Nate is ELEVEN!

I'm inconsistent at best with the blog these days. But it's important to me to document some memories so I keep coming back (and hopefully you will too. Ha!) 

We've been out of town and here and there the past few weeks. While we were gone (more on that later!), this beach babe turned ELEVEN!!!!! Can you believe it?!?! 

I find it hard to believe, that's for sure.

We celebrated his big day with the Corse side of the family at the beach, and he went to see Rogue One with Scott and Ben, then ate at Waffle House (his choice☺)

Sweet Nate, you are a smart, handsome, kind, creative and imaginative 11 year old. Your birthday is always so special to me because it's also the day I became a mother. I wished and prayed for you so much and Dad and I are very proud to be your parents. We know this year is going to be your best year yet. Let your imagination continue to take you beautiful places. Love, Mom

Weekend Ramblings

Kitty P doesn't get much air time on the ole blog anymore so here's my favorite girl cat. She's old and crotchety most of the time, and still feisty if you try to mess with her. But she's my first baby and I love her so much. She loves me too...can't ya tell? 

Scott took Nate to swim team on Friday night, so Lila and I vegged out on the couch, ate chocolate pretzels and watched "Santa Clause." It was pretty much the perfect way to start off the weekend.

This is our first Christmas in our new house and I love that we were able to put the tree in the entryway. I love looking at it at night. 

On Saturday morning, I made Lila her "6" pancake. I was planning on doing it the morning of her birthday but the power went off before I had the chance! 

We had a wonderful rest of our Saturday and yet I have no pictures to prove it. Scott took the kids to Build-A-Gift at church while I made last minute preparations to host my family for lunch. Lee, Kathy, Mark, Evan, Olga, Elena, Sonia and my Mom were our guests and we loved having them! It was so nice to visit and laugh with everyone!

On Sunday, we were invited to light the Advent Candle at church. This week is the candle of peace. Scott did the reading and spoke about how our family has experienced peace this year (below). He did a wonderful job and the kids loved getting to light the candles. Before church...

Scott's words on peace...

In being invited to light the candle this week and reflecting on how we saw God’s peace this year, we found the task to be more challenging than we had anticipated. As we look around our world, our country and even here in St Louis, it is all too easy to focus on the violence, persecution and division that fills the news. Furthermore, as those of you who have raised, or are raising children know, feeling peace on a day to day basis can often be difficult. So when we asked ourselves what represents peace in our lives, we kept coming back to one word: community. A community in which we were blessed to find our ‘forever home’ after three years of searching. A community where we send our kids to schools that celebrate respect, empathy and tolerance as much as reading and math. A community where it seems you never go anywhere without seeing someone you know. A community where we finally found a church home. And a community where everyone you meet seems to feel this way too. We feel blessed to live, work and play in this community. We find God’s peace in our lives in knowing that this is where we are supposed to be.

Lila is SIX!

Lila turned 6 on November 26th! Our company was leaving that morning so after they hit the road, we started celebrating with some presents! Lila has the best faces when opening presents and Nate is the BEST big brother when assisting her. 

After we opened up a few gifts, our power went out?!? Little did we know, it would be off all day.

We face-timed Scott at work and Lila opened her big present...a American Girl doll!

Love at first sight:) Her name is Lea.

In the afternoon, we took two of Lila's friends to the Painted Zebra to paint pottery.

Nate went with me to chaperone. He was the best chaperone.

These three are inseparable. They were in pre-school together for 2 years and their teacher recommended that they all be in the same Kindergarten class. Three friends is sometimes a hard situation because there is the potential of somebody being left out. But I'm amazed how they all use their different strengths to have such a special friendship.

 Birthday party by candlelight! I wasn't kidding, the power was off all day. Alllll day.

When I figured out that the power was probably not going to come back on before we had the girls over to our house, I thought about canceling. Besides that it gets dark so early, it was kind of cold that day, so it was cold in our house. But I'm so glad we forged ahead, it will be a memorable birthday for sure!

After the party, we hung out for a bit to wait on Scott to get home. Then we walked over to the Post for dinner and some heat. I was so glad my parents gave Scott this stellar flashlight that lit up our living room! The power ended up coming on about 11:00 PM. It was a crazy, fun, weird day!

Sweet Lila,
We are proud every day that you are our daughter. You are smart, courageous, witty, kind, and independent. We love you so much. We know your sixth year is going to be the best yet and we hope you never stop dreaming big dreams little one. Love, Mom.

Thanksgiving 2016

Picture overload ahead! Whew...we had a fantastic week of Thanksgiving with Mimi, Paka & the Odoms!! Mimi, Paka, Noah, Gavin & Levi arrived on Saturday afternoon...and let the party begin! The kids were so excited to be reunited and were quickly off to catch up on all things light sabers and Star Wars. We had a couple of fun days and then early Monday morning, David & Amanda arrived! We were all happy to be together under one roof...in our new house! 

We did a lot of eating during the week...and I got a taste of what it would be like to feed a family of 11! Ha! 

Having Strange Donuts...always a favorite treat. 

On Tuesday night, we went out for Mexican. Our goal was to not be louder than the table next to us. I think we succeeded but that's the great thing about our Mexican restaurant...it's always loud and a little bit crazy. Just like us!

On Wednesday afternoon, Mimi, Nate, Noah and I walked to a few shops in Maplewood. It's fun to see our little corner of the world through someone else's eyes. We are so lucky to be within walking distance to a book store, a soap shop and a chocolate shop!

The book worms in their element.

It was fun to spend some time with the oldest boys. When Noah was born and Nate was 18 months old, I remember thinking that the age gap would be swallowed up in no time. It's definitely long gone. Which makes me sad and happy.

Chocolate...yum!

Paka made us fried pickles in the fryer he was using to fry the turkey. They were amazing!!!!

This is the only picture I have of our actual day of Thanksgiving event. It was a little crazy! But I was so proud to have Thanksgiving dinner in our new home. It's the first time I've been able to host Thanksgiving besides just for our family of 4, so it was an extra special day!

Scott had to go back to work starting on Thanksgiving, so on Friday morning, the girls went to visit him at the hospital. We love seeing him in his element!

The weather wasn't the greatest for the week, but the kids managed to get out and play football at the park every day. And on Friday, we bundled up and headed to the Zoo. Nate doing card tricks...the boys were all about magic and card tricks during the week. They even presented a magic show on Friday night!

Sweet Lila and the Crocodile...

This one...I tell ya...he's got a big personality and is so funny. Love him and the fact that he posed for me:)

Impossible to get all of them looking...but they are all still precious!

Truman was the guard cat for the week.

Friday night we celebrated a certain about to be SIX year old's birthday! Pizza for the win.

CAKE!!

Sweet cousins...Lila does her best to hang with the big dogs. But when she had enough, she would slip away to her room to play babies:)

Loving the fur vest from Mimi & Paka!

Amanda brought Scott some 40 year old goodies...arthritis cream, denture cream and bi-focals. Bahahahahaha....

After birthday celebrating, we had some other celebrating to do since the cousins won't see each other on Christmas. Mimi & her grandbabies...

 Making Mimi laugh!

We loved every minute of our time with our peoples! Thank you for making the trip to Missouri to be with us! Thanksgiving could not have been better:)