Happy Holidays!

We CANNOT wait for Christmas this year! Callie understands that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday and that is VERY exciting!!!  She is asking 101 questions about Jesus, heaven, Santa, elves, etc... We are trying our best to be honest yet still embrace the magic of Christmas.  Our elf, Kensington, (crazy elf name, I know) is back and in full force.  They are falling for it hook, line, and sinker each morning!  Kids make the holidays so much fun (and exhausting)!  Happy holidays from our family to yours!!

An early Christmas exchange with Aunt Natalie and the kids!

 They loved their Dream Lites!!!

Thanksgiving at my parents house was fun and delicious!  We love getting all 6 grandkids together to play and we just have to laugh at how crazy it is :)  Good thing my Mom loves "crazy" and those kids have a ball when they are all together!  Thanks Mom and Dad for cooking an awesome Thanksgiving meal!

One of our most favorite things to do in the winter is attend the Lights Before Christmas at the Toledo Zoo!  We were fortunate enough to go two nights in a row when there were pretty mild temps!  A great way to kick off December!

 Breakfast with Santa at Granite City was a blast as usual!  Although the kids didn't eat much for breakfast, they enjoyed dancing to Kerry Clark playing the guitar and talking to Santa.  This year we only had one crier ;)  

Thanksgiving Blessings

As I sit down to type this update, I am feeling an incredible sense of thanksgiving!  I'm not sure exactly what Dan and I have done to deserve such a healthy and beautiful family, but I am incredibly thankful for the blessings in our lives!  We have family that we adore, friends that we love, and three little kids who keep us on our toes and make us laugh ALL the time!  Please know that wheverever you are during the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, that we are keeping you in our prayers and so thankful that you are part of our lives!  Blessings!

On Halloween night we headed out on the golf cart to do some trick or treating!  We put ghost and pumpkin lights on it which is fun!  Many people in the neighborhood decorate their golf carts and it's fun to see the creativity.  We keep it low key compared to some of the others :)  Luke stayed in and passed out candy with Nonnie Kalo while the rest of us trick or treated!

 Grocery shopping with the boys while Callie is at school is one of my favorite things to do.  Daniel is an absolute riot!  He enjoys pushing these little carts at Kroger and is very particular about the placement of his groceries in the cart :)  He is quite pokey so we are usually there for 1.5 to 2 hours!

One of our most favorite and fun fall activities to do with the kids is visit Fleitz Pumpkin Farm!  It's so family friendly and very reasonable.  We enjoyed their newest attraction which was a corn box for quite a while!  The hayride, corn maze, cider and donuts were a hit as well!  Daniel was very drawn to the animals and could have fed them all day long!  He sure has a soft spot in his heart for little animals :)  

 Aunt Sally and Luke

 We thought we would beat the holiday rush and visit Santa a bit early this year!  Bass Pro Shop has a fantastic Winter Wonderland full of free activities for the kids, a Santa photo, craft, and much more!  Callie and Daniel did great sitting on Santa's lap and Luke was good until the end when Santa touched his hand.  Poor Luke screamed and shook with fear so badly :(  

Fall Fun

We let the kids stay up for their first bonfire while Sullivans were in town!  No one was a fan of s'mores but they loved running around the backyard in the dark :)

 We had fun trick or treating in the rain at the Fallen Timbers mall!  Callie decided last minute that she wanted to be Bat Girl instead of Tinkerbell, Daniel was a dinosaur, and Luke was Tigger :)  

 The kids went to a near by farm to pick pumpkins from their pumpkin patch!  They were facinated with the caterpillars we saw crawling all over the pumpkins and disgusted by all of the worms!