Evidently Everyone Thinks Kids Don't Get Enough Candy

I'm not kidding.  Everywhere we go these kids are getting candy.  Our apartment manager lives in the same building as us and if the kids are outside (which is all the time), she has a sucker every time she sees them.  She has been known to give them up to three suckers in one day...three sticky, nasty, teeth-rotting suckers.  Why?  Stop it.  The bank is notorious for their suckers too.  Today I took all of them to the Children's Museum and low and behold, today is National Hot Coco Day and we managed to get there at the exact moment that they were having story time, sipping hot coco, and passing out candy canes.  The kids were thrilled.  I was thinking about the sticky, chocolatey mess.  What are the chances? ;)

Sipping Coco in the medieval castle

Beautiful.  Both of them.

Challenging Thanksgiving picture

Seriously, could they get any cuter?

And if Brothie isn't getting candy when we're out and about, he's getting Oreos at home.  I think I am turning into my mother.

Took a trip to Bee City recently with a bunch of homeschool friends.  The kids love that place!

Noa and Lilly

Ruthie on the warthog

Add Broth

Ruthie and Harper on the dino

Lyds feeding goats

On the train

Noa really liked feeding all of the animals.  Notice there are no pictures of Ruthie feeding anything.  She is terrified of all animals, just like her mother.  There was a herd of chickens roaming around Bee City, tormenting her and myself.

Lyds on the "Daddy Horse"

Ruthie on the "Mommy Horse"

Sweet, little Broth was all tuckered out. 

'Tis the season.  "Happy Christmas," from Noa!

Recently, we went Christmast shopping and it totally wrecked us.  We were sooo tired.   

Ruthie found a helmet.

Lydie won't stop picking that thing by her eye.

Brothie and his Target popcorn

We had been waiting for these ants for our ant hill to arrive (from Utah) for a while and when they did, they were almost all dead.  Poor guys.  Noa thinks they are pets, so she's not happy that most of them are curled up in a ball at the bottom of the ant hill.  :(  Notice the contact information that I have to use to get more ants.

Lastly, Ruthie has been wanting to wear socks with her high heels lately.  It is so horrible.  Today she found socks that actually MATCHED her high heels!  Even worse!  That's how we roll, though.  I'm sure people wonder what we dress our kids in sometimes.  Answer is: We don't!  They dress themselves!

So, I have an obsession...

I love fake food!  I do!  When we only had Noa and Ruthie, I started making felt food for them and was determined to give them an entire pantry full of felt, but I think I only ended up making a tomato, a piece of cheese, and sandwich bread.  It was time consuming!!  So, because I missed my felt opportunity,  I decided to make all of this construction paper food for Ruthie and Lydia's school Thanksgiving party. Why?????  It took forever.  And I loved it.

Look at these cute mashed potatoes!

Turkey legs

Injury!  Snipped right through my finger when making the pumpkin pie.

Here's the line-up.  Not too shabby. If only my regular meals looked this good!!!!

Here's my 2 year old turkey.  Notice the hideous headdresses I made.  They were even MORE time consuming than the food.  Definitely didn't like that project at all.  Aaaaaand, I took it upon myself to make them.  I have no business doing that.

I told her to laugh instead of say "cheese" because cheese was not working.  Painful smile.

Here's all the little 2 year old turkeys.  Notice that Lydia is propped up on her seat.  She had just finished saying the prayer and I think she is the designated "prayer" for her class.  She is so dominant, and about twice the size of all the other kids, that initially she kept getting in trouble all the time in her class.  Suddenly, when they put her "in charge" of certain areas, she was an angel.  So, praying is one of her "jobs."  This kid is soooo funny.  

Here's the little 3 year old turkeys, with one 5 year old turkey thrown in the mix.  Can you spot her?  Noa was sooo excited for the Thanksgiving feast and was glad I took her in as my helper.  One of the other moms who decorated the table made a spot for her (with her name on it too) and she just thought that was fabulous.  They had a great time!

