Leading Up to Christmas

Our December has been so festive and fun. The kids (especially Zeke) have been so excited!

Enjoying the Christmas tree and the Christmas train. 

Advent calendar ornaments for the little tree. Two ornaments every day until Christmas. 

We got Little People nativities this year. We all love them! This is Zeke's preferred arrangement... I love how all of the animals and visitors are crowded around to see the baby. 

Gingerbread festival. The gingerbread boy and girl cutouts were the favorite part again this year! 

The primary sang at the ward/neighborhood party. Aaron got this sweet picture of Zeke and Nora singing Away in a Manger (asleep....asleep....)

Zeke was excited to go see Santa.

Nora was excited too but only wanted to get this close. 

And there were so many other things that made the season bright that we didn't photograph. Baking Christmas sugar cookies, Christmas shopping for our extended family members, Christmas parties, wrapping presents, seeing Christmas lights, singing/listening to/dancing to Christmas carols, reading Christmas stories, watching Christmas movies, and of course arranging and re-arranging our nativities and talking about the nativity story.  

Chrismtas Eve

Grandma Carlile's tradition of giving the kids Christmas pajamas has gotten even more fun now as they come to visit us on Christmas Eve to deliver the presents. 

I managed to get pictures this year before everyone was too tired to put up with a photoshoot. 

As I was taking these I was thinking about just how fast they are growing up and how proud I am of everything they are doing and learning. 

I think Christmas is more fun now that I have kids to plan surprises for! 

Leaves Have Fallen

It seemed like the leaves fell off the trees all at once this year, so we haven't been able to play in them as long as we would have liked. But (between snowstorms) the weather has been nice for getting outside to play and to gather up all of those leaves. 

Playing football at Grandma's house. After some practice, Zeke could throw fairly well. Catching needs some more practice. 

Nora's a natural at running with the ball. 

Riding the motorcycle while Grandpa and Daddy were playing catch with Zeke. 

After church, in what leaves are left. 

Zeke gathering the leaves from the slide. 

Halloween Tree

Around the end of September we got this crazy idea to do a Halloween tree. You know, like a Christmas tree, but with Halloween decorations. The kids had a blast helping decorate. 

We have so many Halloween items, and most of them usually stay boxed up because we don't have enough space to put them out. We used them all this year. 

Spider web taking over the back of the tree. 

Aaron has a Lego ghost train, which ran around the tree all October.

We loaded up the flatbed car on the train with various kinds of pumpkins: orange peanut m&ms, mellowcreme pumpkins, and pumpkin pie spiced white chocolate covered almonds my mom brought us from Costco. However, the load kept disappearing ... into Nora's mouth. 

It was a fun experiment and we enjoyed it. The tree is becoming a Thanksgiving tree as we speak, then of course it will be our Christmas tree. We'll see in January if we've still got the endurance to put snowflakes and snowmen on it!

Ghost and Bunny Halloween

Halloween was greatly anticipated at our house and the evening did not disappoint! Our little bunny and ghost had a great time. 

Nora even had a fluffy tail to go with her pigtail bunny ears. It was cold and she wore her coat, so I don't think many people got to see her tail. 

Zeke and Aaron had a grand time painting this little pumpkin on Halloween afternoon. 

Zeke even had a Boo sign, which we forgot about until after we had taken an initial round of pictures. Fortunately, we remembered it right before we left home. 

Our first stop was to walk a neighborhood of older people we know and love, who are generous with both their treats and their love for us. This year we did the walking part at dusk and not after dark. It was perfect for being not too dark and cold but still in the spirit of the night. 

Then off to see grandmas and grandpas and cousins, pose for more pictures, and get more treats. 

Fluff, fluff, fluff. 

Potato Harvest

We enjoy digging potatoes for a lot of reasons. Time spent with our Loertscher family. Satisfaction of working hard and accomplishing something great. Joy in digging the dirt on a sunny fall day. And of course, anticipation of eating yummy potatoes all winter long (at least for me and for Aaron....we're still working on the kids). 

