We had such a great Thanksgiving!  I was disappointed that we couldn’t be with family, and even the friends we invited weren’t able to come.  But our feast turned out so delicious, and we had a great day together as a family.

We had preschool at our house on Tuesday.  Here the kids are showing turkeys they made by threading toothpicks with marshmellows, raisins, and craisins, then sticking the toothpicks into an apple.

We also made pilgrim hats.  Kathryn wore hers most of the day and begged me to make her a pilgrim dress, too.

These are the lovely Thanksgiving/Birthday flowers I got from the Cold Lake Melanchuks!  I love them!

This is the picture of our table right before we ate.  One girl is hiding under the table cloth.   I asked everyone to mention something they were thankful forduring this year.  Darryl said our experience in Kyiv, especially the wonderful friends we had there.  I said Daniel!  Both of the girls were thankful for our feast. 

I am also thankful for a husband that loves to cook and is quite good at it!  We divided the cooking between us.  For dessert we each made a pie.  I made pumpkin and Darryl made chocolate pecan.  Kathryn had been saying the whole day she didn’t like pumpkin pie.  But we served her some and asked her to taste it.  She started eating it and when I asked her how it tasted, she put two thumbs up over her head!  Amelia and Daniel gobbled theirs up, too. 

Throughout the day Darryl was practicing for our family photo shoot today.

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Yesterday morning Amelia wanted to wear Kathryn’s clothes.  I said that was okay if she asked Kathryn for permission.  Surprisingly, Kathryn said yes.  Then she decided to wear Amelia’s clothes.  Amelia is about 2 inches and 3 pounds smaller than Kathryn, so they can pretty much exchange clothes.  And then they decided to be each other for the day.  Amelia really did not want to wear a diaper, since Kathryn doesn’t wear diapers.  Luckily I was able to convince her to wear one, but perhaps this can be used in the near future for potty training.

Wow, were we ever impressed at how much they got into it!  We had to call them the other name the whole day, and going to the park they wore each other’s coat and shoes.  Good thing they have the same shoe size.  They even sat in each other’s car seat.  They thought it was so cool. 

Amelia kept saying she liked pink, and used the pink cup and plate for her lunch.  Kathryn used blue.  If you know them, you know that Kathryn would never accept anyting but a pink cup and plate for lunch.  And Amelia loves anything and everything blue. 

They also each wanted 5 braids in their hair.  They weren’t cooperating very well for pictures, so it doesn’t show the hair very well.  It doesn’t look like much, but for us it is obvious of the change.  Amelia is wearing a classic outfit of Kathryn’s, and Amelia just doesn’t choose pink very often.  Kathryn is wearing Amelia’s favorite pants. 

At nap time, Amelia went downstairs for quiet time while Kathryn went upstairs for naptime in Amelia’s bed. 

They even wore each other’s pajamas to bed and slept in each other’s bed.  And the funniest part was Kathryn insisted on taking Amelia’s silky bop to bed.  She would not give it up to the real Amelia, so we had to come up with another one for her.  This morning when they woke up in each other’s pajamas, they thought they were still that person.  So I made them change pajamas!  Now we’re back to normal.

Amelia, Kathryn | 1 Comment »

Daniel turned 10 months on Monday.  He is growing at a slower rate, so he is down to the 75th percentile for height and weight.  Here are some of the things he is doing these days.

If you guessed climbing you’re right!  I have never had a real climber so I’m getting worried.  He does the stairs so quickly, and loves to climb on anything to reach higher.

Oh yeah, and he just started walking!!!  He takes 4 or 5 unassisted steps several times a day.

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 Here are the pictures from Halloween!  On Friday the kids went trick-or-treating at Darryl’s office.  I love a chance to show Darryl’s coworkers how cute his kids are.  Amelia ended up with about twice as much candy as Kathryn.  She was not shy about taking more than one piece!  It was really quite funny.  Several people were not in their offices but left candy out in a bowl.  Amelia helped herself very liberally.  Kathryn took one piece, if she even noticed the bowl.

Saturday was the trunk-or-treat.  After a hotdog dinner of which each girl ate no more than 2 bites, there were games, and then trunk-or-treating.  Darryl was sick so I took all three kids and not the camera.  I just didn’t want to try to deal with that big thing with the three kids.  I need to get myself a “normal” camera.  The highlight for me was Amelia eating a chocolate cupcake while trick-or-treating.  She held the cupcake in one hand, and her pumpkin-bucket in the other.  Her face was covered in chocolate and she would just hold her bucket up to the person. 

We took plenty of pictures of the costumes before, so here they are.  I have taken great pleasure in trying to put together costumes without buying the whole thing.  It is so fun and satisfying for me.  I think for two reasons.  One, it just seems too expensive.  Two, my mother always made our Halloween costumes and it is my attempt to do the same, but without a sewing machine.  

So here they are.  Kathryn was a fairy.  Not to be confused with a butterfly or a ballerina.  A ballerina may have a similar skirt, but no wings or wand.  And a butterfly has wings, but no wand.  Kathryn got a little frustrated when several people thought she was a ballerina or a butterfly.  I admit, I was also frustrated.  What butterfly or ballerina has a wand?  She did get a butterfly painted on her cheek at the trunk-or-treat, which she loved.

Amelia was Cinderella.  I really didn’t think she would want to be a princess, and it didn’t seem to fit her personality, but I couldn’t dissuade her.  She really wanted to be Cinderella.  And I really wanted her to choose, so it worked out.  I think the blue dress made the decision.  She loves blue.

These are just such Amelia faces, I had to post them.  She loves her red “silky-bop”.  And she loves to play the piano.  She’ll just open to a page and start playing and singing and it is so cute.

Daniel was my little pirate.  The cutest pirate I ever saw!  He hated to keep the bandana on his head, but we were able to get a some pictures with it.  I know I’m biased, but can this little guy get any cuter?!

I just realized that none of these pictures show the bottom of Daniel’s pirate jeans.  Just so I can remember in the future, they were cut off zigzag like a pirate.

And just for the record, we got zero trick-or-treaters to our door.  In the three Halloween’s we’ve lived here, I think we may have gotten one.  This is why I want to move to a suburb.

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