Let it SNOW!!

After a year in Brazil I almost forgot what snow was!!! The kids love helping daddy shovel the driveway!

holiday baking

This year I tried making English Toffee which requires a LOT of stirring. So, I took advantage of the time and got some reading in!

Turkey Time!!

Matt and Camie came to our house for Thanksgiving. We had a great time and delicious food!!

The cooks!! We worked hard to have a great dinner. Matt and Andy were so nice to clean EVERYTHING up while Camie and I went to take naps!!!

We enjoyed going to the children's museum. Camie and I weren't sure who had more fun - the kids or Matt??!?!?

Matt was meant to work on the radio!!

Lucy and Lydia attempting to give the weather forecast!

Ethan

It just occurred to me that Andy is not in Any of these pictures. He was at work while we were at the museum and took the picture of all of us at the table!! For the record - he was around for Thanksgiving!

A trip to Matt and Camie's house

We had a great trip to Matt and Camie's house. Andy went to interview for MBA school and we made a weekend trip out of it. It was of course, tons of fun. How can it not be fun with Matt around?!?!? We did a letterbox hike and Matt couldn't quit talking about the hot chocolate he had prepared in his little thermos. He thought he was so cool. He was so happy about it that he pulled it out and started pouring less than 15 steps from the car. Although we all gave him a hard time about it it was a BIG hit with the kids!!

Clayton and Camie

More hot chocolate anyone??!?!?

It was a perfect day for a fall hike

"Did I mention I brought hot chocolate?"

One last cup of hot chocolate before getting on the road!!

You've got to love fall time!!

I LOVE the fall time and especially love doing yard work and believe me we have plenty of it to do each fall!





We have lots of beautiful trees like this in our yard!!!

Happy Halloween

The kids has a fun Halloween. Last year we didn't get to celebrate Halloween in Brazil so this was an especially fun year for the kids. Lucy was a princess and Ethan had a little too much fun with his pirate sword!

We enjoyed trick0or-treating with our friends (Emma and Erin)
Thank goodness for the wagon. It was much needed that night!

Pumpkin Carving

When we lived in Brazil I became good friends with a girl named Frenanda. She was my angel. She helped me so much while we were down there. Anyway, we are very happy to now have her brother and family living about a mile from our house! We invited them over to experience pumpkin carving and had a great time. Their kids really enjoyed it. It was funny because it wasn't the Brazilians who didn't want to clean out the pumpkin - it was our kids! They didn't want to get their hands dirty!! Oh my! We had so much fun with them and it was fun to be around Brazilians again and hear some portuguese. They are doing exactly what we were doing last year - experiencing a completely different culture and not speaking the language very well.



Look at that smile!! He is soooooo happy. Lucas loved the pumpkins. They were like giant ball. He tried to roll it around but didn't get too far!! The stem seemed to get in the way!

Watch out Below!!

We had a tree in our yard that HAD to come down. Wow!! It was quite a show. We had no idea how entertaining it would be. I can't imagine this being my profession. I'd be so scared. This guy ties a rope to him, puts on spiky shoes, and up he goes and starts cutting away! It was amazing!

Can you find him in this picture? He is toward the top of the tree! Yikes!

He's easier to spot here

We love Fall Time

I LOVE the fall. We have had fun being back in the states and doing our normal fall time stuff like picking apples, drinking apple cider, and picking pumpkins. It's so great!!! The only thing we have not had this fall is cool weather. Up until about a week ago it has felt like summer! Even in october we were still wearing shorts and short sleeves! Some days we were in the 80's! Hardly sounds like Michigan! It is now cooling off and really feeling like fall.




Time to pick apples!! For a girl who refuses to try apples she sure does enjoy picking them!

We all love the apple cider!

And we wonder why Americans are so obese!!

Remember when you played soccer as a child and were handed orange slices at the end of the game. Well, things have changed. The league Lucy has played on this fall (AYSO) hands a ticket to every child at the end of each game. With the ticket they can go to the concession stand and buy candy, popcorn, soda, hot dogs, nachos, and slushies. The ticket can buy quite a bit of stuff. Kids walk away with a bag of M@M's and 2 air heads or a bag of cookies and 4 blow pops. So, I'm not talking about a little bit of candy. The kids play two times a week so they get this candy every time they play. On Saturdays we have games at 8:30 in the morning so by 9:30 they are already stuffing themselves with a bunch of garbage. Am I the only one who thinks this is strange? It really bothers me. The kids are out playing soccer - learning to exercise and at the end they walk away with a handful of candy, a soda pop or plate of nachos. It's so strange to me and I never sense that anyone else is really bothered by it. It's not like kids don't get enough junk food already and then when they are actually off their bottoms and away from the T.V. we are still promoting unhealthy lifestyles!!! STRANGE!!

Princess Party Time!!

Andy arrived from Brazil Friday afternoon and not a moment too soon! We had a princess birthday party for Lucy on Saturday. It was lots of fun. I invited 11 kids - figuring about half wouldn't be able to come!!! As it turns out all but one came so with Lucy and Ethan we had 13 kids! It was a bit crazy - especially considering the size of our house. However, it all turned out well and most important - the kids (Lucy especially) had a GREAT time.

Here's our cute 5 year old princess!

When everyone arrived they made necklaces.
We also played lots of your typical party games with a princess twist. I was most impressed with the pin the slipper on the cinderella that Andy made. He drew a giant cinderella and colored it but somehow I missed getting a picture before it came down!! We also did a dance freeze and entertained them with bubbles while waiting for parents to pick up their kids.

Cake time!!!Here's Lucy with some of her presents!! She had a great day and it's hard to believe we have a five year old!!! What a cutie!!

Downtown

We love our cute little town! Every summer they put new things out on the sidewalks to go around and look at. This year they had cars out. Since being back from Brazil we haven't been able to see them. We finally went down with our good friends last week. The kids were in car heaven. We couldn't keep up with them!!

Tired and no place to sleep

A few days ago I got a good laugh when I went into Ethan's room to tell him quiet time was over and he could come out of his room. This is what I found - a VERY VERY messy room and one sleepy boy!!! Poor thing he had so many toys out this is the only place he could find to sleep!! I thought it was funny!!
Check out his legs hanging off the bed!! Doesn't look too comfortable!