November So Far

At the beginning of this month, I went away with my friends for a couple of nights to Kohler, WI. It was a great time, but more importantly, I got a great couple of nights of sleep! Matt had to go out of town the night that I got back, but I was greeted with these sweet faces that next morning.

The big kids are still so affectionate and loving toward Paige. I guess we'll see what happens when she starts moving, but it can be pretty helpful when I'm needing to get things done.

Getting dark early + being significantly colder = more screen time. I try to be good about breaking it up, but some days we just lounge after naps. Especially toward the end of football season.

Morning cuddles. On average, our kids get up at what I feel is a perfect time - around 7. It gives us a little time to hang out/me time to shower before getting ready for school or wherever we have to be.

Miles has been napping for at least a couple of hours lately, so the girls and I did a little baking one afternoon.

Goofball pose.

Sassy pose.

Miles calls the sun, "Eye", so whenever it's sunny and we're pulling out of the garage, he'll yell, "Eye, eye!" (even though he's completely capable of saying "sun"). So we have a stash of classy (and very masculine)-looking sunglasses for him in the backseat.

A cute one I found from our visit last month. I think these two are going to look quite a bit alike.

More morning snuggles. I was picking out new PJ's for the big kids and they both wanted footie pajamas. Pretty cute.

My parents and Aunt Nancy came in for about a day this past weekend. It was a great visit (complete with two trips to Portillo's). They're always over too soon.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of all of us. This was Brooke playing "Hi Ho Cherry-O" with my mom and aunt. She's getting to a good age for board games.

This goofball decided to ride his horse around before his bath this morning.

A couple of my sweet baby that I'm not putting in her 7 month update post.

Happy November!

An American Girl in Chicago

For Brooke's birthday, we got her Isabelle, the American Girl Doll "doll of the year". She'd had a catalog for awhile and when I pressed her, that's the doll that she said she wanted the most. That was also the doll that Kali got for her birthday. We'd arranged a month or so before the girls' birthdays to take them to lunch at the store downtown.

Brooke loved walking around and checking out all the different clothes and accessories for the dolls. She was allowed to pick one thing to buy and chose the shirt to match Isabelle's. I bought her a girls' medium. We're going to make that puppy last.

I'd told Brooke that we were having a tea, not realizing that "tea" with the American Girl Doll Store is different than just lunch. We were able to make everyone happy by ordering tea as our drinks at the meal. The girls also requested that we speak with our "fancy" (British) accents at lunch.

Brooke was so thrilled that Isabelle had her own cup and saucer and her own seat at the table. She commented at least 3 times about how neat it was that Isabelle could sit right with us. It was really cute.

The girls got a candle on their dessert at the end of the meal. They really seemed to have a great time - and Christy and I did, too!

I love these two together! Happy birthday, Brookie!

Halloween 2014

We had already had several Halloween celebrations by the time the actual day rolled around this year, and that was a good thing for a couple of reasons: 1) It was pretty chilly out and 2) Halloween fell on a Friday - the first Friday of high school football playoffs. Thankfully, Matt was able to be around for the first part of our trick-or-treating. Brooke quickly went around our block with some of the neighbor girls (pictures of this are on Matt's phone so I'll try to edit them in later) while I was waking the younger two up and getting them in costume. We then went a few blocks over to Kali's house to trick-or-treat with her family for about an hour until Matt had to leave.

After that, we headed over to Grammie Deb and Grandpa Brian's, where Aunt Jamie met us to get a few more goodies from their neighbors while Paige stayed in the warmth of the house. Will made a cameo toward the end of the evening, too.

The kids did really well, over all. I think that the break in the middle was good and Miles kept up much better than I'd expected. And we were home and the kids were in bed by 7:30.

We tried a little photo shoot post-trick-or-treating. Miles was not the most cooperative.

Giving the ol' tiger costume it's third Halloween.

Twinsies!

Sometimes candid shots capture the moment best.

Just the girls.

The day before Halloween, Brooke's class and the 3's at school did a "Halloween Parade". Brooke was one of 2 Anna's in her class, but she wore Anna's "For the First Time in Forever" gown and the other little girl wore Anna's "Searching for Elsa" gown. (sidenote: Brooke chose to wear the "Searching for Elsa" dress on Halloween night, so thanks, Uncle Joel and Lauren!)

They did a couple poems and songs. When I sent Matt a video of one of the songs, his text response was, "BOO!" Such a supportive dad.

Happy Halloween (almost a month late)!

Family Photo Shoot

I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but we had our family pictures taken about a month ago. We used Liz at Autumn Fields Photography and were once again so happy with the work that she did. The evening that we had the photos taken, Miles was getting over a virus and the mosquitoes were swarming like nothing I'd ever seen, but everyone made the best of it (Matt probably complained the most) and we were really happy with the results!