Reality Check

So when you all get our beautiful, gorgeous, perfect Christmas card designed, edited and Photoshopped by Jill Baumhover of Jill Bee Designs, realize that behind the scenes this is how we REALLY roll. :-)

What I love about these shots - me in my Harold's t-shirt from 1995, Will refusing to smile, John just up from his nap. Although I must say that Matt and Alivia look pretty darn cute despite it all.

Will's 4th Birthday Party

We called on Chelsea from Tiny Tails to You to come visit our house again with her fun animals. With all the rain, we had to move the party into the garage and Matt set up a tent adjoining the garage so we could have a little bit more room. Chelsea brought: baby and miniature bunnies, a bearded dragon, a hedgehog, a chicken, a tortoise, a chinchilla and a lizard. It was so fun! The kids had a great time holding all the animals.

Will specifically requested a Diego cake. The special gift from Matt and me was his first bike! He was thrilled until John climbed up next to him and tried to ride it, too!

Toothatina!

Alivia lost her first tooth! She was beyond excited and my usually shy girl has been mentioning it a lot to almost everyone she sees. It is adorable. Toothatina came to leave her a special note and 2 one dollar bills. She was thrilled. Alivia is such a light sleeper that Toothatina had to make several attempts before successfully leaving her goods at 2:30 am. Seeing her with that missing tooth just reminds me how fast she is growing up.

The first pic includes Alivia's drawing of her tooth.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas. . .

We put up our tree and lights this past weekend. It will be a challenge to keep John away from the fragile stuff, but overall, the house looks so pretty. And I love our tree. We decided to spend a little bit more money and get a live tree from someplace other than Home Depot!

Thanksgiving Day

We went to Mia's house for Thanksgiving dinner around 3 pm. There were over 40 people there plus around 10+ kids! It was crazy but so fun and the weather was beautiful. The kids had so much fun playing together. Matt always makes a point of taking a good picture of all the family groups which is such a blessing. I think my parents are going to use our picture for their Christmas card. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Taylor Family

Ginger Kendall, Kathy Rauert, Alice Sessi, Pris Laffey, and Tana Taylor (aka Mimi)

The Sessi Family

The Kendall Family

The Rauert Family

Attempt to get a pic of all the kids - ha!

The Laffey Family

The Baumhovers were there, too but I don't have their family picture. :-(

29 1/2 weeks

Overall, feeling OK but have had some groin pain from a varicose vein (yuck!). About 10 weeks to go! I can't wait to see what this little boy looks like.

Indian Princess

Veritas celebrated Thanksgiving by having all the kids dress up as pilgrims or indians. Alivia chose to be an indian and we got this cute costume at the last minute at Party City. All the kids did a presentation in front of the class while the parents watched. Alivia memorized her presentation and did so well. Here is what she said "My name is Rose. I am almost 6 years old. I help my Mommy fix meals. I am thankful for my family."

Amazingly she said she was not nervous because "all of the other kids have to do presentations, too."

Afterwards, they served a complete Thanksgiving lunch - it was really good! I am so glad that Matt, Mimi and I were all able to be there to celebrate our big Kindergartener!