Lots to be Thankful For

I actually started this post over a week ago but due to many interruptions and half the post not being saved before the computer restarted... well, let's just say it's been a rocky road getting it done!

After having a cold October, November was a much welcomed if not unexpected treat weather-wise. We were able to take advantage of some really nice sunny days and get out to play. Brendan has been perfecting his technique on the monkey bars at his school playground and wanted to show off his new skills so off we went for some play there on a sunny Saturday.












We participated in Operation Christmas Child this year for our first time. The boys each filled up a shoe box with small toys and school supplies to send to another little boy in need. The cool thing is our boxes have tracking labels on them so after they are on their way we'll be able to track their progress to the intended country. It was so much fun to fill the boxes - they would have filled many more if they could have ;)

Also new this year, we've adopted a family for Christmas through the Salvation Army. We will go shopping for them and then meet with them to give them their gifts. The kids are pretty excited about it and I think it will be better than Toys For Tots at this point since putting toys in a box at a store or filling a bus with them doesn't really let them see where the toys are going. Our family has two boys the same age as ours as well as a ten year old girl. I'm nervous about shopping for a girl that age since I've never done that before!

Our Thanksgiving was spent here in the cities this year. Wellyn doesn't have any extra vacation time left after we take the days at Christmas and given the distance to get home it's hard to make the trip for just a couple days (after subtracting the days for traveling!). The boys had a good time playing with friends, using their endless imagination and going out for some fun family activities. One of the best was going to a theater grill - very cool. We ordered our dinner and ate while watching Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. The kids thought it was really cool and Brendan scored us some free popcorn by having the same birthdate as our server! Wellyn built a rolling storage shelf for our basement so some of our time was spent organizing and reorganizing the space.

Here they are with their imaginations running full throttle:





And playing in the garage while Wellyn was working on the shelf:


This just cracks me up - we've had the iPod for a couple years now, but over the holiday everyone kind of 'rediscovered' it. It was a huge deal whose turn it was to play with it: Wellyn, Aiden or Brendan. I think the biggest contributor to it was time; Wellyn doesn't seem to have a lot of just downtime here to do stuff for fun so a few laid back days here and he was able to download a bunch of new aps for it and it became the hot toy of the weekend.


Earlier this week we put up the tree much to the boys delight! They've been asking since Halloween when we're going to put it up ;)




I have just about all of our decorations up now; the Christmas village is up as of last night, all the decor is out and the outside of the house is lighted. I need to run out and throw some lights on a couple of bushes and the kids are going to decorate two little trees in the basement and then we're done.

This week will be busy wrapping up gifts and trying to finish up our shopping. The kids are anxious to go shopping for each other although it is so hard for them to wait to give the gifts they buy ;)