A few things we've been up to....

Kate learned to swing on the monkey bars, we went back to this park many times. It was fun to see her so proud of herself after trying so many times to get all the way across.Aren't they cute? They love going down the slide together.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends. LOTS of yummy food, enough for us all to take leftovers home of almost everything.This picture doesn't do it justice since it's all still covered, it was all sooooo good. My SIL made all of the pies. Don't they look good - they were, especially the blueberry one. The whole day was a lot of fun, complete with Uncle Peter out shooting coyotes or at least watching for them. He got a new coyote caller or something. I discovered that I don't like the sound of a gun up-close. No worries though, they've only seen the coyotes at night or at least that's what they tell us so we'll bring our kids around! We didn't waste any time getting our tree up the next day. We're almost ashamed to have a fake tree here where everyone goes out to cut their own down but we didn't want to wait and we have this one so handy. So next year we'll have our adventure out cutting one. The kiddos LOVED decorating it of course. Here they are with their new ornaments for the year. Kate with a glittery tree and Jack with a soft unbreakable Snowman. Decorating Sugar cookies. Yummy - what a difference almond flavoring makes in the icing. We've had quite a few games of hide and go seek lately and this was my favorite place to find Jack in. He's funny, he'll count on his own now, 1..2..5..7..8.. Ear I come! He's also still loving his spiderman hat from Halloween, I'm not sure when we'll give the costume back to his cousin Josh, that will be a sad day for Jack.
And lastly, Ray made Nuts and Bolts last night. The holidays are not complete without an endless supply of his mom's recipe for Nuts and Bolts. They turned out mighty fine and we'll enjoy them over the next few weeks.