Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a fun Thanksgiving with our family in Chicago. 

Trip got off to a slow start with delay.  At least Kyle and Emily were well entertained by shows and video games in the airport.

Kyle and Emily had some quality time with Grandma reading books and really making great progress in learning to read.

Kari drying Emily's hair

Ikie boo chilling with some milk

Visiting Santa

Playing in the 'snow' just before seeing Santa

Plasma car races with Gloria

Pinball with Papa

Kyle LOVES pinball

Check out his score - 98,000!!!

He's pretty proud of his pinball skills

Dance party with all the cousins at Josh and Stephanie's place.

All the cousins (who can walk) dancing together

Daddy weekend

This weekend I went skiing with Spike at Mammoth.  While I was having a blast skiing with Spike, the kids had a great Daddy weekend. They were very busy with all kinds of kid activities that were fun for Jeff and the kids alike.

They did their first kid race, a 100 meter run I believe.  In the rain no less!

Kyle getting ready for his race

Little racers

It was quite rainy for their race, but they enjoyed getting to use their rarely used rain gear.

Jeff also took them over to Sea World, but this wasn't just their normal Sea World experience.  This was the Sea World experience where they got to go behind the scenes and get up close and personal with dolphins and sea turtles.  Emily, in particular, loved this as she is quite the little animal lover. And dolphins are one of her favorites. 

Here comes the dolphin

Dolphin smiling at Emily

Up close with a dolphin

Feeding the turtles some lettuce

Turtles

Sea World experience

And since we were all going skiing together in a few weeks, I sent Kyle and Emily videos of skiing as I went down the hill so they could see what it is all about.  Plus, with our different schedules and the difficulties in answering a phone while going down a ski run, it was also a nice way to say hi even if we couldn't connect live.  Apparently, Kyle and Emily kept asking to watch the videos.  :-)

*Comment from Jeff with further explanation: Not only did Kyle and Emily keep asking to see mommy's recorded videos of her skiing, but they are so used to skype/facetime calls with family, that they would verbally and visually respond to Kathleen's videos: when Kathleen would say "I love you Kyle and Emily" in the recordings, Kyle and Emily would respond out-loud: "We love you too Mommy!", and when Kathleen would say "bye-bye" into the camera, the kids would wave and blow kisses good-bye. This was particularly cute after watching the same video 7-8 times and seeing it elicit the same responses.

And here, they sent me a video to say thank you for your videos and that they were having a birthday party for I Love Crystal, Emily's doll.  They had some delicious banana cream pie that I had made prior to leaving. 

Excited for dessert

Pie time

Spike and I on our ski trip. Those mini skis really are the size I use and like!

Preschool Fall Play

Kyle and Emily have been having a great time at preschool this year. This fall, they did their fall harvest play. Kyle, surprisingly, chose to be bananas. Emily chose to be cherries. In school, the kids worked hard to put on the play, making their costumes and the accompanying set pieces.   They each got to determine what their lines would be.  Following their play, they had a delicious harvest meal together.  

All lined up as fruits and vegetables

Kyle as a banana.  Surprising, right?!

Emily as cherries.

Kyle says his lines: "I make a banana pie and a banana snack called Laffy Taffy."

Emily says her lines: "I make a delicious cherry juice."

Kyle going into the basket.

Emily going into the basket

All the little fruits and vegetables in the basket!

Cutie Emily

Just some fun pictures of Emily from the fall.

From our November family picture session

Kyle taking a picture of Emily getting her picture taken

Some impressive artwork.  Kyle drew a monkey and Emily drew a fire bird.

Emily loves getting her face painted.

Taking her babies out for a stroll

Emily and Dax taking a stroll and Dax telling Emily about the flowers

Still holding hands

6 miles with Kyle

Today I was supposed to run a half marathon race.  For many reasons, I did not run the race and had a far better time not running it.  Feeling guilty (read: lazy) for not doing the race, I instead woke closer to 9am (instead of 4am) with everyone and went on a 6 mile run.  But this was a great run.  Kyle wanted to join so he got on his bike and biked 6 miles with me. He sure can bike!  I was super impressed with his endurance.  He was very proud of his accomplishment too.  We had done a 3 mile run / bike before, but that was the longest.  

And Kyle was fantastic company.  We talked the entire time - he sure is wonderfully chatty .  He was as happy as can be.  We talked about school, going to see Grandma and Papa, playing games, exercise, good food, muscles, and Grandma B and Papa B who live in the castle on the cloud. 

I didn't even feel like I had run 6 miles because it was so much fun with him. Thanks for a great run Kyle!

After our ride / run

A video recap of our 6 miles together. I love his closing notes. I thought he'd say something like "Go Bears" since we've been talking about how the Bears play today and we all were excited to watch the game. But you'll have to play the video to hear what he had to say. Prepare to be surprised.  :-)

Xmas tree

Yes, I know we just had Halloween. Yes, I know we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet.  But clearly the shopping centers, Target in particular, are all about Christmas already.  Nothing new.  Halloween's over so it must be holiday season!  Anyhow, the kids and I went to Target probably for one tiny thing, but we came out with a mini Christmas tree of the kids' choosing.  And I kept telling them I would get out some decorations during their nap that Mom gave to us (but they are stored in the kids' room) so they took matters into their own hands.  Thank goodness for creativity!  I love how they decorated their tree!!  A purse, crayons, colored pencils, goggles, necklace, bracelet, headband, donuts (plastic play food), stickers, flashlight, a party hat all made the cut.