Thanksgiving Preschool Program

Eli had a little Thanksgiving program at school last week. It was really cute. The kids all lined up on the stage, dressed as little Indian boys & girls, & sang some Thanksgiving songs.

Here is my cute little indian up close!

And afterward we got to have a little snack together. It was quite the perk that we were seated at the table with Eli's little "girlfriend", Lilli! She is such a sweet little thing & cute to boot!

I hear stories all the time from their teachers about how much these two love to play together & always want to sit together. It is so sweet! And I personally really like her mama, Candace, so I can see this working out in the future! :)

Anyway, here is a little video of their singing! Eli is on the far left end in the center row!

Skype Time

As you saw in a previous post, Jackson has been emailing back & forth with Uncle Todd overseas. In his last email he asked Todd to Skype with him sometime like he does "the girls." (Can you tell that he really misses him!?) I had never asked that because I didn't want to impose on ANY time he got with his girls, but we got a little surprise the day after Thanksgiving! Todd skyped in unexpectedly! What a fun suprise it was! We got to talk to him for an hour & a half! It was fabulous & good for my heart to see him & chat like he was across the table! Unfortunately, Jackson wasn't even here! Oh, no! He had spent the weekend with Grandaddy & Grandma Tee (& Kenneth, of course). So, I took a picture of Todd waving to Jackson & texted it to Grandma Tee. Don't you just love technology? But anyway, we now have a skype date on the calendar for Jackson to talk to Todd! We WILL be available for him this Tuesday night!

Email rocks!

I know that it is fun to receive snail mail. But for a 7 year old, email is pretty cool too! I asked Jackson if he wanted to email Uncle Todd & he jumped at the opportunity! We just got a snail mail address for him, so it will take some time for real mail to start arriving, so I thought this might be a fun way for Jackson to talk to him. He asks about him all the time, prays for him every night, & so I know he is missing him!

Halloween 2011... The best costumes yet!

Happy Halloween to you all! We hope you all had a wonderful, chilly, day like we did. This was certainly the worst halloween in terms of weather we have ever had since kiddos. It turned rainy & nasty just in time for trick or treating! Boo!

But in terms of costumes? BEST ever!
I managed to pull off costumes that suited not only my kids personalities, but their current interests!

And this was the first year that I took on actually making their costumes... from scratch.

Jackson was Harry Potter (& the cutest one I have EVER seen, I might add)...
Eli was a viking. As in, vikings are in one of his favorite movies- How to Train Your Dragon... He played his part well!
I had a lot of help from my friend, Theresa, on Jackson's Gryffindor robe. She'll tell you that she only hemmed it, but I will tell you that she was 75% of the brains behind the how-to in terms of how to construct it! And was my cheerleader.

And he was thrilled!! He really got into character & was dancing around all evening with his wand (that Randy made him! complete with his initials, JM, since Harry's was engraved with HP)

Eli also got into character, whacking that $1 axe on everything! In case you are wondering... his "fur" is made from toilet bowl covers! lol! Got that wonderful idea from "I am Momma, Hear Me Roar!" I love blogs!
We had to convince him to wear a beard, though... which involved me demonstrating it on myself first. Oh, the things we do! But it paid off, because vikings need facial hair. They are a rough bunch. They can even train dragons, ya know!

We hope your halloween was as fun as ours!!!

Falls Lake through Jeremy's lens...

Above is the crew we go camping with. That's Randy's brother, Jeremy, our sister-in-law, Marie & their boys Kaleb & Ethan. Even though I had already posted about our trip to Kerr a few weeks back, I couldn't help posting more pictures once Jeremy shared his with me.

All my pictures were taken with my cell phone because, yes, I forgot my real camera. Bummer.

But Jeremy had his & takes some great photos so I thought you might want to see a few pictures through his lens! Enjoy!




This sunset is by far my favorite photo he took. It's like you can see God shining in those rays of sunlight. Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing with me, Jeremy!!

Smith Nursery Field Trip

I was lucky enough to get to go on another field trip with Eli this month for preschool. This past week, we went to Smith Nursery. I had never been here before, despite the fact that it was very close to home! I had no idea it was even there! Now that I do know, I will be back! Especially during strawberry pickin' season! But I digress!

The kids got to go on a hayride across the fields before being dropped off at a "corn" maze. It was really a "millet" maze if we are getting technical, but the grains weren't so tall. This was good, because we could see the end, but still got tripped up trying to get there! It was fun, though & Eli & I ended up being the first ones to find our way out!Once everyone made their way out of the maze (which thankfully gave Eli enough time to run into the woods to pee - yep, it happens no matter WHERE we go! ugh! We weren't going to be back to a bathroom for 45 minutes- what else were we going to do??) - anyway- once everyone was out of the maze, they sat the kids down for a little story / education about the Tuscarora Indians that used to inhabit the very land that the Nursery was on.They got to touch & see real arrow heads that they have found on the land as well as how they would cut out gourds for spoons. It was pretty cool!

After the history lesson, we moved onto a few animals....This was about the cutest donkey i had ever seen! And her name was Raisin. So cute! She loved the cucumber she was fed & took huge bites off the end!Here is Raisin again. She was really cute & I really wanted to feel her ears. I wonder if they are as soft as they look?

There were also several goats that were in the field with the donkey. Apparently they put goats & donkeys together because goats are skittish & scared & won't fight predators off. That's where the donkey comes in... apparently, they will stay & fight! Hee Haw!! (This is also why you see donkeys in with cows.....)

The goats posing...
After feeding the animals, we were let loose in the pumpkin patch to find a small pumpkin! We found one nested neatly in some hay & it was "hiding"! So it was a treasure for sure!

I found my perfect pumpkin!
What a fun morning to spend together with my littlest man!

Hanging around the Cabin

Sometimes, just hanging around & having no real plans pays off! As I mentioned in older posts about our trip to Blowing Rock, we hung around the cabin all of Saturday. We took a hike out back but even then, we never got in our cars to go anywhere. We just hung around exploring where we were.

Jackie, my mother in law, is a perpetual teacher. That is one of the wonderful things about her. And she brought along several nature books for the kids to use to learn & explore with. Jackson put these right to use!! His nose was in one of these books for a greater part of the day! He took them outside with him & would pick up leaves & compare it to the pictures in the books to identify them. It was so cute to watch.

It also helped the cute factor that Nanny & Peto brought all the kids a surprise... and my boys got a super hero cape!

They literally wore them all day, exploring in style!

Peto went outside with them for a bit to explore too & showed them a few fun things to try!

I just enjoyed getting outside & taking lots of pictures!!








I know you are wondering what Randy was doing during all this fun, right? Well, this was it...

He never passes up an opportunity for a good nap! Vacation or not! I think he needs one of these shirts!

As luck would have it on another walk up the (very steep) driveway, my mom found a treasure that she carried all the way back to the house for the kids....

There was a lot of excitement! And they got out the book that Mema had brought to identify it of course, before setting it free.

Yeah, that Nanny is pretty awesome. She also brought along craft supplies for the kids. Together they made these awesome lanterns! Aren't they beautifully lit!?

We fit a lot of fun into a day!