Cousin Fun

We went to St. Louis last weekend to see Ben's family one last time before we move back west.  As an added bonus it helped break up the time that Vic will be gone.  Sure hate being a single mom, moving, & packing by myself!  It is so much work! I have never felt so close to breaking down & losing it.  I think I would if I knew I could, but since I know so much has to get done & my kids need me then I keep pushing through.  Only 4 more days... ug.

On to happier things!....

My kids had a blast with their cousins.  They will dearly miss them.  Tommy still hasn't grasped how little he will see them now.  Here are all of my favorite goobers:

 

 I'm really not sure who would win the smile for cheesiest smile in this one!!

We got to celebrate Becky's 29th birthday with her!

 They all play so well together!

We went back a week later on our way to moving to Idaho.

Here they are playing red light, green light.

 Hot Chocolate goobers

 Thanksgiving hats Kara & Kiersten made for everyone

Tommy's turkey he made

Snow Day!

I love the first day of snow.  It's always so exciting.  Tommy is already super excited about his birthday that is a full month away so we keep telling him when winter comes.  So today he was running around saying "Yay! Fall is gone & snow is here. Tomorrow is my birthday!!"  We had to pull out the calendar & count the days plus do a little adjusting on explaining how the seasons work.  He couldn't understand why Jesus would want snow to come in November.  Haha, I love how a child's mind works! 

Here is Whitney, Tommy, & Ashlynn (a friend) playing hide & seek in the bushes.  It was so pretty in there!  

 Tommy trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

Making snow angels.  My kids didn't really get it.

 The snow was terrible to pack so they couldn't get snowballs, but they didn't seem to mind as they threw tiny pieces of snow at each other!

Family Pictures

I always dread family pictures, but know I will look back on them & cherish them so I push myself to do one every year.  Whitney was a bit moody this time as she fell asleep on the way there, but last year she was a nightmare so we're much happier about that!  Also, this time it was actually cold so we weren't sweating to death :)

Don't love this one of anyone, but it was a nice setting! 

I will sure miss the amazing woods & parks here in Indiana.

This one is dark, but Vic likes it a lot.  This is Tommy helping us test the lighting for our pictures.

And I love this one because it shows off the cute little cheeser smile that I get 100 times a day guaranteeing that this little cutie will get whatever he asks for.... which is usually just me answering "Yes, Tommy, you are nice!" right after the millionth naughty thing Whitney has done that day.

  I haven't got a head shot by myself since my senior year in high school so I'm happy I finally remembered to squeeze this picture in at the end!

Indianapolis Children's Museum

We were last at the Children's museum almost exactly a year ago so it was fun to see the difference in how Tommy has grown.  Last year he was terrified of this dinosaur area & this year it was pretty cool.  A guy came around teaching about the teeth & had a skull you could touch & as much as Tommy liked it he definitely didn't want to touch it!

 I love that Tucker is suddenly very aware & wanting to do what everyone else is doing.

 My little train boy could have spent all day in the train section. He ran up & down this hallway area following this little train along the wall.

 I had to pry him away from this area.  I wish we had a big enough are for him to have a train table at home!

 I thought this exhibit was fun that you could crawl up under & be inside the glass to view.

 Whitney & Tommy worked hard to create this masterpiece.  Other kids kept stealing all the bottles for their own artwork & that was very disturbing to Tommy!

 This building zone was my favorite.

 If you take trains out of the trip, I think Tommy liked this building area the best.  He spent a lot of time making his house.

 crazy music kids

 Tucker really loved the baby area... it would be so nice if you could rent these super padded areas for babies & turn my front room into a padded baby paradise.

 This leaf blower was Whitney's favorite area.  She thought it was hilarious. I tried to catch it on video, but she had her back to me & it was really noisy in there.

 Tommy is asking about every detail of anything we do so I thought this sign was quite fitting for him right now!

 One last picture of Tucker.  He looked cute on Sunday so I wanted to get a picture!!

Halloween

The week of Halloween we went to a play group Halloween party.

 We carved our pumpkins a few days before.  Last year Tommy was disgusted by the pumpkin guts, but this time he was quite proud to help dad & played with it transferring it between bowls. Whitney wanted nothing to do with the whole process.

 Here is our pumpkins this year! We had the neighbors over & they did the Mickey pumpkin, but we did the rest.  Tommy picked out the classic face & insisted we carve out his name around the backside as well.

It rained all day on Halloween.  A lot of the neighboring towns announced that they were moving Halloween to the next day, but our mayor said that putting Halloween on a Friday would be more trouble for the police with people partying. :(  We used umbrellas as much as possible, but everyone was SOAKED with water and cold on top of that..  The kids were pretty good troopers, especially Tommy. I'm glad his costume had a hat as he didn't seem to mind it too much.  They didn't seem as excited as I wanted them to be for Halloween this year.  I'm wondering if it was all the pre-Halloween activities we did or having lots of "potty treats" around all the time ruined the excitement of having to work for candy!... or maybe it was just more of a job to get over with since it was raining so much!

 I remember a lot of cold Halloweens growing up, but never one with steady rain the whole night!... guess this would have been a good year to have gone to the church house instead!