Major REWIND!!

Okay, so even though I said I would, I didn't get my Halloween photos posted before New Years, but I have a good excuse-- my mom gave me permission to wait until after the holidays were over. Moms always knows best-- right!! (Thanks Mom for the break!) I'm sure she wasn't thinking that all our January birthdays and Valentine's Day were included when she said "holidays" with an "s" but, hey, as kids we take all we can get right. :) Anyways, finally here is a post to cover the last several months.

Rewind way way back to October:

Pumpkin carving:

Costumes and Halloween:

For the Harvest Party at the boys school the kids wore different costumes then they did on Halloween. For the school party Brian was Indiana Jones again, Andrew was a dinosaur again, Timothy was a knight, Kylie was Cinderella, and Philip was a Jack-o-lantern a.k.a Cinderella's pumpkin. For Halloween Brian was a clone trooper from Star Wars, Andrew was Indiana Jones, Timothy was a dinosaur and Kylie was Cinderella again and Philip was still a pumpkin. We had a fun Halloween. The boys enjoyed trick-or-treating and Kylie and Philip enjoyed helping hand out the candy.

The whole "Gang"

Philip & Kylie:

Timothy:

Andrew:

Brian:

The Family-- at Trunk-or-Treating:

Philip & Kylie waiting on the doorstep to help hand out candy:

The boys trick-or-treating:

The twins turned 9 months old this month:

Timothy:

He is our mischief maker that loves to make messes! Just in case anyone wants to know how to get permanent marker out of the carpet, hand sanitizer is the trick. I can know testify that it works great! Too bad I couldn't use it on Kylie's face. :)

This picture doesn't even do justice to what it really looked like. (But then again maybe nothing looks as bad as the memorable images of food coloring in my mind :)). It took almost a whole 12 oz. bottle of sanitizer to get it out.

Rewind way back to November:

Brian and Andrew joined flag football teams. Brian's team didn't have a coach so Derek stepped right up and took the job. No one had to twist his arm as coaching is his dream job. All three boys enjoyed the season and had lots of fun. Timothy wanted to participate so bad. Many times I had to run out on the field and grab him. I was a psuedo assistant coach helping Derek out and even taking over practice when he couldn't make it. Someday I might actually learn how to play the game. It's really hard to teach plays to 7 and 8 year old boys when you don't understand them yourself. But I faked it well. :)

Andrew was a Running Back and this is him practicing "his" play:

At his first game:

This is where he hung out when it was his turn to be on the side line-- on his coaches shoulders. :)

I was usually too busy during Brian's practices to get pictures but I did get some of his games. He was the Center on his team.

(Coaches were allowed on the field during the game so that's why you see Derek too.)

Here's Derek doing his thing:

Waiting on the sidelines:

Thanksgiving Tree:

We made our annual Thanksgiving Tree (everyone writes something they are thankful for on a leaf when they put it on the tree and there can be no doubles). It is one of our long standing family traditions. It's always fun to see what the boys say they are thankful for.

Timothy:
Timothy decided that it had been awhile since he visited the ER and it was time to go again. He informed Derek on the way there that he likes the hospital. So anyways, one night as we were putting T to bed he informs us that he swallowed a coin. We thought nothing of it and whisked him off to bed. After a short time we heard him crying and went to check on him. We found him in his bed screaming and writhing in pain. He couldn't lay still it hurt so bad. He kept telling us he wanted that quarter to come out. A quarter!! So off he and Derek went to the ER. They did some x-rays and confirmed that sure enough it was a quarter and it was stuck about half way down his esophagus. After lots of looking the doctor determined that T would be alright and the quarter would just pass through on it's own. That it did, but it was not a fun experience. Poor T was in pain all night as it slowly moved down to his stomach. It took all night to get there. Silly kid! A few days later I found him lecturing the babies about not eating quarters. :)

We enjoyed a long awaited trip home to visit family for Thanksgiving. It was really fun but it was jam packed with activities and went by way too fast. The kids did really well on the trip. The babies did great on their first flight even if they were sick. People were often amazed to see our whole family truckin' through the airport. It was an adventure but it was worth it and the kids can't wait for the next one.

Kylie & Philip on the airplane:

This month the twins turned 10 months old:

Rewind back to December:

When we sang "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" we didn't expect it to come true, but it did. We even got snowed in and they canceled the last three days of school before the break. It was awesome!! We had almost 2 feet of snow. We were literally "snowed in." We couldn't open our front door. To get outside we had to use the garage door. Because it opened up and not out we could get it open. It took Derek over 5 hours to shovel the snow from our driveway. Good thing our neighbors had an extra snow shovel we could borrow since we didn't even have one. Here's a few pictures we got of the snow:

On Christmas Eve we wanted to do something special. Last year we went to Medieval Times. This year we went to ICE. It was an indoor wonderland made entirely of ice. It was really cool-- in more ways then one! :) It was only 9 degrees inside with the ice. They gave everyone special coats to keep warm. It was fun and the sculptures were so pretty. The boys thought it was neat too. Their favorite part, of course, were the big ice slides they got to slide down. Timothy went down at least a dozen times. I took several pictures but sadly I have none to show. Our camera went AWOL somewhere in the last 100 feet of the exhibit. I put it in the cupholder of the stroller and just before we left we realized it was gone. We aren't sure if it got knocked out, or if Timothy took it out and did something with it or the worst case scenario-- someone took it. We searched for it for over 30 minutes and checked with the lost and found several times before we gave up. We even called back everyday for the next few days after and nothing. So sadly, no pictures and our camera is gone, but at least I had just downloaded the memory card and so the only pictures we lost were of ICE. Here is a you-tube video link to see some of the sculptures instead:

Since we lost our camera we had to buy the photo they took. Don't we look so cute in our special blue coats: