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!