Deck the Halls!

With a new house comes new decisions on where to put Christmas decorations! This year, instead of putting the Christmas tree in the family room, we chose to put it in the office/homework room. We spend a lot of time in that room, plus the tree will be visible to the outside through the big picture window. 

The kids set up the Nativity Scene in the family room while I put up the stockings and decorated the mantle.

Rog did an expert job of getting the tree together and perfecting the branches.

The kids loved going through all of the ornaments and sorting them into piles.

Coco hanging her first Christmas ornament.

The kids were able to put most of the ornaments up on their own with the occasional help of daddy's head or a chair. 

This sweet boy had his teeth cleaned and had twelve teeth extracted. We are so thankful that he did well through the procedure and that he's feeling (and smelling) so much better.

We have started getting an ornament in each place we visit. It's so fun to look through them and remember fun trips and times together.

We put all of our paper/non breakable ornaments near the bottom incase the kittens were curious about the tree but so far, they've not bothered it at all. They are such good babies. 

Cooper is a good baby too as long as we remember to forgo the candy canes. He's just making sure we did. :) 

Thanksgiving Day!

Our tradition has been to spend Thanksgiving together, just the five of us, and this year was no different. We try to make the day as special and as memorable for our family as possible. We all get dressed up in nice clothes, even though we have nowhere to be. Our rule is that we hang out together for the majority of the day. We try not to do chores or other things on our "to do" list but just focus on being together. 

These kids are growing up so quickly. I am so thankful for each one of them and I am so thankful for each day we have together.

Cruz set the table and offered to make placecards, lol. Rowan cleaned the majority of the dishes after dinner and helped serve dessert.

Prince Elsa supervised.

We played several rousing games of Clue, Mario and the boys got involved in a pretty serious Monopoly tournament. 

It was a chilly day (mid 50's) but there was plenty of sunshine.

Our tradition is to watch a Christmas movie on Thanksgiving night. This year, we took it a step further and went to the movie theater to see the movie The Star. This is a cute animated movie telling the story of Jesus's birth from the perspective of the animals. It was so cute and a perfect way to start the Christmas season. The kids also got the chance to kick off a season of giving for our family. Throughout the next month, we are going to be deliberate about bringing joy to others in various ways. I'm not going to blog much about it because I think that takes some of the joy out of the giving but if you're interested, I'm sure the kids will be more than happy to tell you more about what they've done.

We also made our annual Thanksgiving video but our super slow internet will not allow me to post it. 

Psalm 126:3

"The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy!"

Pigeon Forge, TN

We made a quick overnight trip to Pigeon Forge, TN (about 4 hours away) on Tuesday/Wednesday this past week. We knew we wouldn't have much time there but we packed in what we could! 

We started out at Christmas Place. This is a huge set of Christmas themed stores. There were every decoration and ornament imaginable. The kids got to choose their own ornaments this year. 

In the evening, we headed to The Comedy Barn to see family friendly comedy show.

The kids loved the show!!! So did the adults.

There were songs, animal acts, an amazing juggler,

and a lot of other good, clean, goofy entertainment.

The most anticipated activity was the Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster.

Two of the kids were very excited about this and one was a bit nervous. Nervous Coco ended up totally loving it.

Coco and Daddy went first.

So basically you sit in these bobsled type cars and are pulled to the top of a mountain by a cable. 

There go Daddy and Coco on the first big incline up.

Once you get to the top, you are released and its a roller coaster type experience but you can control your speed with a hand break.

There are tons of twists, turns and drops. All of us kept our car going at full speed. 

The views were beautiful! Since none of our kids were tall enough to ride alone, Daddy got to ride twice. Cruz graciously offered to be last and was so so excited after seeing R and C go flying down the hills.

We really enjoyed Pigeon Forge and the beauty of the Smokey Mountains. We are looking forward to future trips for skiing, hiking, fishing and so many more fun outdoor activities.

So thankful for this family time.

November

We've had a fairly quiet November. Both Roger and I had weekend getaways with friends and we otherwise kept busy with many school projects, special events, homework and the like. 

The weather has been cold on and off. It really cold at the end of October but warmed up again the first weekend in November. The kids were able to play outside in shorts (or a swimsuit if you're Cora). Our house sits in a valley surrounded by trees so we've definitely enjoyed all the beautiful fall color around us. You can see the corner of our house in this picture and our yard is straight ahead of the kids.

