Yum

Ben asked for spaghetti for dinner tonight and everyone ate up! Successful dinner. I love that.

Imagination

Ben found some rolls of clay in the play dough box this afternoon and put his imagination to work. First he rolled out each color of clay to make flat pieces.

Then he formed them into a square "fence" and put a bunch of animals inside. Turns out it is a snake farm.

On the farm, there is a tree and small pond with a duck. One pig, three squirrels and lots of mice. Plus, one meteorite.

The snake attempted to encircle the pig but this pig can fly and got away with no problem.

The snake headed for the mice next.

Thankfully, most of the mice escaped the death trap of the snake farm. But, the squirrels and duck are left to fend for themselves.

Liam was sitting up at the table and loving Ben's story telling! Way to go, Ben!

Guess who

Who is that boy wearing underwear?

It looks like Liam! Could it be?

It is! It is, Liam wearing underwear! Hip Hip Hurray for Liam!

The dinos go marching

one by one. Hurrah, hurrah!

The dinos go marching one by one, the little one stops to make a splash.

And they all go marching home to get out of the bath.

Double Bonus

Going out to lunch AND having Paw-Paw and Na-Na to share the meal - that's what Ben and Liam would consider a double bonus day! It's been a full day of playing playing playing.

Thankful

We are very thankful at our house. Thankful for each other. Thankful for grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Thankful for our home, the boys school and our jobs. We are thankful that we were able to spend Thanksgiving with so much family - who traveled from so many different places. We are thankful for the fun and exciting things we get to do everyday - playing! Ben and Liam both said they are most thankful for Mom and Dad, and each other. We are most thankful for them as well. We are thankful that we are able to spend so much time together. We have so much to be thankful for - we are blessed beyond measure.

There was added thankfulness today when Ben and Liam learned that Paw-Paw and Na-Na were coming to our house for a few days. The excitement couldn't be contained around here. Liam and Paw-Paw read books for a long time.


Ben was thrilled with his new Power Ranger$. He had Na-Na playing Megazord all day long. Sweet Na-Na.

Miss you already

While Maggie slept in the car, we hugged our sweet Amy and Riley goodbye. We will miss them so much and are already looking forward to when they visit next summer.

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you,

in the palm of His hand.

We love you.

Projects

The family dinner was at our house tonight and I planned a few projects that are kid friendly. First we used our butcher paper table covering to color pictures of what we are thankful for. Everyone enjoyed coloring in between bites of pizza. It's not every day that you get to color on the table. Then I broke out the sticker sheets and everyone made pictures of a thanksgiving feast. I love projects that the adults and kids can do together at the table. This was our last night with Amy and the kids. We are going to be sad to see them go home tomorrow.

Discover fun

We went to the Discovery Museum with Riley and Elizabeth this afternoon. Everyone had a great time riding cows, playing with smoke rings, trains and ships. There was lots of discovery and lots of fun. When we left we managed to get ourselves on the evening news by walking past a camera man filming for a story on crime in downtown LR. For the record, we saw no crime. Just fun and games for us.

Passing it on

Uncle Paul (who is now 31) got bunk beds from our grandparents when he was about five years old. Approximately six years ago he passed them on to my nephew, Riley (now 11) who recently moved to Saudi Arabia. Upon his move, Riley passed the bunk beds on to Ben and Liam. We just had them painted with a fancy new coat of red paint and we set them up today. Ben will sleep on the bottom bunk for now and some time in the future both boys will enjoy this room together.

Here are all three boys and their bunk beds.

How sweet that we got them up while Uncle Paul and Riley were visiting. This is now one of my all time favorite photos. Thanks, Uncle Paul and Riley for passing it on. We love you.

We had our Thanksgiving meal at Grammy and Poppy's house this evening. I am so thankful that Amy, Riley, Maggie, Paul and Elizabeth were all able to be here this year.

Thanks for playing, Uncle Paul

Uncle Paul raked up the leaves,

Liam and Maggie jumped in them!



It is so good to have them here! The kids are having a great time.

Cousins

Ben and Liam had The.Best.Time playing with Riley and Maggie today. We played in the morning and again in the afternoon. We had lunch in the fort. We built a very large train track. We played at the store. We had snacks and a very high energy dance party. There were some angry birds and candy eating monsters involved. It was an awesome day.


Riley even figured out how to make a swing on the front porch of the fort. Very cool.

Thankful

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a performance and feast with Ben at school.

He did an awesome job singing every song. My favorite Thanksgiving song was the one where the turkey got away so they all ate pizza!

Ben and his buddy Sam.

My gym class

Every other day Liam asks if it's "my gym class" day. Well, today it was. Riley went with us which was extra exciting. Liam was happy to show off all his moves to his cousin.


And, of course, he was proud of his stamps.

Visitors

Aunt Amy and cousins Riley and Maggie are here!! They have come for a visit from their new home in Saudi Arabia. They actually arrived at 12:30am so Ben and Liam didn't get to see them today and we opted not to take pictures at the airport. These pictures were taken the day they moved, May 26th.


We are going to have a fun-filled week with the cousins!

ABC's and drawing

We are back at home now. We had a great vacation and an easy drive home this morning.

Ben is spending a lot of time writing. He is working on learning to write his last name.

I am super impressed by his concentration and determination. It's actually his favorite thing to do these days.

This is the notebook where he does most of his writing and drawing.

I really like this butterfly. He likes to erase most of what he draws so I have to be quick and take pictures of his work.