Drake's 9th Birthday and Thanksgiving Fun!

Another year to be thankful for so much!  We are spending our Thanksgiving holiday at Gordon's parents house in Minocqua, WI and there is so much snow!!  It's fun to look back at previous year's posts and see the difference in weather, for example, in the Thanksgiving post from 2012 Drake was shooting his brand new Red Rider bb gun outside...without snow. :)
Drake turned 9 years old on November 25th, we celebrated with a family party at Nana and Papa's with a Double Chocolate cake, homemade by Nana!

Troop 436

Drake is a boy scout in Troop 436!  His first badge was earned for selling $376 worth of popcorn! In December he is going to ring the bell for donations and in February there is an overnight trip that he'll complete with Gordon.  Doesn't he make a good looking scout!   :)

My Puppy's name is Mommy

Recently, Alexa made this artwork at school.  Take note of her puppy's name...Mom.  :)

No, I'm not offended she named her puppy after me.  Quite the opposite actually, I'm touched that when offered to name her dog anything she wanted, she choose my name.  I love how the puppy's ears are glued down in a manner which makes it look sheepish...which reminds me of Alexa. :)

My mother-in-law & sister-in-law thought it was Alexa's attempt at telling us she wants a puppy.  Just think if we got a new puppy and actually named it Mom!  There's nothing like hearing your name over and over and over.  Or the funny comments that would come from it, "Mom went to the bathroom on the floor again"  ha!  

Kirsten's 5th Birthday

What a weekend to remember!  Kirsten Bella turned 5 years old last Sunday and we celebrated with 3 separate parties.  Friday night we had our usual family night out with dinner at Mickey's where Kirsten enjoyed an ice cream with a candle in it.  On Saturday, she celebrated with 6 friends at Shear Madness children's spa with princess up-dos and finger nail painting.  The girls loved it!  On Kirsten's actual birthday, November 9th, we went to brunch and she opened a few presents.  Two of them were a Frozen wrist-watch and cupcake charm necklace from her Godmother Tiffany, Kirsten was thrilled!!  Finally, we opened the rest of the presents at home from her great-grandparents in Hawaii, a few from us and some from my parents.  Needless to say, Kirsten had a wonderful 5th birthday weekend!!

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Team Pheasant

I love Pheasant hunting.  Yep, you've heard it hear...or should I say, you've read it hear.  :)  It's been a few years since we've hunted, but we were able to come together as a family to celebrate Steve Guthrie's 60th birthday! Six adults and 5 children made the way to South Dakota where we spent 3 days driving for birds.  Gordon's sister Megan, her husband Shawn and their two girls were present, and both of Gordon's parents.  That meant Nana and Papa got to spend time with all 5 of their grandchildren!  We were successful in our hunt and got a total of 6 birds as a family.   It was an amazing time!!  

Team Pheasant, aka Nana and all 5 grandkids driving for birds

2014-2015 school year photos

The kids' school pictures this year turned out so good!  

I know I'm a bias Mom, but I had to post them on the blog.  :)

Drake -- 3rd grade

Kirsten -- Pre-Kindergarten

Alexa -- 3 yr Pre-school

  

Alexa had 2 sets of prints in her packet.  I only ordered one head pose, but I'm thinking the photographer couldn't choose which one was better...so we got 2 for the price of 1!  The photo on the left is the quintessential Alexa face.  She's so darn cute!

Happy Halloween 2013

This year for Halloween the girls dressed up as their favorite characters from the movie Frozen. Kirsten was the older sister, Queen Elsa, and Alexa was the younger sister, Princess Anna. 

My Mom got their costumes for them and shipped them to our house a month ago. The girls have been anxiously awaiting for Halloween to arrive so they could finally put them on!

Pumpkin Patch

It was a beautiful fall day in early October so Gordon and I took the girls to the Center Grove Orchard, which has a lot of fun activities and a lot of pumpkins!

Omaha Zoo!

While we were in Omaha attending the wedding we decided to take the girls to the Zoo.  A cold snap had come through the mid-west so there were hardly any people at the Zoo, which was fine by us!  We got through the entire thing in 4 hours :)

One, two, three, four, five...jump!

The family took a trip to Omaha to attend the wedding of one of Gordon's team members and I captured this video of the girls jumping across the beds.  Sorry Marriott, but your beds are more fun than ours!