Knights Christmas Gift Exchange

Peyton's Knights basketball team had their little team gift exchange.  Such good friends and nice girls on this team!!!  Peyton loves her Knights teammates!!  Great girls, great families, great coach!

Bathroom remodel COMPLETE!!!!

We spend 6 weeks without a master bathroom, but more impressive, all five of us sharing ONE shower.  We made it and it was worth the wait.  Jose did a lovely job on our bathroom and we are happy, happy that it is finished.  The first BATH was great!!!

Christmas Concert Time

Let the good times roll.......
Jack performed on the lovely recorder at the school concert.  Peyton does not "perform" anymore unless she takes a middle school music elective, which she did not have this semester.  Kindergarten has their own Christmas performance on a different day, so she will join the big school one next year.

The selfie was a picture Mike and I took in the middle of the concert to show my friend that had a "sick" kid how much fun they were missing!!!!!

Jack, playing his little heart out.....

Giving me the smirk and the "ok" once he was finished.....he does enjoy to perform.

Peyton and her friends stood on the fire escape steps and watched and giggled as their friends that were in the music elective performed.

Christmas Cookies, 2018

We managed to squeeze in another round of family Christmas cookies....it's so hard finding a day and time that works for everyone, but we managed to find a slot that worked for ALMOST everyone and made the best of it.

When a doctor is married to a pre school teacher......

You might find him sipping red wine, and cutting out cute little nativity scenes using a scalpel.  He was a good sport!

 

Reoccurring theme??.....

Anyone see anything reoccurring  a lot.....Gus and Jack love their quiet time together.  Peyton hogs him at night (he sleeps mostly in her bed), so Jack has to be quick and grab him if he wants him in his bed.  He mastered it on this night!  Gus will sleep wherever you place him, he is not picky!

Basketball Season is underway.....

Moving on from soccer to basketball for a while.  I'm ready for a warm, inside sport.  And I DO love to watch basketball!!!

A 70 degree day in DECEMBER!!

YES, PLEASE!!!!  We will gladly accept!!  We didn't have much going on either until the evening, so we headed down to a trail by the Meremac River.  The kids rode scooters for a while and then threw rocks for a while too.  The dogs had just as much fun!  Gus did pull all the kids around on their scooters for a while too (he might be a fatty, but he enjoys a good work out and can hang for a pretty long time!)....he about threw Peyton to the ground.  It was pretty funny!  She made a good recovery.

 

Jack loves to cuddle

Jack still loves to cuddle his Mom (which I will take!!!), every night he asks if I'll come snuggle him. He also enjoys a good snuggle from a dog.  He's not picky which one, just whichever one will come sit quiet with him and snuggle with him.  This night, it was Gus!.....most of the time it's Gus!

Bathroom Remodel

So we started a total gut, master bath remodel on Halloween.  The contractors wife is at our house a lot talking with him, seeing the progress to order new stuff, etc.....she fell in love with our dogs!!!  She absolutely loves them and is sending me pictures to work all the time of them, if she was at our house.
The one day she sent me this one....she thought it was hilarious that they were both in our bed and Gus was on the boy side (Mike's) and Annie was on the girl side (mine).  They live a hard life!!!

A COLD walk through Tillis Park

We had tickets (through a local realtor, he rents the place out and has a big, nice hospitality tent set up), to walk through Tillis Park.....on the COLDEST night of December.  Mike worked late, so he didn't get to join us....smart man!!!  It was SOOOOO cold!  Even with the bitter temps, the kids wanted to go, they LOVE walking through.  In the past we have driven, done the carriage ride, and walked....and they all like walking it the best, and the tickets to walk through are extremely hard to come by.  You have to buy them months in advance and they sell out right after they go on sale.  This is because they only allow walk throughs a couple days of the season.

We got there, we hustled in, we hit the hospitality tent for hot chocolate, pretzels, and cookies and then started walking.  By half way through, our walk became a quick, brisk walk, as we were getting colder and colder.  Once we finished, the kids took one more spin through the treat tent and then we hit the road.  We were oh so happy to have a warm car with heat!

 

Thanksgiving is over....so.....

up with the Christmas decorations we go!!

Thanksgiving 2018

Mom and Jeanne both do Thanksgiving at the same time....NOON, so that kind of stinks that we always have to go somewhere late....but it is what it is.  We headed to the farm first and then hit Jeanne's on the way back.  Mom wanted to get pictures of everyone at the farm for one last Thanksgiving.  If all goes as planned, the farm will be sold in February, so this would be the last Thanksgiving there.
So outside we went, for PLENTY of photos.....

The turkey leg on Jack's place is as big as HIS leg!

There's that lovely pre-teen attitude shining through again....ha!

Quick trip to the zoo

Well, the day before Thanksgiving, the weather was mild, th kids were off school, and we didn't have much to do.  I told the kids that we should head to the zoo.  Peyton, in true "teenager fashion" decided that was NOT a good idea and sounded, 'SOOOOOO boring!'  I made her go anyway, and she pouted and huffed and puffed the entire way.
Once there, it was a great day!  The animals were active, wasn't crowded, didn't have to wait long for the train.....etc...it was good and it was fun......AND, that pre-teen girl with the attitude even admitted, that it was fun!  MOM FOR THE WIN!!!!

Boys play chess.....

in this house.  In this house just the boys.  Maddie gave chess club a whirl at the beginning of the school year and she only lasted one day.  The only kindergartners that were doing chess club were boys, so she decided she'd pass.  HA!
Jack on the other hand....he still LOVES Wednesdays.....chess club day.

A lazy boy and a lazy girl

A Snow Day BEFORE Thanksgiving....

What the heck is this?!?!?  I could totally do without snow, EVER, but the kids did like it.  They knew it was in the forecast, so they headed to bed with a spoon under their pillow, pj's inside out, and flushing ice cubes down the toilet.  They woke up and found out that all their superstitions worked out in their favor.  SNOW DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING!!!  For the first few hours, Gus was the only one to go outside.  Then about an hour later, the girls joined him (including the girl dog).  Not Jack, he was still holed up in the basement with his xbox and still in his inside out pajamas.  He eventually came out and joined the girls and Gus.  I then took Jack and Maddie to Kirkwood park to sled, Peyton decided to stay home.  The snow was off the roads and sidewalks by that night, and back to school they went the next day.........