Thanksgiving - Part 3

Part 3 of our Thanksgiving was the Thanksgiving feast! The kids had just finished their lunch (at the b-day party) about 2 hours earlier and some of them needed their naps, so it was an adult/big kid, Alex and Max meal.  Oh, and Parker hopped on Eric lap for a few bites.  Still, it was amazingly calm.

Sophia and Nick nibblin' a little before the big feast!

Being thankful for electronics!

Randy, George, Robert and my Grandma playing Scrabble.  They played 4 -5 games!

Looking through the paper making plans for a little shopping the day after Thanksgiving

Julia, Zac, and Lukey, before bed. The plan was to have the big kids, all 9 o f them, sit on the couch for a picture also.  But that never quite worked out!

Random moments from the long week end.  Kale, Max and Brady watching Grandma with her electronics.

Lukey getting his 2nd hair cut.

A few birthday gifts were delivered to Sophia from Iowa. One was a manicure set from Bob and Wendy.  She had her toes done right away!

Even Oliver got a turn.

Chillin out watching a little TV.  (l-R) Max, Timmy, Henry and  Kale.

Zac and Lukey - in trouble already!

  Cheese!

Thanksgiving Part 2

Part 2 - Oliver's Birthday Party!

Oliver turned 5 on Thanksgiving.  So he had his birthday party at our house, which everyone here was so excited.  We started with a Skylanders birthday cake. Sara made Oliver a portal of power from (the video game) Skylanders and completed it with some of the "guys" on top.  It looked great.

Here are all the kids celebrating Oliver's birthday.

Funny faces!

Sara and Oliver made a pinata for the party! The kids loved it!  Here's Oliver with our nerf battel ax swinging.

Henry's turn.

Parker's

Brady's

Now Kale's. Who actually had the last turn, he took no mercy on that pinata and split it open.

Diving after the candy!  After the pinata Oliver opened his presece and everyone played with them! He did a  great job sharing his new toys.   After that it was on to part 3.

 

Thanksgiving - Part 1

Thanksgiving was such a big day I'm breaking it down into 3 parts.  We were so blessed to have my brother, Nick, (his wife) Joni, and (their kids) Kale, Brady, and Zac and my Grandma, as well as Randy's sister, Sara, (her husband) Eric, and their kids Oliver, Parker and Julia.  Of course we saw Kathy and Dale plus a couple of their kids.  After that George and Robert, who work with Randy joined us for dinner.  But on to part one.

We started Thanksgiving morning at Kathy and Dale's for our very own Turkey Trot, organized by Aunt Kathy.  The adults ran a 5K that started at the Stiles, circled by our house and ended back up at the Stiles. Their run started (at I think) 9am.  Here are the runners (l-r) Kathy, Dale, Christopher, Yahway (a friend of Christopher's and Michelle's), Michelle, Nick, Sara, Randy and Alex.  They were forced to run while it slowly snowed big fat flakes, but I don't think it slowed anyone down much. 

Next the kids had their fun run.  It started after the 5K and after I got back from putting the turkey in the oven, at our house.  The runners included Henry, Brady, Parker, Timmy, Max, Sophia, Kale and Oliver.  Here they are ready to start.

Taking off to run around Kathy's circle.

An action shot of Eric and Timmy almost to the finish line.

Nick and Brady, after Brady got his medal.  Brady's big brother, Kale, won the race, but everyone got a medal.  Kale just got bragging rights, but was a gracious winner and didn't really brag about it.

Happy to have his medal!

After everyone received their medal, we went inside for bagels, muffins, coffee, hot chocolate and all kinds of breakfast goodies.  Until it was time for part 2.

4th place is the best place !

The Monday before Thanksgiving was the Rain Gutter Regatta for cub scouts.  On that night the boys take turns racing home-made boats in rain gutters.  Max came in 4th this year, winning a headlamp.  He was so excited! He kept saying "I'm so happy! 4th place is the best place! I don't even want the other prizes!  I love the headlamp! I'm so happy. . . " It was an exciting night for Max.

Sophia turns 7!

Sophia turned 7, Monday the 18th, but Saturday she had a little birthday party.  Originally she wanted a cake with an edible Sofia the first on top.  After explaining to her I couldn't do that we settled on a paper cut out, on top of purple frosting roses, since purple is Princess Sofia's color.

Sophia was very excited to have a birthday party. She immediately knew she wanted to play- pin the crown on Princess Sofia, and hide the bunny (Princess Sofia can talk to animals and is friends with a bunny, I was informed).  We also hid boxes of candy for the guests to take home and had Princess Sofia coloring sheets. During the party either Randy or Max decided to help everyone make party hats.   L-R is Madisen, Sophia and Julia.  I was kind of surprised how much everyone loved the games, they were a big hit.

