December 3, 2012

Jonathan turned 3 on December 3!  Time seems to go faster and faster these days.  Here are the pictures of him on all his birthday so far.

2009 -  a few hours old

2010

2011

2012

I'm sure you know we did lots of celebrating with our littlest big boy!  More to come!

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty quiet Thanksgiving this year.  Nana and Pop-O were our only family guests, and we invited a friend from church this year.  Here's how the day was spent.  We watched most of the Macy's parade after breakfast and then Brent began getting the grill ready for the bird.  He brined the bird the night before.  Here are two of his shadows making sure things are just right.

Brent spent most of the afternoon on the deck just watching the grill.  No peeking allowed because as he likes to say, "If you're lookin', you're not cookin'!"  These two spent almost the whole afternoon right by his side.

Here is this year's shot of our beautiful bird.

Our table was set with our Thanksgiving dishes.  Somehow, we forgot to make a picture of our food table!  Nana and I were flabbergasted when we realized it as we were cleaning up.  So here's what we ate:  turkey and dressing, sweet potato souffle, vegetable casserole, collards, cranberry salad, rolls, pickles and tea.  Andrew served his own plate this year and was very excited to get to the table and start eating.  When Coleman walked up to the table carrying his plate, Andrew looked over and noticed Coleman's turkey leg.  Then he realized that in his hurry to get the sweet potatoes, he had missed the turkey!  Fortunately our turkey had two legs and he was able to get one too.  He has cracked himself up retelling this story to folks!

Two little ones were very interested in the dessert display.

Pumpkin, apple streussel, pecan, prailine sauce, and a yummy iced pound cake were our choices this year.  We had many requests for the "Sampler Platter!"

It was a wonderful day and a great meal.  We are so blessed in so very many ways.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

This fall, Coleman's class took a field trip to a local pumpkin patch.  Andrew went with us and we had a fun morning.  Here they are with the scarecrow welcoming them to the corn maze.

Coleman in the stocks!  It was so sunny that he couldn't look at me.

The classes rotated through stations for different activities.  First we heard a book and had a lesson on vegetables that grow above and below ground.

Then we loaded up the wagon for a fun hayride.

We ended up with the corn maze.  It was really fun and they had a mystery card for the kids to punch at each check-in station.  At the end of the maze, you could solve the mystery based on who was left unpunched on your card.

We had planned to have a picnic lunch at the farm before heading back to school. However, it had been unseasonably warm and the yellow jackets were out in droves.  After one parent got stung trying to get out her lunch, we decided to head back early and avoid any more stings!  It was a fun morning.

Fall Fun

Here are a few miscelleaneous pictures from fun we had this fall.  Coleman and Jonathan both loved their jack-o-lantern shirts Gigi made this year.

Brent and I dressed up for a Sunday School murder mystery dinner party.  I was Tara Misu, the girlfriend of an Italian mobster.  Brent was Beau Jalais, a French vineyard owner who turned out to be the murderer!  I really wish this picture showed my shoes - 4 inch purple alligator heels!  It was tons of fun and we all laughed A LOT!

Andrew had a field trip to see "The Frog Prince" at Brenau University.

He has really enjoyed his first grade desk that Gigi and Papack fixed up for him.

In October we went to Mule Camp.  Everyone got new bows and arrows, and this fella was super proud of his "air-bow" as he calls it.

Andrew and Coleman got to win a free marshmallow shooter by shooting this rubber band gun and knocking some cans off the shelf.  They are both really good shots!

Here we are walking around the square before supper, very proud of our new bows.

It should surprise no one that we ate at The Collegiate that night.  It should also surprise no one that this photo is blurry from all the moving subjects.

I have discovered a lot of great first grade blogs and websites this fall!  We are really enjoying tons of fun games and ideas in school.  What we are not so good at though, is taking pictures of our fun.  Here's a shot of Andrew doing a contraction game with a Halloween theme.

While Jonathan naps in the afternoons, Andrew and Coleman have a short "quiet" time and then usually play outside.  They have enjoyed this tremendously and I caught this sweet shot of them one afternoon while they were eating their snack and making big plans for the afternoon.

Jonathan made a cute little farm book in his class at preschool.  The day he brought it home, we were meeting friends on the playground to play for a bit before we came home.  He got out his book and stretched out on a bench to read it.

Here are all three boys having some kind of adventure together.

And one last shot of Andrew and Jonathan studying a map of the Magic Kingdom. 

Halloween Part 2

 Well, it seems the issues we were having have resolved themselves without my intervention.  Hooray!  I am going to try very hard to catch up to December over the weekend here on The Quiver.  Be watching for many posts about our fall fun.  Here are some shots of the boys helping Brent carve the jack-o-lantern.

 On Halloween, Coleman and Jonathan wore their costumes to preschool and had parties that morning.  So Andrew got to wear his costume to school that morning too, and he had some surprises in store for him when he arrived!

 Math with m&ms is always fun!

 Jonathan was a fireman and here are some pictures of his little class's party.

 They had a yummy Chick-fil-A nugget lunch.

 Then they turned white helium balloons into ghosts.  The class has four little boys and one girl, and they all loved batting their ghosts around the room.

 No preschool party is complete without cupcakes!

Then we headed down the hall to Coleman's class.  He was Darth Vader and had taken off both his mask and glasses when we got there.  They had a fun lunch too.

One of the party favors was a pair of crazy glasses.  Someone thought it would be cute to get a picture of the whole class wearing them.  It took about ten minutes and this is the best shot I got.  I thought photographing three little people was tricky!

One afternoon Andrew and Coleman painted paper bag pumpkins.  I have a picture of the finished products somewhere.  I'll try to find it and post it later.

The Tuesday before Halloween, Chick-fil-A had  a Superhero and Princess night.  Any kids dressed in a costume got a free meal.  So we headed over before Andrew's music class.  We got there right when it started, which was great because it got really crowded very quickly! 

I snapped the above picture of the boys and a CFA employee promptly offered to make one of the five of us together.  We just love our Chick-fil-A!

After a few minutes, superheroes and princess started walking around greeting the kids.  Some of the employees had dressed in costumes and were posing for pictures with children all over the restaurant.  We got to see Spiderman, Wolverine, Buzz Lightyear and of course, the SuperCow!

However, the funniest thing all evening was when Jonathan saw our friend Gabby dressed up like Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  Gabby goes to church with us, is married, and is very pretty.  Jonathan's face got all dreamy when he saw her and he said, "Wow!  Wook at that Pwincess!  I'm gonna kiss her!"