mallory's christmas program

mallory had her preschool program tonight. 

her class sang a couple of songs. 

greg came for dinner and the show.  he made mallory feel very important!

she sang her little heart out!

great job mal! 

tuff guy

kale fell down the other day and got a pretty good shiner!

he really looks like a fighter now! 

nana and papa visit

nana and papa surprised us and came for a visit!

we did lots of fun stuff. 

papa did some wood projects for me.

nana did ALOT of sewing! 

papa also did alot of homework with olivia. 

we got behind with all the poems livs is suppose to do and

papa picked up my slack!

we had an early christmas with nana and papa and the ehlerts.

everyone loved their presents

 and it was fun to have them there when we opened their presents!

can you find ben?

we also went to a car museum in rogers, MN.

it was seriously awesome.

we ended up staying for about 2 hours. 

they had all sorts of different cars from every time period.

there was video games, a player piano, lots of different memorablia to look at.

we had the best time.

of course i didn't take my camera!  boo.

we ended our time at the museum by dancing to some songs on the old juke box!

i think we may go back sometime with brett!!

decorating the tree

we decorated the tree today.

mallory got a turn to put the star on the tree.

we let the kids do most of the decorating, except the lights,

so most of the decorations are a little low!

we are so excited christmas is finally here!!

dan the elf

a small visitor arrived at our house today. 

OUR CHRISTMAS ELF.

we read the story and named him dan the elf.

the kids weren't too sure if he really had magic.

well, the next morning they came back to find him and he moved.

he flew into the card holder on the door!! 

dan wanted to see if the kids were eating their food!!

we our excited to see where dan will hide this christmas season.

THE TREE!!

tonight we went and got our christmas tree.

the kids were so excited! 

we went down the street to a little tree lot in coborns parking lot.

we looked at all the trees and the kids picked one. 

when we went to pay, they only took cash.

we had to walk over to coborn's and get some cash.

as we came out to go and get the tree it was snowing.

big, beautiful flakes. 

it was sort of magical!!

no, i didn't lose all my teeth.  just a not so great photo!

thanksgiving

we had a very relaxing thanksgiving. 

we stayed here in minneapolis and had greg and brett's co worker ian over for dinner.

we have never been people to make the normal turkey, so....

(it's really because i have never made a turkey and those turkey guts scare me!)

brett decided he was craving meatloaf and we should have meatloaf for thanksgiving dinner.

when greg found out he wanted to make a meatloaf too!

so, the meatloaf cook off began.

both meatloafs tasted amazing!!

  i think it might be a tradition to have a cook off of something other than turkey

for thanksgiving.

the rest of the day was full of playing and football.

just what thanksgiving should be.

enough snow to play in!!

it finally really snowed today!!

the kids got all bundled up and went outside right away!

snow angels, a snowball fight and shoveling. 

livy forgot she didn't have snowpants on. 

awesome.

kale's hair cut

it no secret that my man is starting to really lack in the hair area.

good thing i think "shaved heads" are super sexy!!

so, brett LOVES to cut and style kale's hair. 

here is the new faux hawk.

kale still thinks "smile for the camera"

means pose like a fighter guy. 

pumpkin patch part 1

we took the kids to a pumpkin patch and maze today.  we had a great time.

they had a petting zoo with all sorts of animals.

we feed and brushed the animals.

next, it was on to the maze.  we tried to lose the kids, but they keep following us!

then, the best part of all was the pit of corn.

we played in it for about an hour.  we had to rip the kids out of there!