Putting up the tree

We usually put our Christmas tree up right after Thanksgiving, but Elizabeth was adament about putting the tree up last weekend. We don't have much room in our living room for a tree, but just have a small artificial tree, so it works. The kids have so much fun looking through all of their old ornaments and hanging them on the tree.

The second day the tree was up, our cat had already knocked it over and the stand broke. I was going to buy a new one, but Jeremy rigged up quite the tree stand out of 2x4's. It's pretty funny and looks very redneckish, but I covered with a tree skirt and I think it will be able to withstand our devil cat!

Taylor's year to put the angel on top!
Getting ready for the Christmas season!!

Time for the hard cast!

Lizzy went in on Tuesday to have a hard cast put on her elbow. The check-up went fine which we were thankful for. I had tried to change the appointment last week and they said that it needed to be on a day that the doctor was in surgery in case they needed to bring her back in for surgery if anything had moved, but thankfully that was not the case.

Last night with the soft cast-now mom and dad won't have to worry so much about Lizzy bumping her arm.
You can see the two little green capped pins in this picture. You can also see the doctors initials a number of times on her arm from when she had the surgery-want to make sure they are working on the right arm!!

Lizzy had planned on a green cast all along and when I suggested that she should get a red stripe for Christmas, her eyes got real big and she said "can I really get two colors?? I know what colors I'm going to get!" And here she is with her Packer colored cast. Jeremy tried to write "Go Vikings!" on it, but she confiscated the marker.

Lizzy's trip to the ER

Lizzy is recovering quite well after breaking her elbow and having surgery to have pins put in last weekend. She was doing some cheers in her bedroom with a friend and somehow knocked over a folding chair which folded up on her arm. She has been in great spirits and is managing quite well with one arm. She doesn't have much patience and is struggling with having to wait for help with the things she can't do with one arm, but overall is doing great.

She goes in for her hard cast on Tuesday. I'll feel a little more comfortable when she has the hard cast on so I won't have to worry about those pins getting bumped too hard through the soft cast. I'll post more pics when she gets her cast.

MOA and Macaronni Grill

A few Saturdays ago, we took the kids and Lizzy's friend Abigail up to the MOA to do a few rides at Nickalodeon Universe. Jeremy had won some points for rides at his work Christmas party last year and we had to get them used up. The last few times we had been at the mall, it had been pretty dead, but this time it was packed, so we didn't stay real long. The kids still had a blast doing some of the rides.

Abigail and Lizzy riding the small roller coaster. I had the camera with me and the little girls, so Jeremy wasn't able to get any pics of Luke and Taylor doing their rides.

Best Friends!!

Since the mall was so busy and we weren't there very long, we wanted to make the most of our drive up to the cities and decided to take the kids to Macaronni Grill. They had never gone there when we had one in Rochetser and Jeremy and I loved to eat there, so we thought we'd share that with them. Our kids love bread and the bread at Macaronni Grill is delicious, so they really enjoyed eating there
The girls!

My favorite little guy in the world!

Even with the beard, Jeremy and Luke look so much alike!

Happy Halloween!!

It was such a nice night for Trick-or-Treating. I took Luke and Liz to the DelBianco's to trick-or-treat around their neighborhood in Byron as there just really isn't many houses by us. It's fun for the kids to have friends to go with and nice for the adults to have some company as well!

Luke went as some Star Wars charachter. For the life of me, I can never remember what it is called.

Liz went as a zombie princess.
Luke and Liz ready for trick-or-treating.

Taylor and her girlfriends waiting for a ride to town to trick-or-treat. Not really sure what they all were dressed up as. :) I think they did more running around town than trick-or-treating.

Pumpkins!!

So I am a little behind on blogging and have been meaning to get some pumpkin/Halloween pics up for a while. Here are some pics of the kids carving pumpkins on Halloween. I was so thankful for such a nice afternoon that we were able to carve the pumpkins outside. Such a messy activity, but so much fun. The kids each picked a fun design to carve on their pumpkins. Luke picked a really complicated mummy and although you could tell what it was when it was lit up, it was a challenging one.

Luke, Taylor and Liz working hard on their pumpkins!

Scraping out the guts!
Luke working hard on his mummy design.
Pumpkin seeds! The best part of carving pumpkins!

All done-Trick or Treat!

Luke's mummy-hard to tell what it is in this pic.

Lizzy's skeleton face.

All the hard work paid off-they turned out great!