Thanksgiving 2010

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Virginia this year visiting with friends and family. Before we left, Ian and I joined Emma at school for her Thanksgiving feast.

Emma enjoying her feast

Who is that little blond kid who made himself at home?

Ian plopped himself down with the big kids and had lunch

Emma really enjoyed dessert
While in Virginia , we got to visit with friends,


It always amazes me how quickly Emma and her friends become reacquainted

We also visited the Air and Space Museum where we saw this...

On Thanksgiving morning, our family woke up early to do a 5k Turkey Trot. There were runners....

and walkers...

Ian was a walker...

and a rider

Emma and Ian helped make Thanksgiving dessert


Ian helped with the dishes

There was a lot of I pad playing (A total of three I Pads were in the house!) Emma also spent a lot of time hanging with her older cousin.

Emma loved jumping in the leaves

This is the closest we could get Ian to the leaves

But he really enjoyed his Thanksgiving dinner!
We hope that everyone had a blessed and thankful holiday!

Fun at the Discovery Museum

Once again I am behind on blogging, so here is a little catch up. November and the first part of December flew by! In November, we had friends from Virginia (Who are relocating here for a year, Yeah!) in town. We introduced them to one of our favorite places, The Children's Discovery Museum. They have a Bob the Builder exhibit right now that Ian loved. Some of his favorite words are car, tractor, and truck.

Ian in the Tractor

Building

It was so fun to see Ian enjoying himself!

Emma and her friend, Owen playing in the circle exhibit

Dance Party!

We had a little dance party to this song in our house today!


And we dare your families to try to not get down to it, too!
I think this is our new favorite song :)

Halloween... the rest of the story

We had a great, busy halloween weekend this year. On Friday morning we headed over to Emma's preschool for their annual Fall Festival. There was a jump house, crafts, snacks, and treats. I was flying solo on this one and Charlie Brown kept wanting to run outside, so the only pictures I got were

Emma playing in the corn and

Decorating a cookie with insane amounts of frosting.
We went back to the same location that evening for a church hosted fall festival where we trick-car-treated, Emma won cupcakes in the cupcake walk, and we found out Emma has an insane bean bag throwing arm at the games. Not many pictures came out because it was dark and pretty crowded.
We relaxed on Saturday with no plans and prepared for the big event on Sunday.
On Sunday, we carved our very first family pumpkins

Emma did not want to touch the pumpkin goop

Daddy carved

Our finished products

Ian was fascinated with the inside of the pumpkin

Emma was proud of our creations

What is this??? A picture when both children looking at the camera and smiling? It's a halloween miracle!
That evening, with headed over to friends to trick-or-treat. We had quite the Motley Crew with

Charlie Brown, Lucy, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook, a train, and Daniel Boone

Around the corner we added Bat Girl, Bat Boy, Spiderman, and a baby ladybug.
We had a great time and came home with quite the stash of candy and lots of great memories.

Let the festivities begin!

The halloween festivities have begun! From now until Sunday we have lots of halloween activities scheduled to make the most of money spent on this year's costumes.
We started out the morning by going to the local pumpkin patch to pick out a family of pumpkins. Because we were away for a good part of the month and it rained all last weekend, Emma, Ian, and I decided to forego the 45 minute drive to the farm and headed to the "patch" that we pass ever day on our way to and from school.
Even though it was a small patch, they still had some great photo opprotunities....

One of the children was cooperative

The other only wanted to pose on a rather suspect looking pumpkin horse

Ian really wanted to pull the wagon

But found it was much easier to ride in the wagon with the pumpkins

One more try with the less cooperative one

Although she did not really want to pose, she was really good at pulling the pumpkin wagon.
Don't our pumpkins look so nice??? When I went to pay, I found out that they cost a whopping $43.00!!!! With only $20.00 cash and they would not take credit, we left with the 2 smallest pumpkins for $10.00. We then went to the local grocery store and picked up 3 carving pumpkins for $9.99. I have now learned my lesson about the local pumpkin patches!
After we got home, Emma decided to make some pumpkin shaped sugar cookies to share with her teachers at the preschool fall festival tomorrow. Ian decided he will help by getting into my spice drawer.....

and shake sprinkles all over the floor. He shook this many sprinkles out in the 20 seconds it took me to react.
Luckily, Ian was also happy to help clean up

Even at 18 months, you must learn about consequences in our house :)
After a good nap for one, we headed off the Google for our 4th annual Googleween!
And now presenting our halloween costumes for 2010.....

Here they are! Our little Charlie Brown and Lucy!

Here we have Charlie Brown's quizzical look

He did not enjoy walking on grass, but he loved balancing on these narrow walkways (lucy was still be a little uncooperative with pictures, maybe tomorrow)

We had a great time hanging out with Daddy, collecting some treats, and eating some yummy snacks!
Stay tuned for more Halloween fun! We need to make use of those costumes!

Our Hawaiian Vacation- Waikoloa Village

On Tuesday, we headed out of Hilo to our next destination....Waikoloa Village on the resort side of the island. We spent each day at a different beach, spent a day at the amazing Hilton resort, and went to a Luau!
The first beach we visited was near our condo and had a great inlet for the kids to play in...

The sand was described as "salt and Pepper" and a little course, se water shoes were required

Playing in our own "swimming pool"

Splashing!

A view of our pool

Ian loved digging

3 of the 4 kids
The next day, we headed to a more beachy beach with better sand and great waves for everyone to play in.

Ian had fun with the sand toys


We built a sandcastle together
Emma spent almost the entire morning in the water

Boogie boarding with Daddy

She called it a boat

Running from the waves

Hanging out with friends

Catching waves

She was loving it!

Ian watched on

And Daddy took him out to enjoy the water!
On Friday, went to a Luau at another local resort

Dressed up

Ready for a party!



All for kids were wonderfully behaved on this vacation! They got along and played really well together

Sweet potato chips

Emma shows off her lei

Fruit punch!

Emma learned a hula dance
It was a great show! Ian sat for about one dance and then decided to have his own hulu party in the back!
On Saturday, we got day passes to the Hilton resort and Emma got to meet one of these!

She and I did the short dolphin discovery class

It was only 10 minutes and Emma wanted to know why it was so short, but you had to be 5 to do the 45 minute adventure (4 more months!)
We then spent the day swimming


Trying waterfalls

Any enjoying the sunset!
On Sunday, we were a little beached out, so we headed to the valley to check out the view

There was also a great rolling hill

We also enjoyed some fresh malasadas (Fresh filled doughnuts)

Always ready with a smile now!

Emma was concentrating on eating, not smiling!
We had a vacation! Mahalo Hawaii for a beautiful time!