The Christmas Tree!

The Christmas Parade!

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, our small town celebrates the beginning of the Christmas season and Santa's arrival with a parade. Hundreds of people gather on either side of the main street, anxiously watching the various floats until Santa rides into town on top of a decorated fire truck.

Maya and Kai kept asking "Is that the REAL santa?" each time they saw someone dressed in a santa suit on a float. Somehow, they both knew when the REAL Santa arrived, because they didn't even ask...they just looked in awe towards the top of the firetruck and waved.

90% Off Sale on Halloween Merchandise!

As we were running errands today, we came across the "90% off Sale" on all halloween costumes. We took full advantage and decided to add some male variety to our current dress-up collection of princess and frilly dresses.

The kids spent the entire afternoon pretending to be the "power ranger rescue squad" and "Dr. Pirate". It's amazing how much entertainment $4.00 can buy.

The Dunes State Park!

Today, Maya's preschool class took a fieldtrip to the Indiana Dunes State Park. It was a beautiful sunny day to walk through the woods and learn about different animals. Siblings were also invited to attend this trip making an exciting morning for Kai.

Ranger Brad taught us about the different kinds of habitats. We even got to visit the swamp habitat and learn about swamp animals and "duck weed". We also learned how to call chickadees making a silly whistle sound.

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Today, our black lab Hunter, is 7 years old. Who knew that the crazy puppy that we brought home 7 years ago would turn out to be such a wonderful pet and companion.

I still remember the crazy things he did as a puppy. Here's just a couple:

*running up a flight of stairs with a stick in his mouth, stumbling half way up, and somehow lodging the stick into the back of his throat.

* finding a tiny loose end in the brand new berber carpet,and pulling and pulling on it until a 12x12 square had completely vanished from the middle of our living room.

* chewing Uncle Rick's cell phone to bits

Although he's still a crazy dog, these are the 10 reasons we love Hunter:

1. Even though he's 85 pounds, he truely believes that his place in life is on a lap.

2. He always greets us at the door by carrying one of our shoes in his mouth.

3. He tolerates Maya or Kai sitting on him and tugging on his ears.

4. Even though he hates riding in the car, he is always so excited to go places with us.

5. He cries with excitement when we get near Didi and Papa's cottage or the lake.

6. Although he has a loud bark, he is such a big baby and hates any kind of loud or strange noise.

7. He only listens when he wants to or when we tell him that there is something in his bowl.

8. He loves watching birds and airplanes and will stop still in his tracts to do so.

9. He runs like a race horse and loves going for long walks on the trails.

10. His favorite place in the house is on our bed and he sleeps with us every night.

Happy Birthday Hunter...we love you!

Color-ific!

Our local fire station had a coloring contest. Coloring pages of Sparky the fire dog were handed out to area preschools and elementary schools. Maya couldn't wait to enter her rendition of Sparky.

She proudly hand-delivered her completed masterpiece to the fire station a couple of weeks ago. We got "the call" congratulating Maya on winning 3rd place. She got her picture taken on a real fire truck with the other winners and was given a gift certificate to Kmart.

Congrats Maya! We're so proud of you!

The Beach!

58 degrees + blue sky + warm sunshine + slight breeze = fall beach day!

Raking Leaves?

We spent much of the afternoon raking leaves. But was it really raking? Last year, Maya and Kai decided to use shovels to "rake" their leaves. This year, they were even more creative and used a broom and croket mallet. Who knew how effective these two tools could be to gather leaves into a pile.

After the front yard was finished, Maya begged to rake the back yard. Oh how I wish Dom and I shared this same enthusiasm towards household tasks and yard work.

FYI, Maya's arm is fine. She just happened to be sporting an ace bandage because she wanted a pretend "broken arm" today.