Go, Go, Goers!

Another great holiday can go into the books!  We've had an excellent weekend...started off by a great Thanksgiving gathering at Grandma Deb and Grandpa Whitey's house.  Lots of good family time spent - and wonderful food, too!  Since the weather was unseasonably nice, the girls also got to spend some time outdoors playing.  With how late our summer started this year (late June), it's amazing that the MN true winter hasn't hit yet...  I, for one, am very thankful that we've had an extended fall, and we're not into the deep freeze yet! Getting ready to catch the ball from Daddy Tatiana and Jenna I know this is blurry, but I love the enthusiasm in this one! Pondering his next move... Great-Grandma Addy, Tatiana, Jenna, Ava and Savante (and Santa!) Jenna eating nicely with a fork, Ava eating piggy with her fingers.  Sigh. Tatiana smiling pretty for the camera!  What does Jenna see on her fork?? In add...

What a great week it's been!  Super busy at work, but we made time to have fun around the house and with friends.  And...I can't believe it's already Thanksgiving this week...we're almost done Christmas shopping for Ava, so at least we feel a bit ahead this year.  Thank goodness, because last year, we were really late with things. To celebrate the very NEXT holiday, Ava and I went to my friend Emilie's house today, and made turkeys out of tissue paper.  It was a glue-y, sticky, messy fun time!  Em is great with kids, and Ava is no exception.  And Em's dog Lily did really well with Ava, too - we weren't sure how that was going to go, but we were pleasantly surprised!  We have some fun Christmas crafts lined up in the next few weeks...I haven't done projects like these in forever.  I forgot how fun they are! Sticky! Ava cleverly placed this cow sticker on her shirt...it looks like it's nibbling on the doughnut! ...

Last weekend was deer opener for rifle, so Scott's been gone the past two weekends.  Ava and I have had a fun time hanging out, but we are definitely ready for Daddy to be around on the weekends. But, we make the best of our time while we have it.  We had a cooking weekend last weekend....we made cookies, muffins and pizza.  Lots of fun, and pretty messy! And when Daddy came back, she helped him make mashed potatoes one night for dinner.  It appears that pants are optional while making dinner...! One of my co-workers has two daughters who have outgrown some of their toys.  He happily passed along ALL of their My Little Pony toys.  I think we now have a herd of 50+ ponies, shoes, brushes, and various accessories.  It's crazy!  I only had 2 ponies when I was little, and I'm pretty sure they didn't have all of the fancy things to go along with it! The nice thing is that we're using them as a potty training tool, too....

Halloween was definitely a fun event this year.  Last year, Ava sorta figured out the trick-or-treating thing...this year, she was all over it!  She loved getting dressed up as Alice in Wonderland, loved hanging out with her cousins to beg for candy, and she's still loving all of the treats she managed to score.  And I'm trying hard not to eat all of her candy.  It's very, very hard to resist. Leading up the big event, we were very, very busy... We managed to carve 5 pumpkins within 1 hour, the night before Halloween.  I used patterns, Scott free-formed his.  Ava wouldn't even help scoop the seeds out, but she had a heck of a good time poking holes in the sides of all of the pumpkins.  The next day, we had a pumpkin carving contest at my work - Scott's "BEER" pumpkin took 3rd place!  He was quite proud of himself.  His other one received a comment about looking stoned.  Clearly, he's the artiste in this family! At day...