Almost Time!

Just finished mailing off their Christmas Letters to Santa!

First Real Snow

 This is Sophie's first real experience with the snow - we got about 8 inches today, she cannot figure out why I put these things on her hands:)

 Jack is a bit excited to finally play in the cold white stuff:)

 Sophie's about had it here, why oh why mom are you putting me through this???

 This seems to be the first time Annabelle is really enjoying the snow, yeahy! The slide was so fast, and extra padding at the bottom, Jack decided to try it face first:)

 Snow Angels!

Getting Ready For Christmas

We've been busy getting ready for Christmas this Thanksgiving Break.  The kids have both started a couple of weeks ago to work on chore charts to earn money for their cousins Christmas present, it is so fun to see, because they get so excited to take out the garbage, mop the floor, feed the animals, do the dishes, help with yard work, and other chores like help take shingles off another cousins house to prep it for roof repair.  It's been amazing to see them still so excited (I think we are 3 weeks into it and their charts are almost filled up) and then always saying that they almost have enough to buy so and so's gift.

We've also decided to do some new decorations at our house.

Here are snow globes we worked on yesterday. Jack's is the Santa with Christmas Trees and Annabelle made the 3 snowmen.

They also helped me choose the ribbon and make this fun new wreath for our front door.

 

 Today we were working on writing letters to Santa - a great way to utilize the new fully equipped pencil box Jack just got from Papa.

 The kids have really been looking forward to making these letters.  Jack has been carrying around the Target Toy Magazine since it came in the beginning of November.  Sophie kept patting the picture of the buggy (she loves to ride these at other people's houses) and Annabelle insisted we also ask for the tea set for her.  Yes, she has a plastic knife, I just got the pizza out of her mouth for a second and she grabbed this from behind her:)

 

 Annabelle had fun cutting out her pictures, and chopping up the pictures of the kids playing with the toys because she really doesn't like that they get to play with the toys and not her (issues!)

 I couldn't not post this, it's so funny!

 Annabelle's letter:

Dear Santa,

I would like a bow and arrow, a pink purse, play-doh, Turtles in a half shell game, Ninjago game, batman game. Thank you, Annabelle

She doesn't want to send Santa the letter with the pictures she made so she asked me to write it down (word for word like she said) and then she traced it all:)

 Jack's letter has a Ninjago lego set, Samurai Temple, few dinosaur toys, a Halo lego set, and everything the catalog had that had Skylanders on it, including a Wii U:) The only words:

To Santa From Jack Miche

 and Sophie's first letter to Santa, she had fun coloring the paper and patting and kissing the two pictures:)

Now we just have to go mail the letters off to dear old Santa:)

Fun Times Swimming in the Tub

Happy Halloween!

With a last minute costume change idea we went as Ninjago

Jack is Jay, the Blue Ninja

Annabelle is Kai, the Red Ninja

Sophie is Zane the White Ninja

I am Cole, the Black Ninja

and Stephen is our Black Sensai:)

We had a great time, although this picture looks different, the kids actually all were really into their costumes:)

Harry Potter Halloween Party

 Welcome to our Harry Potter Halloween Party!

 Tonight we are surving Eyeball Casserole, Mummy Dogs, Frankenstein Bites, Owl Cupcakes, and Grapey Witches Brew - yum!

 The kids helped make all these owl's! And they were delicious!

 Annabelle helped me with all the set up and decorations, check out our cute centerpiece! 

 Cuties ready to party! We have Batman, a little witch and Spud Collins the Newsie:)

 The kids watching How Harry Potter Should Have Ended (Trinity does not like this version:))

 The sorting hat ceremony, and they both made Gryffindor!

 We started out with making magic future telling potions in Divination Class:

Red = Love

Yellow = long life

Green = wealth

Blue = intelligence

Again, both my kiddos got green, for wealth! yeahy! maybe they can support us later:)

 Then on to Potions with Proffessor Snape

Basilisk Venom

Cute little friends paying very close attention to the potions lesson

Then onto the Horcrux Hunt

First we started with crossing the river of dead bodies to the island where the necklace was.

Each team had to cross the water on paper plates, not touching anything except the plates - if you fell in you had to start over with the whole team.



Then a scavenger hunt for the rest of the horcruxes, including the ring of slytherin, diadiam of ravenclaw, chalise of hufflepuff, nagini, and Tom Riddle's Diary.  The scavenger hunt was filled with riddles, backwards writing, puzzles, scrambled words an owlery and other fun things.  Then once all the clues were found the teams had to destroy the horcruxes in the cursed fire, the basilisk potion we created earlier, popping nagini and stealing the sword of Gryffindor from a witch (me) to kill the diadiam.  Overall, we had a super great time!

And one last thing, we went chestnut hunting the day before, and these are our soldiers, deer, cameras, Annabelle, Sophie, and Jack's we made:)

The Clubhouse!

So this has been our project all summer long.  Thanks to some lovely neighbors that needed to clear out their trailer we had a lot of the supplies free! The kids gave their fair share of work in here.  Now all we need to do is finishing touches like a door, some pretty framing, a crow's nest, and figure out what to put around the clubhouse!  And the awesome slide, which is super fast and long! Is a present from my grandma

Dziekujemy Babuniu za present dla dzieci na ich urodziny! Kupilam jim zjezdzalnie za te pieniondze!

 Annabelle made sure to color on all the boards for the deck

 Jack helped Stephen pound everything together

 The boys working on putting the walls up

 Getting ready to paint

 Painting with their best buddy Alayna - it's practically her clubhouse, too

 Trying out the slide for the first time

 On the side next to the slide their is a metal wall where the kids can set up tubes and throw balls through them.  The front window will have a flower bed under it and the door will be framed, and there:) The upper window will also have a frame.

 The bottom of the deck has a patriotic night sky, the kids loved it so much that the upper ceiling will be painted like this, too, next year.

 The long window will eventually have a counter and play sink under it

 The girls in the loft