Thanksgiving

It is wonderful to be with family during Thanksgiving. The Saturday before Thanksgiving we went to visit Jackie and Riley's beautiful new home. Judah and Hudson are looking like brothers.

Now, back at our house Luke and Boden have matching chrome books and are putting them to good use.

 Here is my mom less than 48 hours after she got out of the hospital. We are glad she could be with us. I set the table with cloth napkins from London that my mom bought me when she was there on her last trip.

 Hope's first Thanksgiving.

 We hosted 22 people for Thanksgiving this year. We were not able to have flag football because of the rain.

 Here are all the big kids playing with Hudson's Lego's making a masterpiece.

 Papa will be 73 and Hudson will be 3 in a few days.

 Tricia teaching gymnastics.

 Now we are in Watertown celebrating with Dave's family (21 people). Here is Hudson helping Grandma cut the pies. We also enjoyed Friday all together. We went swimming at the YMCA, watched Star Wars, and then had pizza while the kids played at our house. The girls did three dance routines. The older boys perfected their digital bowling. The younger boys enjoyed all of the activity. Sorry there are not any pictures from Friday.

A Spooktacular Halloween

Eva and Luke each carved their own pumpkin. Eva named hers Mcallie and Luke named his Octo.

Every year we get "booed" and candy ends up on our door step. We also "booed" the neighbors and we gave pumpkin chocolate chip bars. Luke planned the strategy for each house so they could ring the door bell and get away quickly.

 Here are my favorite trick or treaters... Elise and Eva, Tyler and Brady and then Luke and Matteo.

Love my ninja, dog, and Belle.

Cosy Nook

Wisconsin certainly is beautiful in fall. The kids loving going to Cosy Nook every year to get their pumpkins. I love watching them play on the farm.

Swamp Fox

Luke is writing this blog about his weekend trip to a cub scout camp called Swamp Fox in the northern Kettle Moraine.  He had a great time with his pack and his dad.  They stayed Friday through Sunday and got to do many fun activities.  Some of them are shown below.

Fire building.

Wood project - we built a train bank.

My bottle rocket went really high.  This is the water stream.

At BB guns I got 10 holes in the plate.

At pumpkin carving I cut out the eyes and nose.  My dad did the mouth.

It was cold at night but our red tent kept us warm.

Our troop walking to the flag to lower it.

Anay folding the flag.

Everybody eating in the dining hall.

Happy 7th Birthday Eva

I am so thankful for Eva every day. She is very loving to Hudson. She is very funny and loves to laugh. She loves to do the monkey bars by skipping bars or leaping to the 4th bar all at once. She has been doing great at school and is ahead in math and reading. She is very creative as she plays. She still writes me love notes all the time. We love Eva and are so happy she came to us 7 years ago.

Eva's favorite colors: light blue 

Eva's favorite thing to do at school: Art and Choir

Eva's favorite thing to do with Luke: build a fort

Eva's favorite thing to do with Hudson: waking him up in the morning

Eva's favorite things: cuddle time with mommy and baking

Eva's favorite sports: dance and cheer leading

Eva's favorite thing at home: play with doll dance studio

 We celebrated Eva's birthday at Lake Geneva with our family and bowling and frisbee golfing with the extended family.

 Eva at Daisy Scouts.

 Learning time in the lobby at Lake Geneva.

This year was also the year of the American Girl doll. Eva had wanted Samantha and now they do everything together. It is fun having having another girl in the house.

Grandma and Grandpa brought Samantha a tea set and Christmas dress and Jackie got her two outfits as well.