Here is almost everyone.  Aunt Kathy, Uncle Dale and some of our gang is missing.  L-R is Timmy, Max, John, Henry, Madisen, Sophia, Julia and Adrianna.

"Do a funny face!"

Glowing Sophia and glowing Sofia. 

Knowing Monday would be a very busy day (Max and Randy had the boat race for scouts), we let Sophia open her presents a day early, we didn't tell her until she was all ready for bed that night.  Randy had to work all day, but hurried home at 8 so Sophia could open her gifts at 8:30.  So she got an extra gift, staying up late!

With her brothers, except Luke who had to go to bed on time (he was too tired to stay up).

Sophia and Daddy

Sophia and Mom.

Halloween Week

 We picked pumpkins the Sunday before Halloween.  It was chilly and MUDDY.  Well the fields weren't so muddy but the road/driveway at the pumpkin patch was, I thought we were going to get the van stuck, but we didn't. (Yeay!)

Timmy was very happy to look for pumpkins.(He picked this one and then after he got in the van we noticed a really soft spot so we traded it out for a different pumpkin with green on it. I told Alex to keep it our secret and Timmy didn't know the difference.)

Randy helping Henry carry his pumpkin back to the van.

I was happy to see Alex wasn't too big for a pumpkin this year.  You'll see Sophia didn't pick a pumpkin. She stayed in the van with Luke, who was sleeping.  She had gotten a large pumpkin with her friend, who took her apple/pumpkin picking.  She and I also each got a small pumpkin during her field trip.  So one of the small ones, became Luke's.

The next day was Monday, and the cub scout Halloween party.  There is Sophia as Princess Sofia the 1st, Luke our lion, Max our skeleton, note the skeleton face he is making on purpose, "that's what skeletons look like".  Timmy our bear and Henry our Spider man.  Alex didn't dress up this year and had his own boyscout meeting to be at that night.

A boy scout troop (not Alex's) came and hosted a Halloween party for Max's cub scout troop.  There were 4 stations of games;  make a mummy (wrap each other up in toilet paper), lasso the jack-o-lantern, pumpkin golf, and another I can't remember.  There was also plenty of candy for prizes.  All the kids had a great time.

Halloween is typically grandparents/special person day at St. Rose, as well as a 1/2 day.  It has also become our traditional pumpkin carving day.  This year was no exception.  Kathy and Tim were Max's special person, and Henry, Luke and I were Sophia's.  It rained, hard, all day.  But the program inside (at the school) was nice.

Timmy was our bravest pumpkin-gut-grabber.

Here he is with his finished pumpkin.  He helped me design it ,by answering yes and no questions about how he would like it to look from across the room. (Round eyes Timmy?  "Yes")  He was much more interested in the slim inside.

Max went the no-mess route.  So he printed, colored and cut pictures for his pumpkin. He was very glad to have a no-gut-cleaning, Halloween pumpkin.

Henry took an even easy route.  Print a picture that requires no cutting or coloring.  (Poor Alex I never would have let him do a non- traditional jack-o-lantern.)

Lukey  didn't help with his little pumpkin, I didn't even think of letting him try to pull the guts out.  He probably would have loved it. But here he his getting a look at it, in his little Halloween spider shirt.

Sophia wanted a Sofia the first pumpkin. So we did our best to work together to make one. The large cut out arch his her hair, with a crown above that.  Her circle eyes and thin smile make her face on the orange area.  It's hard to explain and see but we tried to do an orange amulet and cut out shirt below the face.  Sophia was happy with it, so that's all that really mattered.

Timmy, Henry, Max holding Lukey and Sophia just before trick-or-treating.

Everyone with their lit pumpkins.  I feel bad I didn't get a picture of just Alex and his pumpkin. He didn't get out early from school that day, which means he got home at 4:30, by the time he was done carving, it was a bit chaotic getting ready to eat and trick- or- treat.  He has his hand on his pumpkin, a creeper face from Minecraft, the video game.  We trick-or-treated with our neighbor, Sophia's friend, Madisen and her mom and dad.  Alex helped Randy pass out treats.  While trick-or-treating we started out dry, then a few raindrops, then it was pouring.  But everyone had fun and no one , except Max was ready to be done when it was time. Then just like every year we were all happy to end Halloween at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale's.  They always have special treats for everyone and this year it worked out we watched The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to end our Halloween together.