Places please!

Sara is very into writing these days. She carries a pad a paper with her everywhere and will jot down letters, numbers or just designs. Her newest idea is to sound out words and write down the first letter to that word. Iain asked her if she would like to make place cards for Thanksgiving. She loved the idea! She did an amazing job!

The first step was to write the names. Iain told her each letter and she wrote each name herself.

Then she decorated each card. She laid out each decoration in the "correct" place and Iain glued them on. She may be good but hot glue is a bit much! She decorated a total of 14 cards.

I forgot to include this on yesterdays post. I loved the shot of the cookies in front of this picture. Iain T painted it about a year ago.

More cookies and Turkey Day

Today is turning out to be a catch up day. After some midnight Black Friday shopping, followed up today with a few more stores, I'm not feeling very energetic. I'm finding myself piddling around the house. Trying to accomplish a few things while sitting down for extended periods in between. :-)

I do have some pictures of the past couple of days. Back to the cookies of the other day.

Sara was very creative in her cookie cutter choices. We have pumpkins, bats, stars, bunnies and of course her favorite, a butterfly.

The finished product

My Budding Chef

These next two are from Thanksgiving.

The boys were dressed in their favorite shirts for their favorite team. Unfortunately, they fell a bit short in the last 30 seconds. Darn it!

Guess what I'm thankful for this year?

Enjoyable

Today was a great day. Alright...I guess being honest here, it had a few road bumps. But now at the end of the day with two sweet little cuddlies sound asleep in their beds, I can say it was a great day. Iain, Iain and I went Christmas shopping this morning. Just walking around the stores while Iain T gave his insight on what he thought his brother and sister would like, was fun for us. He brought his wallet and picked out something for each of them. It's very important for him to have something to give each member of the family. It's also very important that it's from HIM. In years past when he hasn't had the money to buy gifts, he has made gifts. We tried to encourage that again this year, but he has been saving his money for this very reason. His heart is sweet.

After shopping Iain had a friend over and Sean went to a friend's house. That's when Sara and I made sugar cookies. We mixed and tasted and stirred and tasted. Yum. Then we started homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Yum. The evening was rounded out with family movie night with popcorn and hot chocolate. Yum. I'm not sure Underdog would've been my first choice of the movie but it was good family entertainment. I challenge ANYONE to find a movie that can entertain a 5th grader and a preschooler at the same time. :-)

The first time she held the mixer. Actually the first time she stayed in the kitchen while the mixer was on and didn't cover her ears.

In classic Sara Style, cleaning the counters. The girl loves to clean! Not sure where she got that. NO REALLY, not sure where she got that!!

Night night!

Don't Blink

Today the boys came home from school with their class pictures. They look so cute. So big. Iain's really struck me. This is his last year at our Elementary School. Next year he will once again be little fish in the big pond but this time in the pond of middle schoolers. Right now, he is really enjoying being the big fish!! I know he will more than succeed in Middle School and I know he has another 7 and a half months until he is even finished with 5th grade. I guess it hit me that this was his last class picture from this school! When he started there 5 years ago, I remember thinking that he would be there for soooo long. 5 years, that's an eternity! Nope, it went by so fast. So fast.

It's been so fun to watch him go from a sweet, timid little 5 year old to an amazing sweet, confident 10 year old.

Kindergarten picture September 2005

5th grade picture September 2010

(We are cracking up at the difference in skin color. I was pregnant the summer before he started Kindergarten. Maybe I didn't like the beach as much??? Not sure!! :')

Cookies, Pumpkins and Costumes

Decorating cookies

Carving pumpkins

Dress up

Oh My!!!

My Little Treats

Happy Halloween!!!

Each year we let the kids pick out their own costumes. I have to admit to the occasional mention of a "cute costume I just saw" but the final decision is all theirs. This is definitely one year that I was doing my best nonverbal swaying imaginable. We ended up with Tony Romo (sling included), a Punk Creep (dead, decomposing rock star) and My Little Pony. Quite the spectrum huh? Sean's costume was VERY similar to last year, not sure what he enjoys about the dead rockstar gig. We were pleased that Sara wasn't pushing to be Supergirl again. She was pretty adamant about going round three until about a month ago, when her focus changed to My Little Pony. I was pushing for Indian, Cowgirl, or something a little more traditional. They did all look so cute though (as cute as a dead rocker can be I guess...).

They had a great time trick-or-treating. Sara was RUNNING from house to house. She had an expectation of receiving 10 pieces of candy, so she was pleasantly surprised to see that she had closer to 100.