Festival of Trees

I don't know why I keep going back to the Festival of Trees every year.  It is expensive and less than thrilling.  However, this year we did meet Santa Claus.  So I guess I can cross that off my very full list of things to do this December.

Thanksgiving Round One

We celebrated our first round of Thanksgiving this year with the VanVooren's.  We had a great time with a lovely spread of food!  Good work Gramma!

Olivia helping Papa make the center piece - a pumpkin turkey

Olivia and Emmie with the finished Turkey

The place cards that the kids made with Gramma, Papa, and Mrs. Trent.  This is my Aunt Keek card, its upside down, not the kids fault.

Olivia - 3 years old, almost 4.

Finley - 2 years old

Emmie - 4 years old, almost 5

After dinner the kids put on a play for the crowd. Gramma taught them all about the Three Billy Goats.   

The smallest Billy Goat telling the troll to wait for the next Billy Goat. She is much bigger he says.

The medium sized Billy Goat telling the troll to wait for the biggest Goat.

The biggest Billy Goat getting the troll.

Finn is either over the pictures or the tryptophan is starting to set in.

It can't get much cuter than these two girls!

The girls and a less than amused Finn.

Our Family is Growing!!

We are growing again, probably not the way you are all thinking though.

Last week we adopted three little kittens from the local animal shelter.  I only intended to bring two home, but I couldn't leave one there all alone.  They really are great cats.  They are very well behaved and love the kids!

We are all in love with them, especially Olivia!!  She wants to be with the cats every waking minute.  She hauls little Snow White everywhere.  I am pretty sure that cat will never have to walk again.

Finn isn't as interested in the cats as Olivia is.  Every once in a while he will walk over to one and say "Hi kitty cack, hold you"?  The cats are smart though and stay as far away from Finn as possible.

We let Olivia name the cats.  For a while I thought we were going to have one named Lucy after Gramma's Lucy.  That quickly changed over night when she decided to name them Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel.

This is Rapunzel, the only short haired cat out of the three.   Fitting right?

This is Snow White, the most gentle of the three cats.  Olivia has nicknamed this one Love Bug.  Don't you love her ear hair?

How can you not love these three?  Scott pretends like he doesn't but I catch him laughing at them and letting them lay on him in the evening.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Aren't these two scary?  Maybe scary cute!

This year Olivia dressed up as {DRUM ROLL PLEASE} a mouse, for the third year in a row.  This is okay with me for three reasons.  First it saves me money, two it takes another Elsa off the streets as I am sure that is what her second choice would have been and lastly this is the costume that I wore when I was a little girl.  I love that she loves to wear it too.

Finn wore two different costumes.  When we were trick or treating at Gramma's house he was a Giraffe.  He killed me in that costume.  Since he could barely see out of it I decided to have him wear his parrot costume from last year when we were trick or treating in our neighborhood.

Even though it was freezing outside the kids did great.  They lasted outside for about 45 minutes.

Where's Finny

Peek

At least his mouth wasn't obstructed