Thanksgiving 2015

Leading up to Thanksgiving, we spent some time making crafts and treats.

Kate drew this turkey:

I made pumpkin pie scented play dough and helped Kate turn it into a turkey.

Kate helped me test out a turkey dinner craft before we put together fifty craft bags for the children of homeless families to create their own turkey dinners at the Thanksgiving dinner held at North.

 We watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and had a feast.

These pictures were taken on Thanksgiving.  I meant to take more.  It was a nice day.  We are very fond of the games that have been added the last few years.  The turkey gobble & strut and name the turkey are both a blast!  We laugh a lot!

We were all VERY excited to spend time with Karen, Mark & Hannah over the holiday weekend. Hannah is so cute; Kate talks about her often.  I wish they lived closer!

I am very thankful for this crew, love them!

We should have cleaned up a bit for that picture, maybe fixed the girls' hair and had Collin change his shirt!!!

Around Here in November

In November,

Collin, Reagan, and Katelyn played in their last soccer games of the season.

Kate slept in her crib for the last time.

I took it apart and Tyler brought it to Papa's house where he reassembled it with Papa for Hannah to use when she visits.

Kate has been sleeping in the trundle of Reagan's bed until their bunk beds arrive next weekend.

Reagan competed in the URI Fall Classic gymnastics meet and she placed fifth out of forty girls on bars.

 On November 11th, we celebrated Kelly's seventh birthday.

Reagan started basketball.  This is her first time ever playing and she is enjoying it.  I love this free throw, gymnast style basketball.

Collin made this notebook cover in art class.

This is our skeleton.  His name is Peach and he is a Halloween decoration, but Kate has been playing with him daily, so he's still hanging around.  Poor guy isn't doing so well, but Kate is trying to save him.

Reagan had her last orthopedic visit with Dr. Micheli in Boston.  He is an awesome doctor (he's the official doctor for the Boston Ballet), but I'm happy that we don't have to go back anytime soon.  She had to wear these silly shorts for her appointment so that he could see her legs and feet without pants in the way.

These kids worked with a bunch of others to put together bags of food and personal care items for the local families living in homeless shelters.  I really want to make a point of finding more service projects for us; I think it's important and definitely an area that I have not spent enough time pursuing with the kids.

Halloween 2015

 Papa surprises us every year with a different costume.  This year he came looking for a brain.  The zombie bride probably had it.

Most of our trick or treating crew:

They all had so much fun trick or treating this year.

I wasn't able to get pictures of Kate with the triplets, but they stuck together and it was really nice for Kate to trick or treat with kids her age.  They tired out at the same time too, perfect!

I think the whip and nae nae song is the most memorable tune of the year for our household.  Here is a video of our trick or treating crew doing their own rendition, complete with a little dancing:

Once again Halloween fell on the weekend, and we had a lot of people at our house after trick or treating.  Those that dared to bob for apples got a little wet, but they had a lot of fun.  Reagan did very well; check her out in this video:

Levels of Horror

Tom came up with levels of horror to make our Halloween happenings a little more exciting this year!  Yikes!  Collin, Reagan, the Finlaw kids, James Phenix, and occasionally a few other friends (Miranda, Madison, and Karlie) have been part of the levels.  Kate was very content to stay with Grandma or Isabel while we did this; she doesn't even like to go near the Halloween aisle ("scary ection") in Target!  I already posted about our trip to the haunted hayride at Almeida's, that was the first level (although that does not make it any less scary!  I honestly think it may have been the scariest now that I look back at all of the events), and there have been a few more adventures.

Ghoulie Manor

Tom's rules:
1.  If Addie goes, her Daddy goes
2.  If you go for the ride, you go inside
3.  If you have to pee, don't pee on me
4.  If Christy (me) goes, Becky (Finlaw) goes

Ha ha ha!  The kids loved these rules.

Originally, I had no interest in any of this and really didn't want to participate, but it ended up being so much fun because we were all together with good friends.  We are looking forward to new levels of horror next year!

Pumpkins

Kate used two techniques to decorate her pumpkin this year.  She painted one side and stuck Potato Head pumpkin kit pieces into the other side.

We also did some pumpkin carving.

Collin carved this howling wolf.  He wasn't happy with it at first, but when he saw it lit up, he thought it looked pretty cool.

Reagan chose a classic Jack O'Lantern; it came out great.

Around here in October

The months just fly by, don't they?  Here is a peek into the month of October.

Tyler started working at the Venus deMilo and was quickly promoted from bus boy to waiter.

Reagan ran her first 5k.  Tom pushed Kate in the stroller for some of the race, but she ran quite a bit too!  Both girls did an awesome job!

Story hour and Starbucks is how we spend most Thursday mornings.

Collin went to his first middle school dance.  It was right after school and very informal, and he said it was lots of fun.

Reagan, Kate and I went to Boo at the Zoo.

Kate's face in that picture sums up how she felt about the whole thing.  I love experiencing the world through her eyes.

Reagan had her first gymnastics meet at the Xcel Silver level.  She did very well earning second place on bars and third place on floor.

Here is the video of her bars routine:

Video of the floor routine:

Beam routine (every girl at every level seemed to struggle on beam at this meet; you can tell they are all working on new skills; Reagan's new skill this year is a cartwheel on the beam!!!!!):

Kate and I went to a puppet show at the library.  She got to be a helper and that was very exciting!

We went to the Halloween dance at North.  Collin didn't want to go at first, but he was asked to help run one of the games and he thought that would be fun.  After the fact, he said it wasn't fun, but I'm still happy he helped out.  This is the game he ran:

For costumes this year we had a lumberjack,

Cinderella,

and a Zombie Bride!!!

 Reagan had a fabulous time at the dance.

I prepared a caramel apple bar one day.

How cute are these two kiddos?  They were waiting for the Musictown Parade.

While Tom was at the parade with Kate, I was at Reagan's last field hockey game of the season.  I didn't get any good pictures.  I'm kicking myself for not thinking to take a picture of all of the girls together that day.

I have a few more October pictures, but I'll save them for another post!