Turkey Day Weekend

Grandpa was down for his usual visit. We fried a turkey and had all the fixings at my brothers for the actual day.

Then of course while he was here we had to have potato pancakes and what better to serve with it then Bacon Explosion. I think we have master the explosion now.

Everyone burned off some energy playing outside before we feasted.

Where has the time gone....

This month has flown by. I celebrated my birthday which was fantastic. We bought a new mattress which we got today so cant wait to test it out. As well as a new Crossfit Sweatshirt and picked out the sneakers I want. All big stuff for me since I over analyze every purchase we make.

Then we had Emmi's birthday party the day after my birthday. Space Kidets was the venue. They have a great set up with bounce houses, cake room and then arcade room. Here are pictures of her with all her friends.

Lets talk about her. She is so amazing. Very independent. Dresses herself as well as picks out her clothes daily which results in some very fashionista type outfits at times. She loves Ballet and Gymnastics. Has become a bit more daring now that she is older. Is a fantastic big sister. She has started to "read", meaning memorizing books we read but reading it to us like the "Deep Blue Sea". Or "reading" books to us that are close to what the real story is. We also have a few books that have pictures where words should be with the words under that she is great at too. To think these are just steps to the real deal. She can write her name. She is very polite and everyone seems to just love her. She also has imaginary friends, like this week it is Ella and many others.

Pumpkins and Halloween

This month flew by. Here are the highlights...

PUMPKIN PATCH: with friends, Jacob's pumpkin at 38lbs, many others by the kids, animals, farm equipment, and plenty of slides.

They had a huge slide that the kids loved, especially Marli as we would walk to the top and then let her go.

HALLOWEEN: Emmi was Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame which means I had to make it as it isnt the most popular right now. She has that book in her class at school so has read it there.

Moo was the banana I made a few years ago for Emmi. I think this was the last year I can get away with that.

CROSSFIT: I competed in my first Crossfit competition and came in 3rd of 16 in the Women's modified group. Not bad for only been doing it for 6 months and been signed up at a gym for 3 weeks. :D We had to do 3 WOD(Workouts of the Day). I won the 3rd so I went from 9-7 to then 3rd. Here is a video of me around 1:00 doing a deadlift: http://youtu.be/67rCNbegmFM

Fantastic Sitter

Our sitter loves photography. I had told her if she ever felt like grabbing my camera to feel free. One day last week she did..... and of course took some cute pics of the kids. She takes way better pictures than I do or at least my kids cooperate more.

Who is this kid and how old is she???

Thanks Christie you are definitely the best and we can't thank you enough.

Playground

We have reached the point now where Moo can play pretty much on her own. Not where I can just sit there but I dont have to chase her up down all around, think more like I can man the playground from the ground. Which is nice if I go with other moms as I can actually kinda talk to them. Here are the kids playing today as their cousins came over.






Then on the news front is we have a new dog, Murphy aka Murph. Our friend Daniela works with a dog rescue group. We mentioned a few weeks back that we were going to start to fill out paperwork to foster dogs. That night someone happened to have tagged her in a photo on Facebook of a black lab looking dog. She casually just said hey check him out. So I told Jacob who proceeded to call the number and get more information since he was in a kill shelter in Georgia. Daniela was able to work some magic and he got pulled from the shelter with us being the foster parents. He was transported here the day we left on vacation so Daniela covered him and gave us updates while we were away. We have had him since we got back. He has been a really well behaved dog and listens to Emmi. So we have decide we are going to keep him. Here is a picture although not the best so I will take more soon.

The best vacation place.....

Last year at this time we went to North Topsail and had the best time so we had to go again. This year we are down Kona but added Memere and Grandpy Harley to our trip.


The first day here there was a turtle nest in front of our place that had hatched the night before. The Turtle people came back to open the nest. Sure enough there were still 3 in there that were set free as well as many shells and eggs.


The girls have also loved flying kites.



Of course we dug holes and played in the sand.


The guys are into fishing. Grandpy Harley was the first one to catch a fish.


We have also seen our usual commercial fishing boat and dolphins in the water.

Eating Out

This is not something we seem to do very often. We much rather buy some really good quality food to make at home. However when we do eat out or get take out, one of our favorites is a Chinese/Sushi restaurant. So yummy. We decided to take the girls since Emmi has been asking if we can go out to eat. They did really well so I think we can make this happen more often. Not the best pics since taken from my phone.