Thankful,part 2

I may be a little late to the game and the Thanksgiving stuff, but that really shouldn't surprise any of you.

So, here's a list of a few of things I have to be thankful for (which also happen to highlight our visit to Wisconsin last week).

Tiny clip-on ties that make B look extra handsome and goldfish that keep him happy during wedding ceremonies,

wide open floors for running and dancing,

a little boy who finallly fell asleep and lots of willing family to hold him,

a beautiful November day,

cuddly kids,

the joy on my kids faces from colorful lights, Christmas music and trucks at the Christmas parade and a kind stranger who let us park in his driveway,

bowling alleys,

watching the kids play games together,

Ok, there may have been a little pouting involved but at least she looked cute doing it.

an undefeated Irish season,

Cheers!!!

and of course, a wonderful family who love and support us and who can be pretty fun to hang out with too (including those not pictured - the Schmidt and Cusati bunch).

I'm amazed that with one shot everyone is actually looking at the camera and smiling!

I'm thankful for...

Dancing...

And...

To be continued...

Nana's Birthday Party

And finally, the whole reason we went to Georgia was to celebrate a very special birthday for Nana!

Unfortunately the birthday celebration didn't get off to the greatest start when the night we were supposed to go out for a nice dinner the Notre Dame football team decided to go into triple overtime and dinner out turned into takeout. Fortunately, the food was still delicious. And the Irish pulled out a win.

And we still got to celebrate Nana on Sunday with a beautiful day and a fun family cookout.

Kaelyn trying to play badminton with the other kids

Brennan doing his own thing

I actually think there were at least 3 different sports being played on the badminton court at the same time.

Playing bocci.

Kaelyn's first attempt at bocci. "Just take it!"

A cranky Brennan stealing the bocci balls.

And the palina.

Nana cheering up Brennan after he was removed from the bocci game.

Girls bonding over an iPad.

We also celebrated on Nana's real birthday. We relieved Nana from cooking duties and tried to give her a delicious birthday dinner followed by ice cream cake. Can you guess what the kids favorite part was?

Lighting the candles for Nana

Patiently waiting to dig in while we sung "Happy Birthday."

And we ended the night with a bedtime story with Care-Care.

 

Actually, that's how the kids ended the night. The rest of us continued to celebrate. And waited to hear from Matt who was waiting at the airport to see if his plane was going to take off so he could to get back to Indy for a work function. And then we ended up driving to the airport to pick Matt up 2 hours after he was dropped off. I think we were all glad that he got to come back and finish the night with us even though he had to go through the headache of airport delays and driving back and forth to the airport.

Hope you had a great birthday Nana!

70 to snowy and back to Savannah

After our trip home from Savannah we were greeted by 70 degree weather. Woohoo! Two days later, it snowed. What in the world?! Don't get me wrong, I recognize the beauty of snow. For about three days during Christmas. But I was not ready for it when I walked out the door Monday morning. Made me want to turn around and drive back to Georgia. Not that the weather was perfect the whole time we were there, but at least it wasn't snowing.

We actually had a number of gorgeous 80 degree days while there. And some beautiful days even when the temperatures dropped a bit.  We definitely tried to take advantage of the nice weather and sunshine when available.

Bubbles are, of course, a perennial favorite with all of the kids. Thank you to Auntie Care-Care for thinking to give some to the kids when we got there.

A beautiful day at the Landings playground...

A sleepy boy trying to be a big boy on the swings.

Look at that face!

Our last day there it was chilly, raining in the morning so we planned a trip to the Children's Museum thinking it'd be a good day to be inside, only to show up and find out the museum was entirely outside.  Luckily, the weather had cleared up and it had turned into a gorgeous day.

Having recently learned to play tic-tac-toe, Kaelyn was very excited about the giant tic-tac-toe board.

Checking out a cute little reading nook.

Brennan spent a lot of time with the magnetic cars, trucks and trains. Very serious work going on here.

I remember Connect Four being one of my favorite games as a kid. How cool is this supersized game?

Matt helped Bren ring the bell.

And we couldn't leave without a trip to the water table where Bren tried to pull out the seaweed and Kaelyn dug for shells.

Of course there were several instances of golfing as well but I didn't get any pictures. And actually, Brennan did most of his golfing indoors. He's actually getting quite good. We left his clubs at Nana and Pop's for the next visit so now he uses a fake apple from my autumn decorations and the Wii golf club to practice around our house.

Beach love

Our kids are true beach bums. And it's not just the warm sun and swimming in the waves. They have a deeper love than that. How do I know? While in Savannah for Nana's birthday last week we took them to Tybee Island on a cloudy and rather chilly day. We knew there would be no chance of getting in the water, but it was a little chillier than we were expecting.

But the kids still did not want to leave.

Brennan could not stop smiling and giggling. He loved chasing the birds and watching them fly away. His cheeks were freezing and nose was red when it was time to go but we still had to pick him up and drag him off the beach.

Kaelyn looked at shells a little bit but was mostly interested in running around and screaming. And I guess she loves the feel of sand between her toes, even if its frigid sand. She had her socks and shoes off almost the whole time. She, too, need some pushing to get off the beach.

We even saw some dolphins. Brennan wasn't interested but here's Kaelyn and Matt watching them. (I, of course, could not manage to snap a picture of them)

More from Savannah coming up next week...

Happy Halloween!

Well, hello there November! Where did you come from? October seemed to fly by.

We celebrated October by going to the pumpkin patch,

carving a pumpkin,

and trick-or-treating.

We had a little monkey this year. Which was quite appropriate given his propensity to climb and love of bananas. And luckily, we already had the costume in the right size. And he was the cutest monkey I've ever seen. It will never work out that well again. And of course we had a princess again. Thankfully, this year the princess did not have a long wig to contend with. She made a beautiful Jasmine.

Bren was a little nervous trick-or-treating at first but warmed up after a couple of houses. He still needed mom or dad with him, partly to help with his bag. It was so darn cold he had to wear his mittens and didn't have much control over his bag.  And Kaelyn was happy because she got to trick-or-treat with her "boyfriend" and got lots of treats.

Overall, we had a good October and the kids had a fun, but cold, Halloween. Hope everyone else had a great Halloween too!