I am thankful for... my smiley, playful kids :)

Back to the grind I guess... the long weekend was such a treat -- something to be thankful for :)

Park pics from Saturday late afternoon -- both pre-slide & post-slide:

Noah slides down on his own, too -- but he giggles even more when he has a buddy with him!!
Picture of Evelyn from last night -- just because she was being extra cute! She can sing the entire ABC song now, and it always puts her in a giggly mood when we sing songs together.

We haven't done any Christmas decorating yet -- believe me, I wanted too!! -- but it was just too busy of a weekend with thanksgiving, guests in town, etc. We are going to get our tree next weekend -- and my goal is to be done with Xmas shopping by the time I decorate. I don't have any lunch meetings planned this week -- so I will be shopping during my lunch hours. I hope to be able to thoroughly enjoy the season without being bogged down by the craziness of holiday shopping.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Forgot to get a family pic on Thanksgiving... ugh! Here is one of the kids ruining their appetites by eating Fritos before dinner: (disclaimer: they don't do this regularly... but it is thanksgiving and Nana is in town, so pretty much anything goes)Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. I joke that everyone is afraid of my cooking because they always assign me fruit salad -- but maybe it is because they know that I love fruit so much? (and so do the kids) I will just keep telling myself that :) I ate the perfect amount of food this year. I hate the over-stuffed feeling for the rest of the day... so I tried to cut back a little. We ate around 5PM and I was actually hungry again before I went to bed. It probably was partially due to the 6 miles I ran during nap-time (another reason I liked my assignment, I had free time since I didn't have a lot of cooking/baking to do)... but I was happy to grab a little snack before bed!

Here is Evelyn getting a horsey-ride from her Uncle Chuck. She adores him :)

What else goes along with Thanksgiving weekend??... FOOTBALL!

The kids both love to watch football. They request it to be on tv regularly... whenever they hear the word "touchdown" they both throw both their arms in the air to signal for a touchdown... Evelyn will even take the football and throw it towards Noah and say "Go out for a pass Noah!"
Here they are on Friday morning having some fun playing with the football on our dead-end street:

And here is Evelyn leaving Noah in her dust and going for a touchdown :)

Fun on a Rainy Day

The weather here hasn't been the greatest lately -- so we decided to mix things up & bring out the giraffe tent for the kids. As you can see -- they had a blast. Evelyn loves to lay in there and read her books. Not much else to report... I had a great run today. I went to the gym during the kids nap-time and it was one of those days when running is easy, your mind wanders, and the miles add up before you even realize it :)

I'm looking forward to the short work week!!

Big Girl Bed... Kinda :)

Can you believe that Evelyn is going to be three and she is still in her crib?! The girl loves it -- she fits fine and has never tried to get out. Well -- I decided this morning that we should at least start the transition to a big girl bed. We converted her crib to a day-bed with a toddler rail. I thought for sure she would crawl out and play through her entire nap-time... but surprisingly enough, I think she stayed put :)

Home Sweet Home

It was great to visit Michigan - but it is good to be home and getting back to our normal routine, too. I think since we already know we will be back to see my parents between Xmas and New Years it made it easier to leave... I hate not knowing how long it will be before we see them again. I hadn't seen my dad since last Xmas... It was nice to be home for a while :)
Pic of my brother & Noah:Noah discovered my mom's 2 lb handweights -- he enjoyed carrying them around. He already loves to work out -- like mother, like son I guess :)"Like mother, like son" hopefully doesn't apply to our thighs though... not sure where those hams came from!!

pics from Michigan

Well - Noah and I survived the red-eye flight back to Michigan. He did really well - a little tired/cranky at first... but then was able to catch a few hours of sleep, so he was much happier.

The trip has been pretty relaxing... went to the park, Papa took Noah on the 4-wheeler, Noah has been learning the names of a lot of animals that are stuffed around our house (for those of you that don't know, my dad flies around the world to hunt big game animals), visited with extended family/neighbors, caught up on sleep, I even managed to fit in a few runs - even on the freezing cold days! Remind me not to think the weather is ever too cold in Seattle for running... I just need to remember what it's like to run in Michigan and be thankful for the weather I have :)


All for now... we fly back Monday morning. Just going to relax and enjoy the remainder of the visit :)

1 Dragon + 1 Unicorn + 1 Angel + 1 Bunny = the most adorable chaos EVER!!

Halloween was fun -- I had to fly solo though -- Travis stayed in to watch the Notre Dame game. Good thing our neighbors have kids the same age, I went with them -- and they were a ton of help. Noah ready to go:Here are the kids -- it was hysterical to see them all in action. Evelyn (almost 3) was the oldest - the others were all under 2. They got the hang of it after the first house - and quickly became pros :)By the end of the night I was absolutely exhausted! Good thing I work out a lot -- I was so sore from lifting the kids up & down front porch stairs all night. They can usually manuever stairs on their own... but with all the other kids around & them wanting to be in a hurry... it was much safer for me to help them up and down. At least I got in an extra work-out!

Halloween decorations down - Thanksgiving decorations up - clean house - trip to Michigan next week - life is good :)