Thanksgiving Family Time

The best part about Thanksgiving was being with family. The kids had so much fun with cousins and playing outside. They are getting better about being excited for the food too which was really surprising. They all love pumpkin pie, and Kyler even liked the turkey!! I made stuffing with real bread and decided it didn't taste that much better than the box so it's probably not worth the effort!!

One night we had the Paynes and the Schades over for dinner which was fun.  Bentley loved Brock and climbed on his lap any time she could.  He was super sweet and read her books and everything.  She was quite the ham and showed her dancing moves to everyone.  Tyce spent the night and we sent Radley with Bruce which everyone seemed to enjoy.

The girls went on their annual Black Friday Walmart trip.  We got everything we wanted to get, so it was quite a success!  We've got the Childress Walmart thing down!!

Before everyone left, we had a fish fry at the lake house.  It was fun for a change of environment.  We watched a lot of football, making Damon extremely happy.

Radley stayed at Nana & Papa's house one night while we kept Tyce at our house.  He had a great time with Bruce and Carter.

He didn't even miss us!!

All the kids spent a lot of time in the sandbox because the weather was perfect!

The pies were few in number this year.

Black Friday with the girls!

We all had a great time at the lake house, and the sunset was beautiful.

The kids had a blast running around in the stickers!!

Why is the sky and the sun so much better with water around?!?

Nana found some wrapping paper rolls and then encouraged all the kids to attack dads and uncles. The kids loved it; the guys maybe not so much!

Fall

It's nice to live in a place with more trees than we have in recent years. Our backyard has some great trees which the kids love. This year they left the trampoline right under a tree and collected leaves to jump on. They also made some big piles, with Daddy's help, the jump in too. Our neighbors had fun with us.

Jumping on the trampoline with friends.

November Fun

This month has been so warm! We have spent a lot more time outside than normal in November. The highlight of Bentley's day is when we go to pick up the boys from school, and she gets to play on the playground, most specifically the swings. Inevitably I end up pushing a good 4-5 kids because most parents get to stay in the car when they pick up their kids, but we get out pretty much everyday.

Trying to be like the big boys. 

She screams, literally yells at me if I don't push her high enough.

Only the beginning of the head injuries!

A paper Damon brought home from school.  I couldn't decided what it said, so he told me it says, "I hope you all make a one hundred."  Of course that's what it says!!

All pretty in a dress Oma made for her.

She is very happy when she looks all pretty and is able to show off her clothes and shoes!

Silly Girl

The boys actually liked and ate the dinner I made. It was an early Christmas miracle, and I wanted proof!

This crazy girl has some crazy moves!!

Bentley's Birthday

Our little girl is 2 now!!  She is quite the character with too much personality for her tiny body!  She absolutely loves all things girl.  It's hard to find her without some accessory.  Usually she has a purse, doll, blanket, phone or something else in her hands.  Rarely is she empty handed.  Her brothers still spoil her and do things for her all the time.  She is very dramatic, but there are glimpses of a sweet girl underneath her sassiness.   She doesn't know many strangers, especially if she is in a comfortable environment.  She will sit on most people's laps, but favors men.  She often tilts her head to the side and smirks to get her way and more often than not she gets it!  As crazy and demanding as she is, we are excited to watch what she will become!
 

She really didn't want to blow out any candles.

Poor girl was not into the singing stuff.

Poor Baby!

She started to warm up to the party idea once she was able to open some presents!

There are always so many kids around!!

And then she opened her Moana doll!!

She was so happy!!

This is her holding up 2 fingers to show you how old she is!  We're still working on it!

Her cupcakes (they were the same color as her cake, but the lighting is off in this picture).

Her cake was really fun to make!

She was very unsure about everyone singing to her. It was kinda sad how uncomfortable she seemed, but once she got to eat ice cream she was happy as could be! 

She was more than thrilled when she opened her Moana doll from Oma and Papa Dude. She LOVED it!

Halloween

Halloween was crazy and full of activity like normal, but we completely lost track of time and forgot to buy pumpkins this year for carving. However there were plenty of Halloween festivities to keep us busy.

We tried to come up with different themes that the kids would dress up as, and they decided on Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Princess Peach from Mario Kart. My mom made Bentley’s dress and did an amazing job like always! It is really fun when the kids wear themed costumes, but I don’t think we’ll get too many more years of it.

The church Trunk-or-Treat was fun like usual. Bentley wasn’t too sure about people being dressed up, but she warmed up by the end of the night and ate more than enough candy. However, she got sick towards the end of the week and became very uncooperative with her costume. I didn’t even get one good picture of the 4 of them together!

We went trick-or-treating in downtown Childress. Well I guess the boys did. I stayed in the car while Bentley screamed and threw a fit for 40 mins because we tried to put her costume on her. Then we went to Samnorwood and played all kinds of carnival type games and got more candy. Bentley was a little more cooperative that time.

Halloween day consisted of 3 different school parties 2 of which I was in charge of, so there was a lot of walking back and forth and helping out where I could. That evening Wellington tried out downtown trunk-or-treating for the first time rather than door –to-door. It was fun, but we still went around to a few houses because so many people still wanted kids to come by. One house was so festive and was giving out witch’s brew. The kids really enjoy going door-to-door.

The Mario Kart Krew

Damon as Mario

Kyler as Luigi

Radley as Yoshi

Bentley as Princess Peach

This is the only time I was able to get any decent pictures of Bentley.  If I would have known she was going to get sick I would have taken more this night, but I didn't and she never cooperated again.

This is what happened every time I tried to get one of the 4 of them together.  It ended up being impossible.

Radley with his cousin Carter

Kyler being wrapped as a mummy during his class party.

Bentley's feelings about trick or treating and about getting her picture taken.

Another attempt at getting the 4 of them together.

Trunk or treating downtown in Wellington.

Drinking witches brew that they got from one house going door to door.

This house was pretty cool.  They went all out with decorations.  This is where they got the witches brew.