Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was spent at Mom and Dad's house this year. Before all the eating began, Kim and I fit in a 5.5-mile run and Kyle made it to the gym for a CrossFit workout. Kim and Thane headed over to the Veltkamp side of the family for the day, but we met up with Kelsey and Ben at Mom and Dad's for the rest of the day. 

The kids entertained themselves by playing cards, doing cartwheels, building marble runs out of duct tape and cardboard, and hiding (and finding) feathers around the house. The adults played Boggle, Code Names, and Phrase Party in between all the eating.

We also started to get into the Christmas mood...we are all going to see the play 'The Christmas Carol' in a few weeks at the local theater, so the kids watched the movie (so they would have an idea what the play is about!) Grandma also had a Christmas craft and the kids put together cute Christmas trees!

Building their trees

We left at the end of the day feeling very thankful for our family and for all we have. It's so wonderful to be able to get together with my family and watch the kids all play together so naturally.

October

 October was pretty busy with normal life activities: Piano, Soccer, Taekwondo, Church, School. But we fit in a few fun things and lots of random pictures!

There's a story behind this oyster shell. 

    I walked into Lydia's room one evening and couldn't believe how terrible it smelled. I looked around for some dirty laundry stuck in a corner but didn't find anything. And nobody else smelled it. But it was terrible. I couldn't even put Lydia to bed because her room smelled so bad!

    The next day I cleaned her whole room. I did all the laundry, I even brought her mattress outside to air out, just in case it was the mattress. I sprinkled baking soda around the room, opened up the window, and had the diffuser going. 

    It seemed a little bit better until the next morning. Clearly, the problem was not resolved. So back to cleaning I went. I moved her dresser, found a lot of dust and a few missing legos, and then, as I was moving the dresser back, I realized the smell was much stronger. And coming from the jewelry box. I opened up the little drawers and found this lovely oyster. It smelled disgusting and was full of green liquid that dripped out onto my hands when I picked it up. Yep, Lydia had brought this little treasure home from Birch Bay two weeks prior and tucked it away in a safe spot.

The girls have been participating in Bible Quizzing at church. This year they are studying the book of Matthew. They memorize Bible verses and then learn all about the stories, the history, the culture etc. Once a month they have quiz meets and test their knowledge. Normally these meets are held with other churches, but there aren't a lot of churches nearby, so this month we had the meet at church just with our group.

Starting the meet with a little craft-painting boxes to hold their memory verses.

Haleigh and Lydia answering their question.

All the kids who participated.

Kelsey-making apple pies!

Mom- putting the pies together (we also made some applesauce!)

Date Night! We went to the Raving Gamer and played games and ate yummy food...thanks Mom and Dad for babysitting!

Halloween-Malachi and Haleigh

A fox, a dalmatian, an M&M, a nerf fighter, and a martial artist