Thanksgiving

Home again after a fun, sleep deprived long weekend back in NY.  Got in Wednesday night.  Biggest problem with the day was staying up until 12:30am and finding out that Toys R Us "lied" about posting specials at midnight.  So after the disappointment it was off to bed.  Thursday AM started early prepping the turkey at stuffing at Joanne's, getting the paper for the all important Black Friday ads and then off to Rene's for breakfast.  We had a nice visit with Rene & Kelly with some delicious french toast.  The kids were excited to show off their Disney books and catch up with "bald headed Grampa".  Next it was off to Nana's for dinner #1.  It was a full house too which was great.  Got to catch up with the cousins, visit and play with the babies as well as hangout with my favorite almost teenage niece!  Dinner was good and then came the huge variety of desserts for celebrating the 3 bdays...yum yum.  Thank you to all for the early birthday wishes...love you all!  To round out the day it was back to Joanne's for a little more turkey and desserts.  Great friends and family...what more can we ask for? 

Black Friday: Lists were prepared Thursday for the early start on Friday and sent Jason to Toys R Us for 10PM.  Amazingly, he stuck it out in line for hours to get in and got almost everything we needed.  Like the changing of the guard he got back at 2AM while Dawn & I got up to head for Kohls at 3AM...hahaha.  Without the play by play we left the house at 2:39AM and got back around 4:30PM.  More than 1/2 done with the shopping....feeling a lot better than I did before Thanksgiving.

So we got back home late this afternoon.  The kids were anxious to get the Christmas decorations out so they were VERY helpful at cleaning up the clutter we had lying around to prep.  Netting it out, the trees are up, stockings are hung and 2 kids are sound asleep in their beds.  Oh how I love this season!!  Sweet dreams all!!

IPPONE Finale

We are home after a tiring afternoon.  The ride wasn't as long as I expected it to be, but we definitely left earlier than we needed to (mental note for next time).  Anyway, little man did great.  He had A LOT more competition this time.  For forms there were 8 boys competing in the 6 & under age group and for sparring there were 10.  In forms Noah took 3rd place (inched out by a tiny bit for second).

A little while later he was up for sparring.  They only handed out trophies for the first 4 positions so he didn't get a trophy, but he did receive a medal for the 6 way tie for 5th :o)  He did sooooooooo much better than his first tournament.  If he had just remembered to throw some kicks I think he would have went further.  It's hard when all the kids are pretty much a year old and almost a head taller...haha.  Here are some action shots:

All in all he did a great job.  His teacher and his other teammates were really proud of him.  Can't wait for the next one...sort of...haha!

Halloween and beyond...

Halloween was a really fun day.  Started with some leaf clearing.  I think we managed to create our record largest leaf pile for the kids enjoyment:

In cominggggggg

 Then we went inside for some pumpkin carving before heading out for the nights festivities.  With the kids being bigger they wanted to do their own carving this year so we went with a more traditional jack-o-lanterns.  They each came up with their own patterns and have fun hacking them up :o)

 End Results:

Kylie went for the "scary/angry" face

 

Noah's was more shapey....little Harry Potter resemblance?

After that it was off to the Colson's for some yummy dinner and fun with great friends.  All the kiddo's are getting so big!!

Toothless

Dorothy

Flashback to Dorothy the first time...6yrs ago!

After Halloween it was a crazy busy week.  Fast forwarding to this morning...Noah had Karate which he did great!! He is so ready for his tournament next week.  After that it was off to CCD where Kylie's class worked on their first of many 1st communion projects.  They planted bulbs in front of the church which Father Gerry came over after to bless.  All this as early preparation for the big day in May :o)  Enjoy!