We are thankful for.....

I decided to summarize our November events with a list of things we are thankful for......

#1: We are thankful for the many many leaves that fall onto our yard because it creates lots of leaf piles to jump into, allows us to get out of the house and burn our energy, and gives daddy a reason to take us back into the woods to explore the creek!!

#2: We are very thankful for Will's new potty that has a really high shield to stop him from spraying all over the floor!!!

#3: We really aren't super thankful for daddy's long trips to San Antonio for work. However, we are thankful for the cool cowboy gear he brought home so we can play cowboy and cowgirl in the garage and ride our "horses" around and around and around.

#4: We are thankful for the 4 Thanksgiving celebrations we attended this month. It gave us lots of opportunities to work on our baking skills and for Mommy and Daddy to practice their self control when it comes to all the wonderful food! YIKES!!! Since then I've been running & running & running trying to make up for all the poor self control I have!



#5: We are thankful for our great playdates with friends and the West Des Moines community center's free open gym on Wednesdays. We love it!!

#6: We are thankful for Grandma's birthday. We got to make her a delicious chocolate cake, some wonderful bday cards, sing, and help her blow out her 28 candles, right Grandma!!

#7: We are thankful for Uncle Johnny's visit to see us! We don't get to see him very often, so we got really really hiper and crazy when he came over for a sleepover. He let the kids scream and crawl all over him!

#8: We are thankful that Nana and Papa are on the ball this year and already had their xmas tree up at Thanksgiving. The enormous tree provided a great hiding spot and lots of fun!!

#9: Finally, we are thankful for busy busy days and naptime together!

We hope everyone had a great holiday!!

Halloween Fun!!

Once again Halloween was a hit this year. Brett decided to get crafty this year and make these light up pumpkins for the front porch. The neighbors thought they were pretty cool!! If you can't tell, Kate was a spider again this year and Will was Elmo. NO I didn't persuade Kate to be a spider again to save a little money!! She really wanted to be a spider again. So I went with it.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho off for candy we go!

Smiles continued past the first street this year!! Every year they get a little older a little farther we go!!!

We also went to a family Halloween party in the neighborhood this year. Kate decided to switch things up a bit and be Abby off of Sesame Street to compliment Elmo. Oh, what a sweet big sister!!

Kate and her friend Avery had a blast together in the Jump house and running around eating nothing but sugar. As you can see, they're definitely on a sugar high for this shot!!

Will chilled out in the living room with his friend Jordyn for a lot of the night.



Brett and I decided to get a really great book on face painting and give it a try this year. I did a mascarade theme. My friend Julie was a cute ladybug.

And Brett did 1/2 skeleton 1/2 Pirate. Here he is with the "Dead Nurse" A.K.A our friend Lisa.

Another great Halloween for the record books!

Birthdays and Racing

Brett and I got to get away to celebrate our birthdays and one of our great college buddy's wedding a few weeks ago. It was so nice going on a date again and sleeping in in the morning!! Brett is struggling a bit with the BIG 3-0! But slowly is getting use to the idea. Here we are at the wedding reception having a blast!

And the architects meet again!! These boys pulled so many all nighters together during architecture school trying to meet those project deadlines. I sometimes am so amazed they got through it. They had so much fun goofing off again like they always did!

It is too bad we can't find more time to get together like we use to. Instead we all keep having babies!! We tried to plan a gathering for next summer at the Lake. Let's hope we can all keep it on our calendar. I'll cross my fingers!
After our St. Louis trip we came back to the Burg for a family birthday party. Pizza Haus pizza, cheesecake, and chocolate zuchini cake, can't get much better than that!! YUMMY!!

The following week I ran Race for a Cure with my great running buddies Lori and Shelly. Wow!! How inspiring! The race went great and I was really happy with my time! I'm really getting addicted to this running thing. Lori has done 2 marathons so she's a great trainer for me. The Des Moines 1/2 marathon is our goal for next year....... one mile at a time.

Wish me Luck!!!