Thanksgiving 2014

I was invited to Presley's school to watch her eat her Thanksgiving Feast. She insisted on wearing her turkey shirt. I can't believe the homemade shirt made it 3 years!

This year was Uncle Bruce and Aunt Lisa's turn to host Thanksgiving. Since Kiley was out of school and Mikey didn't have much going on at work, we decided to go on Tuesday. I packed everything up on Tuesday morning while Mikey worked and Kiley had therapy. After her first therapy session, Kiley came down and her eye looked a little red but I didn't think much of it. Then, after her second session it seemed to be getting worse. I called the doctor and they confirmed that it was pink eye, so they called some drops in for us, but she would be contagious until she was on the drops 24 hours. We were worried about it spreading to the cousins, so we decided to wait another day before going. We were all bummed out not to be getting out of the house, so I called Mom and she said to come down for the night, so that is what we did! Marmee and Guy were reading the kids a book before bed and it made for a great picture!

In addition to Kiley's pink eye, Bentley had had a cough for a couple of days. We had been giving him breathing treatments each day. He wasn't running a fever or anything. It seemed more like allergies. Either way, it made for some sleepless nights over the break. Especially when we were all sleeping in the same room.

When we left Marmee & Guy's to go to Bruce & Lisa's, we saw real turkeys in the road!!

Bruce and Lisa are clearing out a lot of their land and had been building this bonfire for quite a while. We usually just have a small one on the side of the house, but this was a huge one way in the back!

We called it the Aggie Bonfire of course. Molly didn't quite agree.

It was so bright when they first lit it.

The picture hardly does it justice to how big it was.

The little girls sure enjoyed it!

In this picture, you can see how big it was compared to us and how far back we had to sit!

Camo boy found Mommy's boots!

Despite the challenges of traveling with 3 small children, we had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving. We love being around family, four wheelers, bonfires, football and food!

Puzzle Time!

A couple of weekends ago, we had some rainy and cold weather. This came after all being sick and being cooped up in the house all week and then we were stuck inside all weekend. Presley has been really into puzzles lately, so Mikey and I thought it would be fun to do one ourselves. We realized that we did not own a puzzle, so I called all of my neighbors to see if someone had one we could borrow and none of them had one either. Apparently people don't do puzzles anymore. So I ran to the store to get one. The selection was very small, but I found one. 1000 pieces. We set it up on a card table so we would bring it out when the kids went to bed and then put it in the office during the day. It was so nice to sit in front of the fire and/or football game and work on the puzzle together. We couldn't work on it every night, but each night that we did, I took a picture of our progress.

The before picture after we turned all of the pieces over.

Progress after Night 1.

Beginning of Night 2.

Progress after Night 2.

Progress after Night 3.

Progress after Night 4.

Progress after Night 5.

Progress after Night 6.

Finished!!

The weekend that we started the puzzle, we had our first snow.

It was still on the ground the next morning so Pres had to check it out.

Kiley's Lunch Dates!

While we are on the subject of Kiley, I will continue to brag about her. As I said in her update post, Kiley is really thriving in school. She is a little social butterfly. One day, I got an email from her teacher saying that 3 little kinder girls had all won a drawing at an assembly that morning where they could all pick a friend to eat lunch with in their classroom. Well all 3 of them picked to eat lunch with Kiley!! So all 3 of them came to Kiley's classroom to eat lunch. When I received this email, it made my heart so happy. I feel so blessed that Kiley is in a school where her peers open up their hearts to her. Here are some pictures that her teacher sent me.

Kiley's birthday continued....

Grammy and Grampy were on a cruise when we celebrated Kiley's birthday, so they had us over one Sunday night to celebrate. Grammy made one of Kiley's favorite meals and there were more presents and more cupcakes! The kids enjoyed opening more presents!!

She got some new puzzles.

And her very own baby.

And a gift for all of the kids!!

Thanks to Grammy and Grampy for a very special evening to celebrate Kiley!

Kiley's 6th Birthday!!

Our sweet Kiley turned 6 years old on Monday! I cannot believe we are parents to a 6 year old! As in past years, Kiley has come so far over the last year. She is in Kindergarten and thrives in school every day! She has come the furthest with her speech. She says so many words now and even some phrases. She is doing very well in communicating with us and letting us know what she wants. She gets so excited when she says something and we understand her!

As far as fine motor skills, she is working on gripping a pencil and learning to write her letters and numbers. Gross Motor skills are coming along also. She can run fast! She loves to run around on the playground at school and apparently she is a hot comodity. When she comes out for recess she has about 15 little girls waiting for her to play. Her physical therapist says she has come so far from last year and since she runs around with her friends on the playground, they push her to try new things and she has done great. It melts our heart that the kids on the playground are so welcoming to her and love her.

We celebrated Kiley's birthday with the family on Saturday. We had a great Aggie win and a fun celebration. Kiley had plenty of presents to open!

Silly sisters.

Let the present opening begin!

Presley had to help of course.

Kiley got mostly clothes, but Marmee and I both got her somethings to work on her fine motor skills. All of the kids wanted to play!

Bentley enjoyed the cupcakes!

And so did the Birthday Girl!

A picture of the girls! You can see all of Kiley's new clothes on the back of the couch. She sure made out!

Kiley wore a new dress to school on Monday for her actual birthday and some cute boots that Marmee got for her. She took donuts to school to share with her friends to celebrate with her.

Our sweet Kiley girl has been such a blessing to us over the last 6 years. Apparently, every 6 years, the days of the month and week are the same so I relived her birth even more this year. I remember her being due on the 4th which was Election Day and then inducing on Monday, the 10th. I relived every moment. Little did we know when we brought our sweet girl into this world that she would take us on such a journey. She has taught us that we are stronger than we ever thought we could be as parents. Even more, she is the toughest little girl we have ever known, and the happiest. Her smile is so precious and so contagious and she doesn't have any ill will in her petite little body. She has a sister and a brother that love her unconditionally and a family that has supported us during the worst times and the best times. We are so lucky to have Kiley in our lives and we look forward to the joy she will bring us in the years to come. We can't wait to watch her grow and develop into a smart beautiful girl.

Kiley has her well checkup next week. I will post more about her development after her checkup!