The African Library Project!

Our Big Hands, Little Hearts children's service club has been busy starting 2 elementary school libraries in Botswana, Africa. The club kids in Spokane, Arizona and Utah collected over 2,000 books! They cleaned, sorted and packed the books and even fundraised over $700 to pay to ship the books to Africa by holding lemonade/ hot chocolate stands, bake sales and a talent show/art display/baby fashion  show.
We're so excited that so many kids worked hard to make a difference in the lives of the children in Africa by showing them they care and helping to spread literacy, education and self empowerment with the Xhumo and Thibala African Libraries!

Happy Days!

 I cherish my kids' days off of school, so we had big plans for Veteran's Day!

We went to the Science Center and made many, many paper airplanes and measured their flight patterns.

Then we were driving down the street, and the kids were looking at their eye spy game in Highlights Magazine, looking for a hot dog car and all of a sudden we saw the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile drive right past us! It was very surreal! We went on a semi high speed chase in pursuit of it.

 We also went to the movies with lots of our buddies on our day off, Despicable Me 2. So much popcorn, so many friends!

That weekend Daddy got us passes to an indoor water park in Idaho, and it was the most exciting, magical family day! We didn't get home til almost midnight.

 We went down every slide, over and over. The toilet bowl slide was our favorite!

Winston alternated between this slide, the outdoor hot tub in the 15 degree weather and drinking the wave pool water.

   

After6 hours of swimming, we played games in the arcade. One of the many things that makes me smile about Noelle is how she searches under machines for tokens. She found $2 in tokens, a quarter and a penny. I think her resourcefulness is darling!

 A couple days later, I put a note in the kids lunches with clues on an after school surprise. I wrote "Blue" and "La, la, la, la" and when I picked them up they both guessed right that we were going to the dollar movies to see Smurfs 2. We had a happy time!

 I recently discovered Dinovember, and as soon as i read about it I was in love! It's dedicated keeping kids' imagination and sense of wonder alive by convincing them that their toy dinosaurs come alive at night. We did it for a week, but the first day was the best! They were so shocked that the Trex and his buddies broke all of our eggs. Winston just kept saying, "I didn't do it!"

And then Thanksgiving was here, and Michael, Tessa and Alex were here too! And Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without a visit from our Indian friend.

We made tons of food and invited friends and even set off the smoke alarm and started an oven fire, which Uncle Alex bravely put out. I'm so thankful for this family og ours!

The next night Daddy got us tickets to go on the North Pole cruise! Before we boarded the boat, we were greeted by a spunky elf with teeth the size of french toast. Then we were chased off the dock by the Grinch.

 It was chilly and Christmasy and full of fun!

We listened to music inside the boat, and Uncle Michael layed on the ground of boat outside and looked at all the stars with the kids.

When we approached the North Pole, Santa did a little dance and called each of our kids by name!  Noelle was a little miffed that Santa mispronounced her name because "it is the most Christmasy name of all" but she was quick to forgive when he put her on the nice list.

After the cruise we dined dockside at kid midnight (10pm) and all shared an ice cream the size of our head!

 The next day there was some brotherly love, putting up Christmas lights and going to one of our favorite hang outs, Buffalo Wild Wings.

 Then we went to Greenbluff  to cut down our very own Christmas tree. It was such an adventure!

 We had a very merry time chopping down that blue spruce tree! We also cracked ourselves up making up cheesy jokes!

 We love, love, love holidays so we like to borrow them whenever we can. This year we celebrated Hanakkuh, minus the gifts but with the dreidel and the gelt!

And now we're ready for Christmas to begin, and we pulled out one of our favorite traditions...Daddy reading Christmas books by candlelight! This truly is the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas here we come!

