Getting ready for Christmas

 We have been busy baking. I LOVE baking for Christmas. The girls are such good decorators!

 The girls had their Christmas program on Sunday. I watched from the sidelines as I helped with the program this year.  Apparently Gretta only lifted up her shirt once to play with her belly button.  (thankfully I missed that part) Uffda!
 

 Gretta was an angel in the program and Mari was a sheep.

 Mari's homework this weekend was to make a Santa face. She said the mouth needed to be round & black because he was saying "ho, ho, ho".  

Trick or Treat!

What a nice Halloween night! The weather was nice for this time of year-no wind & no snow!
All 3 kids really got into Halloween this year! Mari & Gretta were both witches, but had different costumes. Tate was a lion. He even roared for us!  Simon & I brought a stroller along thinking Tate would not want to walk or get tired but he got upset if we put him in it. He wanted to walk up to the door & pick out his own piece of candy!

6 years old!

We can hardly believe little Mari is now 6 years old!  Our little 4 pounder is now 44 lbs!
She celebrated her birthday by having 4 friends over from school on Sunday for a Minnie Mouse themed party.  They played outside, ate lunch (not much though, too excited to eat), made necklaces, open gifts & ate cake (they ate more of that then lunch-ha). The afternoon was rounded off by an all out coloring session. We rolled out a newspaper roll and the kids went to crazy! 10 ft of coloring paper taped to the floor was a hit!
Mari brought frosted pumpkin cookies to school on Monday as her birthday treats.  (oh do I remember the excitement of bringing birthday treats!)

Amber, Adrienne, Sydney, Mari & Skylar

Making necklaces

Playing Duck Duck Goose

They sat so close together during the gift opening!

 Sydney, Gretta, Skylar, Mari, Tate, Adrienne, & Amber

Everyone having fun coloring

Simon was very busy tracing all the kiddos feet! Ha!

Mari wearing her birthday crown from school and showing off her birthday card (shaped like a birthday cake) signed by all her classmates.

Gretta's 1st Day of Preschool

We can hardly believe Miss Gretta is old enough for preschool! She is getting to be such a big girl!

Gretta did great at school, she did not cry (and neither did we). She did have this kind of lost/confused look on her face. About 1/2 the class was crying so she really wasn't sure what to do with herself.

Here are some photos from her first day.

Mari's First day of School

It was a great day! Mari did great. She was so excited and not at all hesitate. Mom had a few moments of tears, can't believe she is old enough for this big adventure but also tears of excitement for Mari.

Here are some pictures from the day.

Getting her backpack ready the night before school

Standing on the front steps of school watching the other kids come to school

With her teacher Mrs. Noer

After school sporting her first art project

Lake Winnie

What a week! Lots of fun times sprinkled with a few ouchies. It was a success-everyone came home with the same number of teeth as when they left and no one went to the hospital!

Tate started off the week by falling out of my bed, nothing like a black eye & some scrapes to start out the week! Ha ha! Mari & Gretta fell countless times, skinned elbows & knees still remain. But a fun time was had by all. I can't even tell you how much fun the kids had with their cousins.

Simon caught a 45 1/2 inch musky (just to clarify that is still smaller than mine HA!) and was so pleased to have another monster musky.

We also celebrated Simon's 32nd birthday. The girls decided daddy needed to have bucks on his cake so we picked out 2 deer for the top of his cake.

Here are some photos from the week, there are more in an album on facebook-(you don't need an account) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=269778&id=512580829&l=db91e52d14