Cosi

My parents gave us an awesome Christmas present!  A family membership to Cosi the science museum.  We were there for three hours and barely touched the surface.  

Bridget sat on a space toilet, strapped in with a seatbelt.

Lydia sitting in a space pod.

The kids being dinosaurs in a dinosaur nest.

We got to watch a planetarium show.  I LOVE planetariums!  I remember going as a kid and writing a letter to the planetarium lady, that's how much I love planetariums.  Yippee!

Thanks for such a great gift, Oma and Opa!  Can't wait for next time!

Merry Christmas!

We were so lucky to have my parents come up from Cincinnati for a few days!  Here we are looking spiffy at church on Christmas Eve.

Look at my cute parents!

This was a common sight during their visit.  Bridget was thrilled to have Opa read her lots of books.

We made gingerbread houses!

Christmas morning.  Can we go downstairs yet?!

Evelyn surprised us by getting sick, poor girl.  Oma was happy to snuggle with her.

Luckily she recovered quickly.  Nothing like presents to make you feel better!  This is my favorite Christmas picture to take every year.  Where the kids show what they made for eachother.

Evelyn made Bridget a really pretty necklace, Lydia and Isaac made Alice a little bead necklace, Bridget made Evelyn a fleece scarf, Isaac worked really hard on some friendship bracelets for Lydia, and Lydia gave Isaac a coupon book for chores.  I'm so proud of my children.

The big surprise family gift this year was a pet!

Meet Hephaestus, our 6 month old bearded dragon!

The kids also got what they were really hoping for.  A white Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  We are so grateful for the joy of Jesus Christ's birth.

December Fun

I had seen this JOY sign years ago in St. Louis and always wanted one of my own.  I love it!  Look, mine even has angels.  :)

We got our first real snow!  Just as we were raking up the very last of our leaves.  That's a big pile!

The kids were ecstatic about the snow!  They came to show me the snowballs they made.  I was inside cooking up a storm for the ward Christmas party.

They had a great time making snow angels and snowballs and sliding around in the snow.  It was almost a shame to make them come inside and get ready for the party.  But it was a wonderful ward party!  Great food and great people.  We really have such a fun ward.  Even cleaning up was fun because we got to go into the church attic which is HUGE!

Mike and I went to see the new Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi.  It was incredible!  This is a pretty dorky picture.  I asked some guy to take a picture of us before really thinking about how to stand or what to do.  So, yeah...  But the movie was amazing!!!

On that same note, I saw this awesome snowflake at the library.  R2-D2 and the Rebel symbol.  

The Columbus Zoo has Zoo Lights for Christmas and we went to check them out last Friday when the weather was relatively pleasant (in the low 50's).  The lights were so pretty!  This tree was huge and the lights danced and flashed to music.  It was so fun to watch.

A picture with Mrs. Claus. 

Big Girl!

Bridget started preschool Dec 1st.  (I finally got my ducks in a row and got her enrolled.  Lucky us got a spot since someone was moving out at the end of November.)  Bridget absolutely loves it!  She was so ready.  No tears, no hesitation (at least from her.  Mom is a different story.).  Standing by her cubby on her first day.

With one of her teachers.  Mrs Slimon was so nice to invite Bridget early to school that day so she could have a little one on one time with her.

Bridget is so ready to be a big girl!  When she came home from her first day she announced she was giving her pink blanket to Alice.  Now, this pink blanket is her thumb sucking blanket.  They go together, blanket and thumb.  It was when we realized how connected they were that we were able to get her to stop sucking her thumb during the day by encouraging her to leave her blanket on her bed, which she did since August.  Well, just like that Bridget decided if she was going to preschool she was big enough to stop sucking her thumb.  Completely!  This girl is amazing!  

November

We started November off with a great weekend.  Mike and I drove 6 hours to Washington D.C. to attend a cousin's sealing.  The kids were ecstatic to have Oma and Opa come up and play with them while we were gone.  I was so excited to finally see (and better yet, go inside) this beautiful temple!  I've wanted to ever since I was a kid since my parents were sealed there.  It was gorgeous!

We also got to visit said cousin and his little family in Fort Belvoir where I was born!  How cool is that?

Some random photos.  Adorable Alice in her bear towel.

Funny story: we hadn't used the hooded towels in months because of the move.  When we finally unpacked them Alice was rather wary of them.  When Bridget put her on rhino hood, Alice got as far away as possible and she was NOT going to let me put hers on her head.  Luckily she got used to them pretty quickly.  

Nothing says comfort like shelves 

of books.  What a nut!

Fun in the leaves!

We have tons of leaves!  Especially in the back yard.  We've learned the easiest way to get them up to the front is piling them on a huge tarp and dragging them up to the curb.  We're so lucky the city comes and sucks them up with a vacuum truck.

The night before Thanksgiving we had a neighborhood pie night.  It was a great way to meet and get to know our neighbors.  We had a good turnout and the missionaries stopped by for some pie too.  It was great fun!

Alice helped clean up too.  I'm not exactly sure whose pie that was.

For Thanksgiving we had the Hawley's come from Indianapolis!!!  It was wonderful!!!  Charlotte and Spud (Steven Jr) loved playing with our kids and left lots of time for Laura and Steve and us to catch up.  

We even broke out some marshmallows and got the firepit going.  It was great!

Halloween

Jack-o-lantern fun.

For the ward Trunk or Treat Mike was a snorkeler and I was a jellyfish!  Lydia created a narwhal costume for herself (I was so impressed!) and we found a gold/orange dress for Bridget and convinced her to be a goldfish to sort of match our water theme.  I made a sort of weird octopus skirt for Alice, but she wanted no part of it.  Isaac and Evelyn went their own ways and were respectively a Jedi and a witch.

Alice getting stabbed by a light saber.  She looks so pleased.

Right before trick or treating our neighbor had us and the other bus stop families over for hotdogs.  So fun!

In the past we have donated Halloween candy to the troops.  I love having a good excuse to get rid of much of the kids' loot!  This year I put a post on a community page to see if anyone else was interested in donating as well.  Many did!  We got 32 pounds!