November 2010

Perhaps our kiddos are a bit too into Pirates of the Caribbean?

How about you decide.

Tracy was cleaning up toys (as usual) when she came across the scene below.

Captain Barbosa on the attack in Bethlehem

We have a tradition in our household where we decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

Part of this tradition is that Tracy puts together a magnificent (yes, that's the term) spread of finger foods for consumption during the long day of decoration placement.

This year was no exception, and this year is the first where all the kids really got into it.

All three kids enjoying the "buffet"

We had a day-after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving over at Nona and PaPa John's house today.

Obviously, we need to start snapping more pictures at these things.

Pomi wrestling with Drew

Drew and Evan playing video games
(This scene to be replayed over and over again in the future.)

We all headed down South to Aunt Jen's today for a Mexican food Thanksgiving.

Sure, everyone was there and the food was great, but somehow we only got pictures of the kids with the new cat.

Drew loved the kitty

Lexi was in heaven holding the kitty

Brie couldn't contain her smile
(as usual)

Tracy had the great idea of making Tamales for our Mexican food-themed Thanksgiving this year.

Not having a recipe to follow, we were not quite sure how they would turn out.

It turns out, we can make a pretty mean shredded pork in the crock pot overnight, and we had to stop ourselves from scarfing it all down before it could make it into the tamales!

Of course, it was a lot of work, but the kids had a blast and we ended up with a ton of tamales!

By the way, Happy Birthday Joseph, one of our faithful few readers of this blog.

Lexity making a tamale

Drew's tamale looks perfect

Brie was quite proud of her creation
(with good reason!)

Somehow or another Jamie decided it was time to get out all of his old Transformers he has stored in the basement for a long, long time.

It was immediately apparent that he has not taken as good of care of them as he thought he did when he was a kid.

True to form, our three kids jumped right in and continued to not take very good care of them, but had a great time doing so.

The kids had so much fun that instead of getting packed back into the box in the basement, a drawer was cleared in the family room so they can remain accessible.

What's better after all? Nice, half-broken Transformers in a box in the basement or a bunch of really broken Transformers being played with every day?

Daddy and Drew getting out all the Transformers

Every year our trees get bigger and bigger, and so do the piles of leaves that Jamie rakes up.

Fortunately, we have three kids who instintively know exactly what to do.

Drew pausing just long enough for a "I looked at the camera" picture

Brie having a blast in the leaves

Could Lexi be having any more fun?