Gingerbread Houses

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Josh's work rented out a theater, and we went to see Star Wars with Josh's sister and her husband. Then, the next day, my mom's work rented out a theater and my entire family went to see Moana.

 I thought the movie was really cute. And here are Meili and Ruby driving home with Grandma.

 Such divas! Then, in keeping with tradition, we did gingerbread houses at my parents' house.

 This year, since my parents' house is under renovations, my mom took us up on the offer to bring our own gingerbread houses-hence, Grant's house looks pretty sad. I thought I was only going to make one house, but Meili made her own house plans for her house, so I didn't have enough dough, so the cut the sides shorter and rolled them really thin (hence the burn), and didn't think about the fact that the roof would also need to be shorter. Anyway, his house struggled, but he didn't mind one bit!

 And I got to hear for the entire month of December, "Mom... Mom... Mom... Bremember.... Bremember how you said we could eat one treat off our ginger house every day? Bremember? Well... let's do that."

 And, here's Meili with her house. She did a fabulous job with her house plans. Of course, I should have known that she would want to create her own.

And that's Grant's house close up. He pretty much only wanted to use the lego treats.

Family Pictures

There was someone that posted on a classifieds Facebook page at the end of November that she was offering mini-sessions for family pictures. I really wanted to do pictures now because we could get Cam's 4-month, Meili's 6 year, Grant's 3 year, and our family picture done all at one time, but November is not the easiest time to do pictures. (It's freezing cold outside, we're already tight on money, Meili's bangs are still not quite all the way grown out, etc.) So I didn't want to spend a fortune. So a mini-session sounded perfect. And thank goodness, because my kids lasted exactly 1/2 hour and even that was kind of pulling teeth.

 

Then, remember that Grant hit his head 2 days before this (thank goodness for photoshop), when I took my phone away from him as soon as we got there, he threw a fit, then he had a herd of hungry ducks started chasing him as soon as we got of the car and he started screaming. Not off to a great start.

 

But you would never know any of that from the pictures...

 Photobomber Grant strikes again!

 

November

Whoever decided to do Spirit Week the same week as Halloween... maybe needs to rethink that decision. After a crazy morning of trying to get Meili all ready and to school on time on Halloween (Monday), I felt like we had a redo again on Tuesday with crazy hair/sock/shoe/clothes day.

Here's our photobomber: Grant.

 

Meili was funny trying to pick out her clothes. She wanted to be crazy but not too crazy. So she wore two boots in different colors. But wearing one boot and one tennis shoe was out of the question, and when I wanted her to wear one soccer sock and one regular sock, she thought I was crazy. So she wore the same style of sock in two different colors. And she was very nervous getting out the car-thinking that her mom was just nuts and she was going to be the only one with crazy hair.

 

This month Cam seems to have gotten a lot bigger really fast. He rolled over from tummy to back, and has basically rolled from back to tummy besides one arm.

We also started trying rice cereal, and so far we've failed and he hates it, just like the rest of our kids have.

 

 

He's basically big enough to be in his saucer now and can be entertained by toys for a little while.

 

These pictures I took just to bug Josh. Jake and Kami brought this Red Sox shirt back for us when Grant was little. When Cam had a blowout later that day, Josh said he wasn't surprised. He had to figure out a way to get out of that shirt.

He's pretty much the cutest boy in the world. We love this baby so much. He's our first baby that will lay contentedly by himself for any length of time. He's pretty good about sleeping both for naps, and at night. He eats great and there are even times that he's so low key that I forget about him (not for a long time, of course). He cries when he's tired, hungry, or doesn't want to be in his carseat, and that's about it. We just love him so much!

 

 

Now, for a couple of random pictures...

I just had to take this picture, because: Come on! The only thing cuter than Grant's toes, is Grant's toes in those shoes on the wrong feet.

Saddest picture in the world! Grant fell on his way into the gym about a week ago. It looked so bad, but he has recovered just great. But it was totally Murphy's Law because we were getting family pictures taken two days after this! Of course!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went to MaryElizabeth's to help her eat her leftovers, and to put up the Christmas tree. It definitely does not look like it would have if Lou had decorated it, but I think he would have appreciated that the kids did it mostly themselves.

Living Planet Aquarium

My friend Alisha and I took our kids to the Aquarium on a Tuesday in November when they were having a really cheap day. We were worried about how busy it would be because of that, but we managed to survive with 5 children and even managed to have some fun.

 

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, Josh and I went over to his mom's house on Wednesday, and stayed up much too late with Liz, Jake and Kami, and MaryElizabeth. (Late enough, that MaryElizabeth finally decided that she might as well not go to bed before putting the turkey in at 5:00 in the morning.) I don't know how any of us made it through the next day because I haven't slept that little in AWHILE (and I have a 4 month-old), but memories were made :)

 

On Thursday morning, we went shooting with some of Josh's family. I definitely did not think we would be taking the kids along to go shooting, but it worked out. Luckily Jake and Kami brought their 4-wheeler, to keep them occupied during the really loud guns. And I kept them entertained in our van for awhile with some snacks. Yep, we tested out the all-wheel-drive in the minivan by driving it up the mountain. We probably added some dents and dings, but it survived.

 

 I was forced into a shooting competition by Kami. This picture was probably taken around the time that I said, "There's no point in me even shooting, I'm not going to hit anything..." And then I hit a clay pigeon. And another one. Which just goes to show you-if anybody shoots a gun enough times, they will eventually get lucky.

 Even the littles got in on the action with the BB gun and a 22.

 

 

 

Then we had a very nice meal with Josh's family, and I took no pictures :(