Minute to Win It Games Part 1

N2 and I went up to Marcie's house the first weekend in November.  We stayed overnight on Friday and some of the kids were up at 5:20 am on Saturday morning.  Needless to say the kids were tired and we needed something for them to do (Megan ended up developing a fever so we needed something for the older 3 to do while Nathaniel napped).  We decided to have N2 and Amelia play minute to win it games.  It was hilarious watching them!

The first one we played was using a straw to transfer m&m's from one plate to another.  It was hard!

Then we had them use their straws to blow pompoms across a line on the table.

We then had them balance dice on a tongue depressor in their mouths.  Marcie didn't have dice ready but she had story cubes.  They may have been a little large.  I think the most the kids could get were 4.  The tongue depressors were colored and the dye came off when they were in their mouths.  Natalie had quite red teeth!

 We then got out some tights and put a penny in the bottom of the feet that they had to get out while having each arm in each leg.  I think this was an easy one for them.

Then we put lots of pennies at the bottom of the tights, put the tights on their heads and had them try to knock over a line of water bottles.  Marcie and I participated in this one.  It was pretty fun!

We then gave the kids a thin mint and placed it on their forehead.  They had to use their facial muscles to get the cookie to their mouths.  This was hilarious!  It was really hard.  You have to start with the cookie by your eye rather than in the middle of your forehead.

Merry Christmas!

We saw Santa when our town did their Holiday Walk on Main Street.  We started by decorating trees with Natalie's Daisy troop and Noah's Cub Scout pack.  Here is Natalie with her friend Autumn.

Then we waiting for Santa to arrive (N2 were the first ones in line).  Santa and Mrs. Claus came on the Township bus escorted by a squad car.  It was kind of funny.  N2 visiting with Santa made it on the Holiday Walk's Facebook page since they were the first to see Santa.

After seeing Santa we did some crafts and Natalie wrote a letter to Santa (it was supposed to be about how she was good this year) which won the contest so now we get to go to a village board meeting for her to get a prize.  Yay!

Fall leaves

We had quite a mild fall so there weren't many leaves on the ground until mid November.  We had a good time raking leaves (N2 are pretty good helpers outside) and then Natalie loved to jump in the leaves.  Noah was in a bit of a funk so I couldn't get a picture of the two of them together in the leaves.  I know some of these are blurry but they show how much fun she was having.

 Noah decided to channel his inner Peeta (his hand was better buried but he didn't want his picture taken).

Cookie making

N2 and I went to Mom and Dad's house one day after Thanksgiving and made Christmas cookies.  N2 were very eager to help in the kitchen and we spent the whole time just making and decorating cookies.  We started with Christmas tree press cookies.  N2 really wanted to use some of the other shapes so we made chocolate cookies too in the shape of camels, dogs, flowers, and more.  Nothing says Christmas like a chocolate camel with blue and green or pink sugar :)  Dad tried to use the cookie press that his parents used but it wouldn't cut the cookie off so he had to go back to his own cookie gun.

We also made 7 step bars, gingerbread men, sugar cookies and started the pecan puffs (we rolled them into balls but didn't have time to bake them).  This year my kids were very careful to cut the cookies close to the edges and close to each other so clearly 6 3/4 in the age where the finally learn to be spatially aware when cutting cookies.  They even made sure that they cut the exact same number of each shape of sugar cookie (clearly they are my children).  They made some gingerbread men with tons of red hots for Grandpa, Daddy and Aunt Marcie.

Natalie even helped mom make lunch and used a knife to cut tomatoes.

Baby teeth Halloween

Here are some random pictures from October.  Here is Natalie with our newest nephew/cousin, Jacob and Noah with some missing teeth (he was missing his middle top 2 teeth and 2 bottom teeth (not the two in the middle but the ones next to the middle) all at the same time so we called him Toothless for a while.  But one on the bottom and one on the top grew in pretty quickly so he wasn't Toothless for long.  He still is missing one on his top and one on the bottom is taking a long time to grow in.

 Here are pictures from Halloween.  We were supposed to go up to Marcie's but Amelia was sick with a fever and we didn't want our kids to get sick.  It would have been so much fun though.  We ended up going up the following weekend.

 We got together at Dan's house so all of the grandchildren were together.  Jacob is the very hungry caterpillar and Chloe is the butterfly from the book.  Charlie is a robot and Lily is a ladybug.

More Peanut Antics

Here is more mischief that Peanut has gotten into since the last time I posted.  Peanut made N2's lunches one day with really yummy food.  Natalie really wanted to take the can of pumpkin with her to school.  We let them have hot lunch that day although Natalie chose to have Brian make her a different lunch instead of hot lunch.

 Peanut made them elf cereal the next day that included m&ms, mini marshmallows, pretzels, cheez-its, craisins, raisins, and cereal.

 He took the stockings down and put up underwear.

 Peanut lost his hat in a very hard spot and N2 basically gave up trying to find it.  It was hidden behind my potted plant.  Natalie finally spotted it (after me telling them to look in all the corners) when she was seated at the table for a meal.

 We had baked cookies the day before and Peanut overindulged in sweet treats.

 N2 were not excited to see that all the baby Jesuses were taken out of their nativity scenes.  They are very protective of my nativity scenes. :)

 Elf sized pancakes returned!  This is something that N2 have been asking for as it is a tradition each year.  Peanut made them pretty tiny this year!

Peanut has also been seen sitting on a cactus, being a replacement for baby Jesus in a nativity scene (again N2 did not like this) and he drew faces on their faces with face paint crayons while they were sleeping and left them a note to look in the mirror but it all rubbed off (but I can't see anything on their blankets) by the time they woke up and they stared at the mirror for a while before getting frustrated and giving up.  I could see faint lines on Natalie's face so I pointed that out and then redrew the cat faces on.