November 2012

We took a trip to visit family in November, and this tank is at a place we stopped to feed Ellie. The boys love it.

Helping the grandparents rake up their leaves! Caleb and Levi figured out a good way to get the leaves into their buckets!

Even Ellie enjoyed the leaves, which I was surprised at.

She saw her brothers playing hide and seek in the toy box......

And had her first real experience with bubbles! She was fascinated.

This is for Grandma, who gave her the shirt....it says, "I'm always on Grandma's nice list!"

She loves to wear my shoes!

Levi is reading a book to Caleb and Ellie.

We made cookie turkeys again this year. And for the first time, Caleb and Levi got to participate in the school's turkey trot. Ian and Levi were on the same team, Caleb was on a different one. They have one child from each grade on each team, but the kindergartners don't participate. Then they race by grade, and each child is given their number as they come in. The team with the lowest overall score of all team members added together wins turkeys. Ian, Caleb, and Levi did not get very low numbers, but they all participated and they all finished. Levi and Caleb were a little nervous about it, and Caleb said, "let's hold hands and race together." They didn't, but they stayed close the whole way.

Taking Christmas card pictures!

Levi and Caleb built this man, and even gave him a face.

They could not wait to put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving! They all tried on the Rudolph antlers and nose. This is Levi.

And this is just cute :).

Ellie was really helping Ian get his reading done :).

And this is for Ellie's aunt. We got these adorable pink camouflage pants from Ellie's aunt, I'm sure both of Ellie's older red-headed cousins wore them but they moved into the same town as us when the younger of the two was Ellie's age and I totally remember her wearing these pants. It's fun to see Ellie wearing clothes her cousins wore!

October 2012

Making applesauce! We went (well, mostly John, we've had a lot of sickness in October) to pick apples again this year and make lots of applesauce. There are three jobs while straining the apples, so the boys take turns and rotate through the jobs. They are getting to be pretty good helpers! This year Levi helped to fill a lot of the jars, too.

I just thought this was cool, with the sun coming in the window. Caleb is on the stool, Levi in back.

I have lots of pictures of them reading, but that is what they love! Levi and Caleb were listening to this story on a tape, "Big Pumpkin," one of the best Halloween stories!

And, they build with a lot of blocks. They were making houses for the Mr. Potatohead people.

This is my boy! I fall asleep with a book in my hands most nights. I caught Ian doing it when he was sleeping in the living room one night (leaving the boys' bedroom to whoever was sick that night).

Caleb's air tank. This empty pop bottle got a lot of use!

Soccer! I was crazy and signed all three boys up for soccer this fall. Levi and Caleb are on the same team, but they played M/W and Ian played T/TH. Ellie was pretty sick of going to soccer after 6 weeks! But the boys all had fun and learned more about how to play (this was Levi and Caleb's first season). Ian had a chance to play all the positions and got better at playing (this is his third year). It got pretty cold for some of the last games, their very last game was super short because it was pretty much dark when the game started. And with no overhead lights anywhere near the fields, it was pretty hard to play.

Halloween! For the first time we went trick-or-treating downtown. It was pretty nice. It was in the afternoon so it was light, not very cold, and we were home before dinner time. Most of the businesses had signs in their windows and they would just walk in and get some candy and move on to the next business/store. Levi was a black cat, Ian was a spy, Ellie was Piglet, and Caleb was a cowboy.

Also this month, Ian earned his Bear rank in Cub Scouts! He also got his gold arrow point, and still has four months to earn more arrow points. Way to go!