Thanksgiving and a bit more :-)

Time to update my dusty Blog!

Stella went to a birthday party a few weeks ago and the theme was "Fancy Tea Party", which meant she and I went shopping her Christmas dress an hour before the party so she would have something to wear! You can't see the dress in this pic, but this makes me laugh! Such a gangster!

The tree is decorated! Yippee!!!

Amy and her crew spent an evening with us a couple of weeks ago! The kids had a blast together!

We traveled to STL to spend Thanksgiving with Scott, Nora and kiddos. Porter and Guy at the bemoaned "kids table", but they loved it!!

Nora put on quite the meal!! Stella and Grant!

The next day Mike andnI took the kids downtown to the City Museum! Amazing!!! We will definitely be back! Here the Fab 4 are waiting for a performance to start. 

We spent so much time at the City Museum that we didn't have time to up the Atch, but we stopped by to look at it. So pretty!

After that we met up with Scott and Nora at Union Station Hotel to see a light show. We had plans to all go out for dinner afterwards, but the kids were spent! So Nora secured a babysitter and the 4 of us went out for dinner and the kids stayed home! Double win! Kiddos in front of a beautiful tree. 

Amazing weather!

We celebrated Christmas the night before we left. The kids were sooooo excited!

Today Porter had his First Reconciliation. He looked so handsome!

We matched!!

The past month....

A big handful of photos from the past month......

Porter finished up his flag football season (he's #7)

Mike and I ran the Des Moines half marathon and I met my goal and FSU (finished standing up!), I barely trained due to random illnesses and joint issues, glad I did it and even more glad it's done! Ha!

Great day at the park with Stella and her bestie, Ally!

Carving pumpkins!

Traveled o NC to visit Anna and her girls. It was such a fun trip. I put most of my pics on FB, so I know you've all seen them there. Blessed to have such great family!

Selfie on the train at the park. Love this pic of V!

Halloween brought out our mummy and granny wanting lots of candy!

Halloween night we found this sweet, lost kitty. LONG story short....found its rightful owners after it stayed with us a couple of nights. The sweet kitty looks just like Rex and ended up belonging to classmates of Stella's! 

Took Stella and Ella roller skating last weekend.  Mike took P to the arcade!

Porter has started basketball! They are learning a lot and having fun. He's on a team with boys from his class. Go Thunder!!!

Rex!

Stella's class put on a Winn-Dixie play last week. She was a narrator and props person. 

We w able to celebrate wedding anniversary #43 with mom and dad!

Kids were off school yesterday. We spent 3.5 hours at the science center and finished up with a 2 hour playdate/mommy happy hour. Haha!

Stella and Mike Rama 5k this morning for Stella's Girls On The Run season finale! Stella had a great season!

It was a divide and conquer type of morning. They were at the 5k and Porter and I were at his basketball practice/team pics! He's #8

We ended the day with Stella's first basketball game. They won!!! So proud of this group of girls, they lost every.single.game last year, but their hard work finally paid off! Stella's wearing the bright green headband. She even made a basket!

Lazy blogger lately.....

I've been a blogger slacker lately! 99.99999999% of my pics are taken by my iPhone, to be honest I don't even know the last time I used my DSLR (nice!) camera! So, I have no excuse for not taking pics, guess we are just enjoying life!

School pics were a couple weeks ago. The kids clean up nice! 

I spent a couple of days tackling the storage room.....

Before (who spies my quillow peaking out of a box????.)

After!

Took my little man in for a haircut and they buzzed him! :( I was NOT happy. But it will grow back, thankfully!

Happy 37th to Mike!

Lucy texted me this pic a couple of weeks ago, which I'd never seen before. Soooo cute!

On Mike's bday we actually babysat for the Kohls family (we went out the night before to celebrate Mike's bday). Kelly and the 3 kids were in town to celebrate her sisters 40th bday, but Kohls wasn't able to come down. So I texted Kohls this pic that Mike was celebrating with his son, since Kohls wasn't able to come down! Hahahaha!

Porter helping with the never ending yard work. He was actually having a lot of fun!

Grandparents day at SFA! So blessed to have all grandparents attend. Stella and Porter were in different groups, do I wasn't able to get a group shot. When Stella came into the library with the grandparents, I was manning the cash register for the book fair and wasn't able to get a pic. 

Porter has really,enjoyed flag football this year! Tomorrow is the last game and then basketball starts on Sunday! He's in the all black with the stocking hat with a puff ball on top. 

Before mass last weekend. 

While laundering all the bedding Rex decided to curl up in the guest room comforter. Love my cat!

Stella lost a tooth this week!

Porter almost ate an entire pizza tonight! We are praying for a growth spurt!!!!

Time for an update :-)

I need to transfer photos off my phone to the computer so it's time to update the bloggy. 

Can't have an update without this cute kitty! 

Riding shotgun on our way home from Dunkin Donuts (1/2 mile from our house) Before his flag football game last Saturday. 

Loving the cotton candy station at Abby and Brad's wedding!

Checked out a really cool park on Wed with a couple of friends. It's a bit of a hike being over on the east side, but the kids loved it, but did not love all the Mosquitos bites they came home with! :(

Friday was a teacher development day so the kids didn't have school. Yay for a 3 day weekend! I took the kiddos to our favorite apple orchard, Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge and ran into a ton of SFA families! Super fun!! We all had the same idea. Amazing weather and amazing friends! Blessed!

After they were completely exhausted from the apple orchard mom and I took them to the High Trestle Trail and went to the famous bridge. The bugs were out and Porter was NOt happy, but we still had a lot of fun!

Beautiful Iowa scenery. 

On the bridge. 

The next day was a day we always look forward to, the Beaverdale parade. Mark and Ken always go all out for it. The kids ended up with almost 8 lbs of candy. Complete craziness!!!!

That evening was the boy scouts camp out. Sounds like it was a great time! It's all the dads and their sons. They played games, roasted marshmallows, had campfire stories, etc. 

This morning was a big breaky and the boys line up to try and catch pancakes on their plates!! If they miss (which 99% of the do), they just pick them up off the ground, because as Porter told me, "if they land on the ground they have more flavor!". Haha! I love it!