 Winston and I have been loving having learning group every week! For the letter "E," the only thing I could think of was eggs, and the coolest thing to do with eggs I thought was to walk on them. So after our Easter (in October) egg hunt, the kids and a few of us moms all took turns walking on eggs. Everyone did an eggcellent job and walked across without breaking a single egg, except for me. I broke 6, wouldn't ya know it, and then I was nervous all day that I was going to get salmonella in my feet through the cut on my heel. Luckily, I didn't. 

For the letter "F" we went on a field trip to the fire station! It was really, really fun!

Winston got to take his turn in the captain's chair, and he even raised his hand to ask a question.
 He asked, "How you get dat water out for dat hose ten pray?" which I translated as, "How do you turn on the water to spray the hose?"I was so proud of his inquisitiveness!
Then we put on our hats and badges and headed out with a new resolve never to play with matches!

Winston and his buddies enjoying the new exhibits at the children's museum! He didn't want to stop stuffing scarves in the blower to take a picture. I caught him mid protest. I can't say I blame him.

 Even though Stanton and Noelle are in school during the day, we manage to fit in fun wherever we can, like making marshmallow paintings in the morning.

 And catching library story and craft times in the afternoon. This one was Trickster Tales, the best kind of tale there is in my opinion. They even fed us a snack.

 Or crashing a free pumpkin painting activity for teens at a library on the other side of town. (They didn't mind. They were thrilled to have us, very hospitable teens!)

 And my personal favorite, playing in leaves!

 We partied it up this Halloween and got a lot of use out of our costumes!

 Mario, Luigi and Toad spent most of October dressed like this!

 We had a Halloween party at our house, with about 100 of our closest mom, dad and kid friends! I was the clown. It was pretty hard having the sexiest costume there.

 All of the guys dressed up to! I was pretty impressed with their creativity!

 Here are just a few of the darling girls. The boys were out sword fighting and running around like crazy!

 It was a blast getting together with friends from school, church and work! It was one of my favorite fiestas we've ever had!

The night included a costume contest, a donut eating contest and a mommy/mummy contest, which turned into a yard full of damp, stepped on, ripped up toilet paper pieces, 36 rolls to be exact. Luckily our friend in the jail bird costume embraced the chain gang theme and picked it ALL up for us! We totally owe him, like bail money or something if he ever gets arrested for real.

 We each carved our pumpkins. Winston wanted to sleep with his.

 Winston and I went trick or treating with a few friends on the news at Daddy's work. When they asked him where Mario was, he said "at school."

 And it's pretty much impossible to go to a news station without taking a picture making the Zoolander face in the anchor chair. I don't know how Robert doesn't strike a pose at that desk every day and take a selfie or two. Who knows, maybe he does.

 Other pre-Halloween festivities included trunk-or-treat, which was incredibly fun! We also went to their school's monster mash, where I danced the night away and went home with the headache of a lifetime and 3 embarrassed children (And one proud husband. He likes my dancing.)

 Then, for the treat of all treats, our best friend Max came all the way from Arizona to go trick or treating and spend a week with us! Mari brought him and Tess, and I still I can't believe they were here, having so much fun! I'm so happy they came!

 We had a camp fire and roasted marshmallows.

 We went to the Children's Museum. They really dig those bikes!

 Stanton and Max picked up playing, right where they left off back in May, still the best of buddies!

 And me and Mari stayed up late eating junk food, talking, laughing, crafting and watching awesome shows together! It was like girl heaven!

 We also fed tigers together.

 And hung out with the lions.

 And fed bears too.

 Since it was too cold for a polar bear to even be outside, we went to an indoor gym and did some tricks. I tried a couple kartwheels on the balance beam. I did not succeed. I fell.

 Winston liked the bounce house, until he found out there was pee in it. Then he stuck with the foam pit cause you'd never even know it if someone peed in there.

And one of the best parts while Max was here was that it SNOWED!!!! My kids saw snow for the first time, They stayed home from school and played in it for 2 hours straight, minus their five minute pancake break. They were running in it, laying in it, throwing it, eating it and building with it. It was one of my favorite thing to see of my life!