Leaves

Leaves are still covering our yard for round 3 I think. After mowing them and raking them, they are still falling. So we have had ample opportunity for some awesome leaf pile fun!

Our neighbor Dianne came over one day to jump with us:

 Surprise:

 Cracking up:

 And most of Gavin's pictures are pure joy!

Man, what I wouldn't give for this picture to be in focus!

Our neighbors had a monstrous leaf pile that we snuck over during dinner (with their permission, of course) to jump in:

Good gracious, I love this boy.

This is how Henley jumps in. She scoots to the very edge and sits down very dainty like. :)

 Dakota may love leaf piles even more than the kiddos. This is her flying into it:

 She's pretty proud of herself that she can find the stick every single time in the middle of the leaves!

Thanksgiving

Well somehow, we're up and running without me changing anything! So a few weeks late, our Thanksgiving pictures...

I try to do a craft each holiday for the grandmothers and great grandmothers. This sweet girl let me  paint her hands in 3 colors for 6 different pictures (and loved it, by the way).

It was right after breakfast, Gavin had footed pj's on, so how else was he supposed to do a foot for the turkey body than to take his pj's completely off? :) (Still wondering if I should leave this picture or delete it. I did make sure his foot was strategically placed when I snapped the picture.)

 Then we had tons of fun painting with the leftover paint:

 The finished products:

Now onto Thanksgiving Day...

I love love love my family. Every Thanksgiving, we go to Dayton, TN for lunch and enjoy fresh venison shot by my cousins. Let me clarify--bacon wrapped grilled venison. It is SCRUMPTIOUS. I took more pictures last year that shows this favorite dish.

The weather was so gorgeous that we all stayed outside the whole time. My Aunt Linda made this awesome fort out of a Lazy Boy cardboard box! Gavin played in here the entire time:

Poor Henley Jane. Just like last year, she was sick with a cold on Thanksgiving again!

 I know she hated enjoying extra snuggles from her Aunt Joanna and Pop! :)

Thanksgiving evening, Gavin's friend Asher and his family came up to Ryan's parents' house. The boys played with the Lite Brite forever. Do you guys remember this awesome toy!? Love it!

It's now a (self appointed) tradition for me to come up with a Thanksgiving craft for the boys to do. This year we did Pilgrim hats:

The boys helped their little sisters make one, too. It was so sweet!

Gavin is this excited anytime he gets to eat bad-for-him food :)

The boys decided to make their own creations after they made a Pilgrim hat. Lots of icing and lots of Reese's Pieces stacked on an Oreo. Can we say sugar high??

We had a 3rd Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's house on Friday evening and this is the one picture I snapped. I put Henley in the same (freshly washed) outfit because I forgot to take a picture of her on Thursday! Love this shirt--that about sums it up, Henley Jane! :)

Unexpected Blog Break

So for all my avid blog readers (note sarcasm), I haven't forgotten about the blog! I've tried multiple times to upload photos, but keep getting this message:

"Whoops! You're out of space. You are currently using 100% of your 1 GB quota for photos."

Shocker--I've shared too many pictures! :) So I'll try to figure out what to do. Or make a new blog? Any suggestions?

Halloween

Our Halloween celebration started out with costume day at Henley's Kindermusik class.

If it hadn't been for Kim, I would have been the only grownup dressed up. Thanks for being my crazy friend, Kim! :) Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf. So clever!

Then we came home, changed clothes, and went to a small party at Gavin's preschool. All the kids played number Bingo with candy corn. So proud of my smart little man!

Henley thought she was big stuff sitting with the big kids. :)

Then Halloween night we went to Aunt Amanda and Cole's for a scrumptious dinner and then to Trick or Treat around their neighborhood. We've always gone with friends around a big neighborhood with tons of kiddos, so this was our first year in a smaller neighborhood with not a lot of kids. It was nice having a low-key evening! And because there weren't a lot of kids, these kiddos got tons of candy at each house!

Aunt Amanda putting the finishing touches on our ferocious lion before we head out the door:

We all dressed up with a Zoo theme because of this precious elephant-loving girl. Everytime she would make the elephant noise, she would hold the trunk above her head. 

I wish I could get Henley in this picture:

...next to Gavin being a lion in this picture:

Ryan reluctantly dressed up as a Zoo Keeper with me. Thanks, darlin'!

(And thanks Kim and Walt for letting us borrow your vests!)

I must point out my key ring to keep these crazy animals in their cages. :) And my hat is from the Natural History Museum from our DC trip! (Obviously for the kids and not me. :) )

And Ryan said that he should have brought a gun because with his aviators, he looks more like a Game Warden. Ha! I agree!

My favorite part of Gavin's costume is the tail that dragged on the ground all night long:

The night went mostly like this: Gavin leading the way ready to get more candy and Henley following her big brother a few steps behind.

Love.this.girl.

The tail. Oh the tail.

Notice a candy eater along the way..

My new favorite picture of Gavin.

"Roar!!"

Henley stopped carrying her bucket because it was getting so heavy from all the candy!

I apparently deprive these kids. When Gavin got a Tootsie Roll, he yelled "CHOCOLATE!!!" and stopped on the steps to eat it. Ha!

There was a huge leaf pile in the road that of course this lion had to jump in!

Henley was done after about 30 minutes. The smile on her face here is because she is being held by her favorite person instead of being forced to walk any more. And she just discovered she had a tail on her costume! Oh I can't handle the cuteness.

Aunt Amanda loved showing off her niece and nephew to her neighbors!

By the end, they both had to be carried.

We got back to Cole and Amanda's, and this is how Cole answered the door. He is the Emperor's Royal Guard from Star Wars. And he made this costume FROM SCRATCH. And he greeted Trick-or-Treaters in it. I wish we had put a hidden camera to get everybody's reaction! Henley was a bit terrified. :) He had to take the helmet off to show her it was really just Uncle Cole!

Here's the full look. This took 60 hours of work. WOW:

This morning, the kids wanted candy for breakfast, and I couldn't say yes or no, so we compromised. I fixed banana oatmeal with Halloween candy mixed in! :)

It's been a fun week! Thanks for having us over Aunt Amanda and Uncle Cole!