Halloween.



D had been talking about the glow room all week. She was so excited to go in and color pictures with Grandma.



The petting zoo.



Posing with Mommy.



Playing the ring toss game.



Friends.



Doing the cake walk. M was the first one out, D was the second. Maybe we need to practice this game at home? That's okay...we really didn't need a cake along with all of the candy they brought home!



Eating cookies they got to decorate themselves.