The kids also love potato planting and harvesting because they get to play in their great-grandpa's backyard, which doesn't happen often. They also like looking around his old house when they go inside for bathroom breaks. This time Nora was fascinated by the fact that the doors have actual keyholes. 

We felt like we didn't get much accomplished in the potato-producing department because -as Aaron put it- we're growing kids. It was a constant teaching process. Showing them how to clean off the potatoes and where to put them, reminding Nora to walk where we had already harvested ('the fluffy dirt'), teaching Zeke to stay with the work even when he didn't want to, correcting Nora when she called the potatoes 'tomatoes', and showing Zeke how the potatoes grow off the roots of the plants. We talked to them about digging for potato treasure, and that made everything a little extra fun! The kids even got a turn to dig. 

Zeke the scarecrow.

Nora in the house. I took this picture because she is just so cute, dirt and all. When I told her she was adorable, she said 'Yes, I am.' Then she pointed to her shoulder and added, 'Look I have beautiful dirt!'

Making Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate, chocolate everywhere!

My mom has pictures just like this of us :)

Posing kids.

Parchment paper 'treasure maps' were a big hit!

No pictures of cookies, but they were yummy! I took them to work for a coworker's birthday, Zeke took a few to his teacher, and everyone loved them! Recipe here.

Backyard Fun

A few weeks ago my sister offered us her little climber/slide/playground, because she had gotten a sweet deal on a big playhouse-style one. Given that our kids love to slide, and this little one was the perfect size for our patio, we went and picked it up right away!

The kids have both loved it. They have sent toys down the slide over and over. 

They are both big Jake and the Neverland Pirates fans right now, so they climb aboard to play pirate ship and even had a pirate picnic of saltine crackers and milk one afternoon. Nora keeps saying 'It's Bucky and the Jolly Roger!' While I'm not quite sure how it's two ships in one, I'm glad it's such pirate-y fun.

And of course, lots and lots of climbing up and sliding down. 

When Nora wants to go out and play, she says 'Can I go have fun?'

Float Flying

Like the night fly, we weren't sure what the weather would be for the float fly. It rained all week, and even in the night on Saturday morning. But the weather at the lake on Saturday lat morning was so beautiful! 

Nora helping Daddy take off. She spent the whole time in the water.

There were some wild clouds around, but fortunately no rain that came over us.

Sweet (wet) girl.

Zeke on the muddy shore.

It was a good flying day. Aaron flew 4 or 5 times, no crashes. The kids loved playing outside, and we had a good hamburger/hot dog lunch. 

Night Flying

The Saturday of the Night Fly, we spent the morning working on finishing Aaron's plane, then around 3:00 a thunderstorm rolled in. Thunder, lightning, cold wind, raining cats and dogs. We were going to run to the grocery store before we headed flying, but we didn't want to go out in the heavy rain, so we stayed home and waited for the notice that the fly was cancelled. But the cancellation email never came, and after consulting the weather radar, we decided that there would probably be people and food at the flying field even if the weather wouldn't let us fly. So we loaded up and headed out. 

About halfway through our drive we drove out of the rain and into the sunshine. When we arrived at the field it was 80+ degrees and sunny. We felt like we had entered another world - no wonder the event wasn't cancelled; the weather was fine here! 

Dinner with melty chocolate chip cookes.

One of my favorite parts of the night fly is watching the sun set. It's easy to get beautiful sunset pictures out here.

Moon rising.

Sun setting.

Lights on and ready to fly.

We brought our glowsticks, but the club was handing them out. There weren't that many kids, so we got several packages!

Right as it got dark, we got a fireworks show. The next town over was having their town celebration, and we had a great view of the fireworks. We were far enough away that the sound was a bit behind the light, but not too much. The kids were so happy to have fireworks. 

Planes flew until about 10 then everyone packed up and went home. We stopped at the grocery store on the way, and the kids were better behaved than ever before. It was kind of a small miracle! We speed shopped, checked out as the store was closing, and then went home to fall into bed. It was a fun night!