In other news, I took Noa and Ruthie shopping with me one day.  They are finally getting old enough to do it.  They are soooo cute and funny when I let them look through the toys.  I think both of them love to shop, but especially Ruthie.  She always wants her purse and her high heels too.  ;)

They kept discussing each item.  It was hilarious.

We had a few very cold days and our heater happened to go out at the same time.  The wonderful thing about living in the apartments is that things get fixed rather quickly (and not by us), but on this day we had to bundle up and wait longer than we wanted to.

Now we are back to our normal, sleeveless attire.  *Sigh*

Buddy boy, getting fussy in the car.

He keeps wanting to climb the CEMENT steps at our apartment complex.  FREAKY!  QUIT IT! I can tell we are going to be in for it in a few months...
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
WE HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday Meatballs

We are trying a new recipe tonight!  I'll let you know how it goes.  Around my house I constantly hear, "I WANT TO HELP," "I WANT TO HELP!" Read that back in the most whiney voice possible. Repeat 40 times. That would be Noa and Ruthie (sometimes Lyd), letting me know that dinner prep will take 30 minutes longer than normal.  Some days I'm up for the challenge.  Today was one of those days.  I'll let you know how the recipe turns out.  We're having Honey Garlic Meatballs, with rice and zucchini!  Noa and Ruthie were incredible helpers today!

This was the 5th attempt to get them both smiling and looking at me.  Not working.  Separate bowls because everything, of course, has to be fair and equal. 

Ruthie was grossed out by the meat at first, but after a while she went for it.

I'm not sure what was so captivating over my left shoulder, but they just wouldn't look at me! Something interesting about Noa is that she's seen about 5 cooking shows in her life but has really taken it to heart!  When she's cooking with me (or playing chef) she's always pretending she's on a cooking show.  Maybe in a few years she'll take over as the household chef.  I would love that!

Brother was a "helper" too!  Not really. In fact, he is a cranky mess.  Last week Noa had croup (lost her voice for about 5 days, which actually gave my ears a break!), and then Brothie caught it. Side note: don't act like you don't want that pineapple wallpaper all for yourself.  Its like a Magic Eye game all wrapped up in kitchen decor.  

Look at how pathetic he looks!  Poor buddy.

And another.  So sad. But anyway... back to the meatballs.

Here we are!  I'm trying this recipe tonight.  I asked the girls to roll them in 1" balls and, for the most part, they did pretty good.  Towards the end, they just started smashing them into the dish, so I had to take over.  But it was a good 10 minutes before that started happening!

In other news, I made some aprons for the girls (for Christmas) this weekend while Russ was on the Man Retreat.  Sadly, the night that Russ was gone was Caleb's worst night with the croup.  Neither of us slept (like, not for a minute) and for most of the night Caleb was either trying to catch his breath, or screaming.  We spent most of the night in the bathroom with the hot shower running so he could breathe in the steam.  It. Was. Terrible.  Why is this the caption for the aprons?  I will tell you why.  On Saturday, all I wanted to do was sleep, but since that wasn't an option (caring for three girls who slept well and a baby that just wanted to be held), I had to throw myself into a project or else all I would think about was sleeping and then how angry I was that I couldn't sleep.  So, I cranked out these aprons in record time!  Just kept rollin' 'em through the sewing machine and now I have three Christmas presents that didn't cost me anything!

Thankfully, the night before the Man Retreat, Russ and I went out to a new restaurant downtown that we loved!  It is called The Rarebit.  Fabulous ambiance, great prices, and even better food.  Russ had chicken and waffles, I had fish 'n' chips, and we shared a Lentil Salad, which sounds gross but it was great.  I wanted to order it because it was different than something I would usually pick, even though I was really wanting the onion rings.  I've never met an onion ring I didn't immediately eat.  But, now we have to go back so I can try the onion rings.  It was all part of a greater plan.

Pumpkin Patch with Noa and Caleb

Look how dirty this kid is!  Our car has smelled like manure all week and I'm sure it was because of Brothie.

Noa didn't want to touch the dirt.  Sadly, we are not farmers.

Some of our homeschooling friends.

Always standing up.