Thankful

We truly are beyond blessed.  We have SO much to be thankful for!!  We all have our extremely good health. We all have way more than we need on a daily basis.  We have never been without food/shelter/clothes.  We have a beautiful home with lots of room to play.  We both have amazing, steady, well-paying jobs.  We have such wonderful family and friends who love us, invest in us, support us and pray for us.  We have cars that run and don't have problems.  We serve a loving God who watches over us, protects us and cares for us.  Yup, we're pretty much 3 happy clams.  =)

Thanksgiving was fun this year.  We spent the Eve and the Day with Jen's family and kept things very low-key.  And on the actual Day (in the wee hours of the morning), Brian and Greg went out hunting!  They both got something and came home looking like the cat that got the bird.  (haha! yes, pun intended)

The day after Thanksgiving, we headed up to Estes Park - since we didn't go in October.  We got our usual cabin on the river and thoroughly enjoyed alone time as a little family of 3, except this year we got to see the parade they put on after Thanksgiving AND a fireworks show over Lake Estes (that was postponed from July 4th)!  Noah had never seen fireworks before - you should have seen the complete awe and excitement on that precious little face!

We had to put our tree and inside/outside decorations up a couple days early this year since we knew we'd be gone during the time we usually put it up.   It's been fun watching that little boy of ours get SO excited about everything related to Christmas.  =)  He loves to walk all around the tree and point and make comments about all the ornaments.  And the lights on the tree must go off and on 100 times a day.  (Remember this blog post from last year?)  He also asks every day if it's time to open presents yet.  (Maybe we got a little ahead of ourselves, but we have ALL but 2 presents bought and wrapped!!)

Christmas partying has begun! We have at least 2 Christmas events scheduled on our calendar every week till Christmas.  It's gonna be a busy, but joyous season!

We also have started doing some Christmas crafts and playing seasonal games with Noah.  More to come on that, later.  =)

Hope you all had as wonderful of a Thanksgiving as we did!

Preschool Book

Awhile back, we bought Noah a Preschool book.  He absolutely LOVES it and asks to do "Preschool book" all the time now.  =)  We do it when we can.  It's nothing rigorous.  Just something extra for learning and passing the time during the day.

We were absolutely amazed at his progress from (literally!) one day to the next.  "Red" was one day, and "orange" was the next.  Look how well he stayed in the lines!!!  We were beyond impressed.  =) Especially since he's not even 3 yet!!!

And Then.....

We went a different route this year. 

Instead of doing the traditional carving of our pumpkin(s), we let Noah paint his pumpkin!  The idea in our heads of how it would go..... well..... it most definitely didn't end up turning out that way.  It ended up turning out much better than the picture we had originally had in our heads.  We've never laughed so hard in all our lives.  Take a look.  =)

So we laid out the tarp, the paints and staged him for a picture. (Cheese!)

And then..... the painting started......

..... still doing good.....

..... and then..... he wanted to paint with Daddy.......

..... and then...... with Mommy......

..... and then..... he squished his hands together, squirting paint all over and making funny noises.

"Hmmmm......." (you can actually SEE the wheels turning in his head!!)  =)

And then...... he thought it looked like fun to paint his arms......

..... and then his legs......

..... and then his shirt and his HAIR......

..... and then his face (with some added help).  =)

Ta-da!  He was one HAPPY mess by the time he was done.  Paint was everywhere unexpected (and we mean everywhere - fridge, cabinets, floor, him, US!)

The next morning, after the paint had dried, we let Noah decorate it with some Halloween googly-eye stickers. 

What a ginormous treat for such a little boy.  =)  How fun it was to just "go with the flow" and not worry about plans going a different direction or paint getting all over things.  =)