Mommy, I’m Silly Though!

At dinner tonight, Vance said “Mommy’s silly!” to which I replied, “Mommy’s not silly,” and then Luke said, “Mommy, I’m silly though!”  So in that spirit, here’s just some random pictures of the kids being “silly!”

Here’s what happened to Luke the other night when he tried to retrieve one of his toys out of Beka’s pack n play.  He kindly stayed like that for a few minutes so I could take some pictures!

A game that Luke likes to play is “Let’s balance stuff on Beka’s head!”  Here are some of the results:

She looks about as happy as you might expect.  So she has been able to assert her independence a little more now that she’s started crawling, and she will tackle Luke whatever chance she gets.  He acts like he cares, but secretly I think he loves it!

Generally Luke is good about staying in his room after he’s put to bed, but recently he comes up with various reasons he needs to come out and see us (most often to have us put “Twinkle Twinkle” on his music player).  But the other night he walked out with a book, put it on the floor, laid down, and started reading it. Didn’t say a word to me! I took him straight back to bed.

Here they are sitting in their matching director’s chairs. Beka needed a little help to stay in the chair. This was all Luke’s idea!

On a sad note, Vance’s nurse Sheila (who the kids LOVE) took another job in Manhattan, so she wouldn’t have to drive an hour and a half each way to work anymore. We were sad to see her go, but we completely understand!  Here’s a picture from her going away party.  It won’t be the same visiting the clinic without being able to see Sheila!

A Pirate Party!

A few weekends ago we were all invited to Jeffrey’s 4th birthday party – with a pirate theme!  Here’s the birthday boy:

Beka finally had some girls to hang out with at this party – her “friend” Marley, who will be in her class at school, and Marley’s older sister Tuley. 

No fourth birthday party would be complete without a cake with lots of blue frosting, which Luke promptly got ALL over his face, even in his eyebrows. Somehow we missed getting a picture of that.

And here’s our pirate boy!

A Book and A Bite - Thanksgiving

Luke and I went to the latest Book and a Bite cooking class last week, with a Thanksgiving Theme.  Tayley (Luke’s friend Taven’s mom) was the teacher this time, and she read 2 great books, one about an apple farm, and one about a Turkey Ball.  There were ten kids at this class – a great number!

First was the apple story, and then we made Caramel Apples!

First they chopped up peanuts and M&M’s to dip their apples in.

Then they got to dip their apples in caramel, peanuts and M&M’s. Yummy!

Next, Tayley read The Turkey Ball.

The cooking project for this book was a turkey and a pilgrim hat.  First, Luke got to make turkeys out of Fudge Stripe cookies, marshmallows, and candy corn.

Then they made pilgrim hats by dipping a marshmallow in chocolate, then putting it on another fudge stripe cookie and piping on a yellow buckle. 

And the finished products! Luke chose to eat one of his turkeys before we went home, and we saved the rest to show Daddy and Britney when we got home.

Speaking of Britney – she’s Vance’s cousin who will be staying with us for a while. The kids are having a blast playing with her!

Beka’s First Cookbook Signing!

OK – it may be her only one too!  On November 16th, Beka and I went to a cookbook signing for Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook:

It was sponsored by Rainy Day Books in Kansas City, and was at Will Wyatt’s Cowboy Couture, a very cute little store in Southern Overland Park.  We didn’t have to wait in line too long, and Beka was entertaining everyone around us!  Finally we got to meet Ree and get her autograph in our new cookbook.

Now we just have to start cooking! 

Hanging out with friends!

We try to get together with our friends the Colbergs and Warners as much as their schedules allow – every so often there will be a good night or a weekend that none of the docs are on call, and we make the most of it!  It’s always interesting to see what activities the kids will come up with – here’s Luke and Jeffrey having a dance party:

As the younger ones get bigger, they have started to attempt to play along with the older ones (for reference, Jeffrey is turning 4, Luke and Carter are both 2 and a half, Jacob will be 2 after the first of the year, Cade will be 1 in December, and Beka is 8 months – and not to forget Kylie, she’s 10). It can make for crazy times! Beka decided she wanted to play Batman with Luke and Jacob here:

We also get some good relaxing time in as well!

Every so often we can actually catch the boys standing still, but it’s rare, as you can see from these next few!  Luke and Jeffrey were posing for me in this one:

We tried to get all the boys to sit still in this picture, but with 5 of them it was not very easy! (Poor Cade ended up hiding behind his brother Carter’s head, and Beka was already in bed!)

They love playing in our “hobbit hole” in the playroom too.  We have no idea how Jeffrey ended up sideways in this picture!

Kylie was trying (relatively unsuccessfully) to teach the boys how to play duck duck goose…once they got to the chasing part it was all over!

One More Halloween Post!

I thought it would be fun to post pictures from all three of Luke’s Halloween experiences – so here you go!

1st Halloween – the Scary Skeleton

2nd Halloween – Charlie Brown

3rd Halloween - Firefighter

And Beka’s 1st Halloween – Dalmatian!

(my favorite is her hat!)

Aspiring Artists – Thanks for Thanksgiving

Thursday night Luke had another Parks and Rec art class, this one with a Thanksgiving theme.  They do such a great job putting on these classes, we have so much fun!

Luke and Lexie making a Thanksgiving placemat.

Beka supervising all the kids.

Luke putting together a turkey…

…and the finished product. (I don’t think we have made it out of an art class yet without marker on Luke’s face!)

Shaking the bucket for his pumpkin seed splatter painting.

A paper sack owl with googly eyes.

A turkey fan made with a paint stirrer and paint samples for feathers.

And the most exciting project of the night for Luke…

A necklace made of popcorn, Cheerios, and dried cherries, cranberries, and blueberries.  But I think it was the most exciting for him because he basically ate the ingredients while I actually strung the necklace!

Happy Halloween!

This year we decided to do a “brother/sister” costume combo while the kids were still young enough to not really have an opinion about their costumes.  So after much deliberation we settled on a Firefighter and his Dalmatian “fire dog.” (Luke was pretty excited because he has a book that was passed down to him that was Vance’s favorite when he was a little boy, called “Fire Dog”)

I found a cute Firefighter costume online, and made a Dalmatian outfit for Beka to wear. I was pretty proud of how it turned out!

Friday, we went to the hospital to see all of Daddy’s co-workers, and to go trick-or-treating.  Luke loved his costume, and was telling people he was going to be a Fireman when he grew up.

Luke was trying to be a helpful big brother and push Beka around for us!

Here’s our yearly “Halloween picture with Dr. Schnee’s nurse Denise” – we’re going to have quite a collection, this is photo number three in the series!

It was approaching naptime and Beka just couldn’t keep her eyes open (or her socks on – no matter how hard I tried!)

Halloween day, Daddy had to work in Saturday clinic, so we just had a relaxing day at home. Here’s a “Boo” from Beka!

That evening we got our costumes back on and headed up to the hospital to meet Daddy and our friends for our first ever Trick or Treating!  Luke practiced ringing the doorbell and saying “Trick or Treat” at our house before we headed out.

Once we were at the hospital, we met up with our friends. In the pictures is Kylie (surgeon), Cade (doctor), Carter (Scooby Doo), Jacob (Yoda), Dr. Malia, Jeffrey (Darth Vader), Luke, me and Beka.

Luke thought his fireman needed a light saber, so he borrowed Jacob’s!

Luke and Daddy – ready to get some candy!

The crew at one of the houses. We didn’t go to too many houses, it was getting dark and all the kids were pretty tired – especially Beka…

…who fell asleep once again!

Happy Halloween!