the middle-end of November

We've had a few fun and busy weeks at our house - of course with the holidays that is to be expected!

My neighborhood bunco group got together (and even invited the husbands) for a Friendsgiving celebration the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We had delicious appetizers, food, desserts, and drinks.  Such a fun night.

 Here is one of the only pictures I grabbed that night - but I sure love these ladies!

The next day was Meemaw's 70th birthday!

Tiff and I had a fun day planned for her.

We first went to Ikea for the morning - yes, it took the whole morning practically.

Lots of walking and talking, and not too much damage done with spending money :)

 After that we went to Board and Brush in Lenexa.  It's this really cool place where you create wooden signs that can be personalized for you.  You start off by sanding and staining the wood (with a choice of about 8 different colored stains), then they have a stencil ready for you based on what you selected when you booked the class.  You paint, dry, paint, dry, etc until you have the product you love!  It was a fast 3 hour class and so much fun!

 They even had Meemaw volunteer as the 'helper' and we sang happy birthday to her.

Such a nice group of ladies in the class that day.

 Meemaw's scripture sign

 Our finished signs - so pretty!

 Then we went to the Plaza to meet up with Brian and Chad and enjoy some dinner.

Mom picked Cheesecake factory for dinner - it was delicious - even if we did have to wait FOREVER for our food and mom had a hair in her dipping sauce.  ;)

 We forgot to have the server take a picture of us all - so this is as good as we've got.

But we had a great time!

 Meemaw got a cute little ice cream treat for dessert

Here is my sign all hung up by the garage door.  

The next day we got some pictures taken for our Christmas card.

The kids did really well (for the most part), so we got some really cute ones of the 3 of them...

and of the entire family, too!

 We hosted Thanksgiving for the Teson side on Thanksgiving day.

There were so many people here - but it was a delightful day!  Grammie, of course, brought over so many food items, including the turkey, turkey breast, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, multiple pies, etc.  That made hosting soooo much easier for us.

It also ended up being a beautiful day - so the kids were able to play outside quite a bit and run off some energy.  

Maggie loved spending some quality time with little Lucy!

I think they look so much alike!

We also hosted Thanksgiving for the Dudley side the next day.

While it was a much smaller crowd, it was still so much fun.  We did a big brisket, then had a bunch of sides and yummy food.  

We are so blessed to have such great family near by that we celebrate with.

Our little Eli, munching on a cup of grapes during the Christmas set-up process, which also took place the next day.

We started painting the spare bedroom so that Maggie could move in there and then Colin could get his room re-done and have his own space, too.

Big changes happening around here...Hoping to get Eli potty trained and transitioned into a big boy bed before the winter is over...

Our life lately...early November edition

We got to celebrate Arleigh's first birthday a couple weeks ago.

It was a ton of fun and she was ready to party!

The kids loved their pom-poms that Tiff gave them

Arleigh was ready for that cake!

She dug right in...

And had the purple frosting all over the place :)

Such a sweet girl!

The next weekend Colin had an outdoor soccer tournament that he was asked to guest play in.  It was FREEZING COLD all weekend, and he had some early morning and super late evening games.  He enjoyed my old swim parka and wore it out to the soccer fields.

He played awesome and his team got 2nd place in the tournament!

I missed out on  all Teson family happenings that weekend because I was at an overnight church retreat at St. Therese.  It is called Christ Renews His Parish and I had so much fun there.  It truly was renewing for me and I am so glad I had Brian's support to let me go.

 Plus I got this super sweet banner presented to me when I got home.

I think Brian missed me most of all, but the kids were pretty cute when I came home.  They were hiding in the dark and surprised me.  So fun!

Maggie had her Christmas recital dance pictures last night...

I just love her dance costume for this recital - it's a really pretty color on her!

Bad lighting, but you get the idea...

Their dance studio had Christmas trees up all over the place - very pretty!

 So Maggie is CLEARLY the smallest one in her dance group - but she loves these girls so much!

Being silly when we got home!

 It was almost 60 degrees outside when we left for school this morning so I had the kids go out in the front yard for a quick picture. 

I just love fall weather and the pile of leaves looked so pretty on the ground (even though I had just mowed the night before and got them all mulched up...)

And one quick picture from about a week ago when Grammie picked up the kids from school and dropped them off at our house.  So glad to have cousins close in age to play with!

Halloween 2017 - an emoji family

The kids decided on dressing up as emojis this year for Halloween.

It was a super easy and cute idea that we could easily do as a family.

As usual, Meemaw helped make the costumes and did all the sewing for the circles and straps.  I came over one weekend and drew on the faces.  Easy Peasy!

We hit up downtown Parkville the weekend before Halloween to see how Eli would do with Trick or Treating.  All of the cute little shops on Main street were handing out candy to the trick or treaters.  He is old enough to understand the concept some, and he did great.  He thought it was so much fun.

We found this awesome 'angel wings' design in an alleyway in downtown Parkville.

The kids LOVED it!  

Angel Maggie

Angel Colin

 

Angel Eli

 

 I tried my best to get as many cute pics of the kids all together as possible.

Halloween night can be so hectic - this was a lot more laid back!

On Halloween night - we met up at Grammie and Grandad's house for chili and chicken noodle soup.  The kids love trick or treating there and we like getting our family pictures done and out of the way!

We saw all of the cousins at Grammie and Granddads and had fun getting excited for our night out in the neighborhood.

 Our annual family Halloween pic

 Colin with his friend Evan

Those 2 tore up the neighborhood and brought home gobs and gobs of candy (too much!!)

 A quick picture with some of our neighbors

 It was freezing cold outside (literally, it started flurrying when we were outside), so Maggie and Eli were super excited to come back to our house to hand out candy.   They sat on that bench together and did a great job!

The candy crew

One last picture of Colin and Evan with their loot.

Don't worry - we'll be getting rid of the majority of that soon!

One of our neighbors is collecting candy to send off to the troops overseas.

Sounds like a plan to me!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Ordinary October Days - Dance watch night, soccer games and pumpkin patches

Just cleaning out some pictures on my phone - Ordinary October days!

 Took all 3 kids to get their flu shots the other day when Eli was having his 2 year check up.

They weren't all smiles AFTER the shots, but I still like the BEFORE picture!

 It was Dance parent watch night and Maggie LOVED showing off her moves.

She is so cute - such a strong girl!

Look how little she is next to all those other girls - small but mighty!

We hit up a local apple orchard/pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago.  It was super windy out, but a comfortable temperature.  Much different than last year when it was mid-90s when we went!

 There were geese and chickens walking all over the place and Maggie was NOT fond of them.  She escaped by hopping up on a trailer full of pumpkins.

My loves

 Brian ended up knowing someone out there that took a family picture for us.

It turned out pretty cute!

 We had to wait a minute to go on the hayrack ride around the orchard, so we took some more pics by this cool old truck

 Once again, a nice person offered to take our picture.

 On the hayrack ride

 The guys - Eli wasn't too fond of the tractor at first, but loosened up some once it started moving along!

 Another attempt at a cute family pic!

 The kids all loved feeding the goats.  Eli still talks about it randomly.

 The newest licensed driver (HA!)

Maggie is finishing up her soccer season - I haven't taken many pictures at all, but snapped a few during her game last weekend

 Once again, the smallest one out there! :)

 They have such a great coach - one of the mother's of the kids on the team.

She is wonderful with the girls!

We are really glad Maggie gave soccer a try.

I think she improved a ton and had a great time this fall!