Happy Thanksgiving!

 Daddy and Micah play with a new toy.

 One of Micah's Thanksgiving projects from school.

 Jacob tries on a snowsuit in preparation for our trip to Wisconsin.

 Goofin' around

 Fishy-faces

 Micah helps put ornaments on the tree.

 Jacob helps eat hang ornament on the tree.

Micah loves Christmas lights!

Some silliness from Jacob :-)

Although we all had some illness over the break, we still had a good Thanksgiving. We had a nice meal at the home of some church friends and spent that afternoon playing in their backyard in the mild Arkansas weather. They sent us home with leftover turkey and pie :-) On Friday we put up the Christmas tree and decorations and spent the rest of the weekend relaxing at home, getting better, taking walks and watching movies. We did drive over to DeGray Lake to see the lights that had put up for the holidays. There is usually a big lights presentation later in the season, but they had put a few things up down by the marina so we went over there because Micah just loves Christmas lights. Hopefully we will be putting a few up this year ourselves. We purchased tickets for Garvin Gardens' Holiday Lights display in December and are looking forward to that. It's a huge arboretum in Hot Springs that is supposed to be really beautiful at Christmas time. The next few weeks will be busy ones for Dan since he has rehearsals for Festival of Christmas at OBU and the one-act play festival, not to mention preparing for finals and completing all the grading! At my work, we have been given a new interim boss so I imagine there will be a few changes, but hopefully for the better. Overall, it was a good Thanksgiving. Sometimes when everything isn't perfect, it does make me appreciate those everyday moments that I take for granted, like everyone waking up healthy and able to go to work/school. Micah is already asking if it is Christmas yet. And I told him, "No, not until your brother has chewed every ornament on the tree." :-) No, but really, he is asking every day. And Jacob really is going for that record. You would think we don't feed him enough! But a glimpse of those chubby cheeks will tell you otherwise. Here is a shout-out to my nephew Josh and his wife-to-be Melissa who are getting married this weekend! Hope everything goes smoothly in the festivities and more importantly, that your marriage is wonderful. I hope every one has a blessed Christmas season.

Beanbag

 Micah's favorite new perch.

 Daddy and the recovering Jacob.

Jacob, chillin' in the beaner.

This post is mainly for Aunt Helen who was kind enough to send a beanbag chair for Micah's birthday! These two rowdy boys have enjoyed playing on it, stuffing it into the jumperoo or onto the couch and smooshing themselves into it. Thank you Aunt Helen! Jacob was well enough to return to school today so we are glad about that. He is still having a very hard time adjusting to sleeping by himself in the crib so we have not had very good nights lately. Hopefully, that will change soon. We are trying to decide what to do for Thanksgiving. With everything else going on, I'm not sure I want to fix the meal if it's just us so we might go out this year--a first for us. We will see! I guess it depends on if anyone else will be hanging around town for the holiday. Of course, we like to decorate our Christmas tree over the weekend so that will be a highlight. There will be pictures!

Jumperoo Redux

This maniacal look says it all...he jumperoo has returned! Thanks to Gramma Lynn and Papa Roger the boys have a new jumperoo to play in. The other one we had was so well used it would no longer inflate and believe me, it was sorely missed. Micah was so happy to open this gift of a new one for his birthday. We did our best to make the actual day  (Friday) a fun one for Micah. He did have a small celebration at school and we ordered pizza that night for dinner, but I'm afraid it was overshadowed by the fact that Jacob caught Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease that day and we have struggled with that all weekend. It's so hard to see him in such pain from the sores in his throat. And of course, we all got very little sleep. But I think he has finally turned the corner.  For the past four days all he has wanted has been "ogre" (yogurt) and "apoo" (applesauce). But this morning he was able to eat banana and drink juice without crying, even after the Tylenol wore off. Getting him back on his sleep routine will be hard, but now that he's feeling better things are looking up.

Accomplishments

Micah earned his Cubbies vest this week at AWANA! He was so proud of himself, but for some reason he didn't want me to take his picture...this is all I could get. Thanks to Aunt Deb and Uncle Dave for the birthday card and money. As you can see, Micah thought he was a pretty rich boy! He keeps asking when he will really be five, since we've been having mini celebrations for several weeks now and his party was over a week ago. Poor kid, he's all confused. I tagged on this cute video of Jacob rocking in his high chair. He just loves to do this, especially when he has an audience. I took this video when my parents were visiting. They may do some inexplicable things at times, but they are pretty great kids :-)

Happy Halloween!

Jacob is ready for bed in his glow-in-the-dark dinosaur pajamas!

Pop Pop and Micah enjoy playing with birthday balloons

 We enjoyed our visit!

 Daddy helps Spider-Man into his costume.

Jacob gets a head start on all that holiday munching.

"Trick or treat, I'm so sweet! Give me something good to eat!"

 Not too sure about the hood part...

Pre-party hugs

Spider-Man adds the finishing touches to his ensemble.

Ready to head out!

Both boys had Halloween parties at school yesterday. I don't think they give too many sweets to the little ones, but Micah was pretty sugared up by the time I picked him up from school! We went home and ate a quick dinner then headed over to the Lotta party (lotta games, lotta candy, lotta fun) at our church's parking lot. There were hundreds of kids there and Micah had fun playing the games, jumping in the bounce house and eating a snow cone and popcorn--two of his favorite treats. Jacob came along in the stroller and was just mesmerized by all the costumes and the noise. We then went to my coworkers house and his babysitter's apartment for some door-to-door trick-or-treating. This was really important to Micah since they had been reviewing the safety rules for this all week long as school and he had memorized every one of them! By the time we finished with all that, it was time to head home and tuck two wired and tired little boys into bed. It was a bit of a rough night getting Jacob accustomed to sleeping in the crib by himself again, but we managed. Grammy and Pop Pop made it safely home to Delaware last night. We had to explain to Micah that we couldn't trick-or-treat at their house because it was too far away. Maybe someday!