Thanksgiving

We're in Chicago for Thanksgiving, and the kids are having a great time playing with their cousin Ethan. Here are some photos from our trip today to a children's museum, which the kids loved.

Molly, who doesn't like to share, carried as many toy cars to the track as she could, I'm guessing to keep the other kids from having them.

The kids also enjoyed playing in the Metzls' basement on Thanksgiving day. Josh is demonstrating how to wear safety gear while exercising, or perhaps he's just being weird.

Our "little angel"

We frequently are told that Molly looks like a "little angel" when we take her out in public, I'm guessing because of the puffy blond hair. I usually try not to laugh when people make those comments, as her behavior is anything by angelic. If they only knew!

Today we all went out in the backyard in the late afternoon, and Chris and I got occupied cleaning up some boxes from the construction while Josh and Molly played. I looked up once and saw that Molly had gone in the house. When I tried to open the door, it was locked--she had somehow managed to turn the little knob on the door. I tried not to panic--our neighbor has a key and two of their three cars were in the driveway. Unfortunately, they apparently had all gone out in the third car. I tried to get Molly to turn the knob, and she got so frustrated that she laid down on the kitchen floor and threw a 15-minute tantrum.

Chris went to another neighbor's to call Emily, who also has a key, but I knew she was out visiting a friend. Luckily (Molly had now moved her tantrum to Josh's room and was clearly not going to try to open the door again) this neighbor was able to break into our house using a putty knife in about 10 seconds. We were relieved to get back in, but not so relieved to know how easy it is to break into the house.

Here are some more pre-lockout pictures:

They're baaaaaack!

The giant trees in our yard have celebrated the abrupt arrival of freezing cold weather by dumping their leaves within a week. We are seriously considering hiring a professional raker this year to deal with the leaf carpet, as the leaf cleanup task gets more unsavory every year.

We had a break from the sub-arctic temperatures today, so Josh and Molly spent some time with the leaves. The above picture is not a good sign for upcoming attempts at a Christmas photo.

More from Florida

Here are some more pictures I finally downloaded from the camera.

I think the highlight of Josh's weekend was climbing a deer stand, a first for him. He now asks me every day when we're going back to the deer stand, which the deer should be very happy about. No deer is going to come within shooting distance of a stand with Josh (and his very loud voice) in it!

Molly and the twins really enjoyed playing in their booster seats, more confirmation that the best toys aren't really toys.

Molly and the twins also really enjoyed leftover birthday cake. When my dad sat down with a piece, they swarmed all over him. He fed them two pieces, then announced he was getting his own piece and eating it in the kitchen.

Molly has been slow to catch on to the idea of sharing, as you can see by the sour look on her face when she realized she really did have to share the slide with Elizabeth.

I'm not sure what inspired Chris to see if Molly could hang from the monkey bars, but surprisingly, she could.

Happy Birthday Granny!

We made the trek to NW Florida this weekend for a momentous occasion--my grandmother's 90th birthday party. She seemed very happy with the large turnout of family and friends who came to celebrate. This is me, Dad, Josh, Molly and a few of our cousins getting ready to lead the crowd in "Happy Birthday."

Molly attached herself to my mom, and she had no problem shoving twins out of the way to get to my mom first. We are raising quite the mannered young lady.

Josh's favorite part of the birthday party was the cake.

My cousins stayed at my grandmother's house with us on Saturday (18 people in one house!), and it was awesome to see Josh playing with my cousins' children. My brother and I spent many, many hours playing on the farm with our cousins when we were children.

My cousin Paul brought the "trailer of fun," as Chris and I called it, which carried two four-wheelers and a canoe.

Josh and his cousins Rusty Lee and Shade

Molly giving Flash the dog a kiss

Canoeing on my grandmother's catfish pond

Construction update

We're pretty sure that our addition is going to be finished this week! The contractors cleared all of their tools out on Friday, so we could finally get a good picture of it. All that remains is some painting, installation of light fixtures and finishing the deck. This is looking into the new room from our family room.

This is standing in the new room looking toward the door to the new office.

Looking into the new office.

Standing in the office, the French door goes into our bedroom.

Standing in the French doors looking into the office. Chris' new closet is on the left.

And, some random pictures from the weekend:
Josh and Molly "resting" on the couch.

The Finks came over tonight for dinner and a tour of the addition.