Sophie's Thanksgiving Program

Sophie's preschool Thanksgiving program has come and gone and the kids did a great job with their meal preparation and performance.

As always, the tables were decorated with festive crafts and the meal was served after the kids filed in and said the prayer.

"We give thanks, we give thanks, we give thanks for friends and food!"

"Amen!"

Sophie and I were very thankful that Great Verna came to spend the morning with us.  And also that she helped all the children make applesauce earlier in the fall in preparation for this program.

After a tasty meal, the kids returned to the risers to entertain us with their Thanksgiving songs.

Incorporating handmade tom-toms into the music.

Mya & Stella approve of their homemade pumpkin cake.

The three girls with their buddy, Jax.

More friends.

Nana & her granddaughters.

And one with Great Verna too!

These next few crack me up.  Mya did NOT want her picture taken.  Actually, none of them were very excited about this photo op we were having.

But we can always count on Stella to smile!!  

Standing seemed to cheer up the two on the left.

And finally, the best one of our preschoolers.

Good Grades Date

Will's grade card came back with good marks this period.  So another celebratory date was in order!  This time it was daddy's turn.  They dressed up (matchy-matchy) and hit up Five Guys for lunch before catching a movie.  It can be assumed that this was a great afternoon for them both.  ;)

While the boys were out, Sophie set up another block castle on TOP of the dining room table.  Not my first choice, but she looked so cute up there working so intently.  

And then us girls had a little tea party lunch with passion fruit tea.

Hoping both kids took away great memories of this day.  It was a high point of the weekend for all four of us.  ;)

Bobbing for Apples

Halloween night was rainy and windy this year.  Trick or treating got rescheduled to the weekend and we spent a fun evening at home as a family.  The night was highlighted by a new-to-our-kids fall activity:  bobbing for apples!  It was so much fun and is sure to become an annual tradition now.  

We brought up the galvanized bucket and I did my best to clean it a bit as it normally stores sports balls, baseball gloves, etc. in our basement.  I used a pitcher to fill it with water and dropped in four of the smallest apples that Will and I picked recently at Erie.  Perfect size and firmness for little people attempting capture with teeth in a bucket of water.  Haha!

Soph chose (on her own) to put on a swimsuit and Will just took off his shirt in preparation.

Let the game begin! 

I adore all of the expressions of the onlooking child! 

Look at her seriousness! 

First success! 

Enjoying the reward. 

Sophie continued to have a hard time but never gave up trying! 

Finally, Craig cupped his hand under an apple to give her something to push it against and she found success.

Way to go, baby girl! 

Going in for round two.  (This turned out to be a substantial part of dinner.  Haha!) 

And then at the end, because our kids just LOVE to be naked, they stripped down to their skivvies and birthday suit respectively and jumped in to dance in the "tub". 

We followed this up with a bath, jammies and the Charlie Brown Halloween on TV.