 Cora really loves the kittens and they don't always appreciate all the love. Our other baby, Big Ben, was fixed this month. So I guess November was eventful for her. Yes, her. After a routine visit to the vet, we discovered our male kitten was actually a female. So, we have a boy cat named Elsa and a girl cat named Ben. 

An interesting part of living in Franklin is that we have had the occasional celebrity sightings. I saw Justin Timberlake walking around downtown Franklin while I was getting my hair done, Francesca Batistelli goes to our church and 2016 Cubs MVP, Ben Zobrist has kids our kids ages so we've happened to run into him. The boys were so excited (as I'm sure you all can imagine) to get to meet him and get his autograph.

I got to get away to Seattle with some friends from around the country.  Roger and the kids raked the yard and had fun jumping into leaf piles for the first time while I was gone.


The 4th graders finished up their unit on commerce by having a market day at school. Rowan chose to sell bath bombs, which were a nightmare to make, ha. The kids from grades 1-5 were invited to bring money and do some shopping from the 4th grade market. At the end of the market day, the kids had to subtract the money for their supplies from their total. They then divided their profit into savings (for a class field trip), giving (to adopt a family for Christmas) and they got to take the rest home to spend. This was such a fun project. Cruz loved getting to bring some money to go shopping and pick out Christmas gifts for us.

Cruz's class finished up a novel called "The Other Side of the Mountain" this week and his class got to have a special outdoor day to celebrate. They learned how to make a fire, they roasted hot dogs in the firepit, made forts in the woods and went fishing in the creek. Their school grounds are so beautiful and it was such a fun day outdoors. This was the only photo I got but it was so fun to see Cruz having fun with his friends.

So, I am so excited that the kids are off school all week for Thanksgiving break! I'm so happy to have us all together. We are heading to Pigeon Forge, TN for a couple of days before Thanksgiving, we will celebrate all God's blessings together in Franklin and then deck the halls for Christmas!!

October Wrap Up

I cannot believe it's November 1st today! I am so excited to be approaching the Holiday season though. This is the best time of year! We wrapped up October with several fun weekend activities.

The Glow:

We went to this cool event called The Glow which consisted of over 5,000 pumpkins creatively and expertly carved into really neat displays. The pumpkins were lit up with various colored lights. It was so cool. We enjoyed walking the trail and stopping for a while to study several of our favorite displays.

This pretty much sums them up! It was a gorgeous 70 degree evening too which made this even more fun.

You can see the many pumpkins used to make this dinosaur even better in the photo than you could in real life.

There was a whole section of portraits carved into pumpkins.

The princess pumpkins were Coco's favorite.

The whole solar system was neat but the best part was at the end, after Neptune, was a pumpkin with Pluto the dog carved into it. The boys thought that was funny.

This scene with the pumpkin jellyfish was my favorite.

Grandma and Tina Visit:

We had a super special weekend this past weekend because Grandma and Aunt Tina (Roger's aunt) came to see us! We had so much fun shopping at some unique little shops, eating ice cream and showing Grandma and Tina around our new town. The kids spent a lot of time playing store with Grandma and we enjoyed many games of Tenzi! 

Yummy ice cream at The Factory.

Aunt Tina, Grandma and the kiddos. 

Trick or Treat: 

We had a really fun time trick or treating yesterday. We invited some neighbors from the down the street to go with us. They also are new to the neighborhood. They have two little boys who are 5 and 7. The kids enjoyed running from house to house while the adults chatted. It was a fun night although our coldest Halloween experience yet. We love Tennessee so much but really REALLY miss our Florida weather. Cruz went as a Lego Ninjago. His costume was so cool. He really looked like a lego guy! Rowan went as Harry Potter, obviously. He has been reading the series, which was exciting because he hasn't really be interested in reading up until this point. Coco ended up going as Snow White. This was not her original costume but she went through the dress up bin and said she would rather wear that. So, all in all, we had a fabulous evening with new friends.

Lego Ninjago, Harry Potter and Snow White.

Now, the Holiday season is upon us! We are so excited for our big Christmas trip to Illinois. Even though we live closer, we will still be flying so gifts small in size and quantity are always appreciated.