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I hope everyone is staying warm! It’s pretty chilly out there, but no snow around here yet… I’m hopeful that we’ll see at least a few flakes before it warms up and rains again.

We had a lot of indoor fun this week, including scattering all of our cushions and pillows around the living room for jumping and climbing fun, but the real excitement happened in the yard. Chris spent the (very cold) weekend putting our Christmas lights out on the house and trees (love you honey!). They’re very pretty and the girls are thrilled. We’ve taken (very cold) walks around the neighborhood every night to look at all of the houses’ decorations.

We’re hoping to get our tree sometime this week. CareBear is so excited about all of it this year, which is fun to watch. LiliBee goes along with whatever CareBear is doing, of course, but is pretty pleased with herself when she notices decorations on her own. LiliBee is very much a twinkly lights girl, they fascinate her.

This week includes lots of school related fun. CareBear’s class is learning about sharing this month and she’s having a great time practicing at home… much to LiliBee’s delight. I’m “working” in class again this week and this weekend we’ll be fundraising. I’m gift wrapping at the South Hill Borders from 12:30 to 3:30 on Saturday if anyone wants to stop by and say hi.

Sometimes it doesn’t rain in the fall and we can play outside.

The kids like to swing.

Chris does something productive.

And I stay inside where it’s warm and enjoy the rare period of quiet, at least for awhile!

This is Spots. He’s CareBear’s favorite dog. They do just about everything together some days.

They snuggle.

They share a snack.

Sometimes Spots flies.

It’s good to have friends.

A pretty table.

A little playing.

A little snacking.

With chocolate.

And more chocolate.

A little pie.

 A little bouncing.

 A little landing.

A little story telling.

A little lollipop time.

A little snuggling.

A very good holiday.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was quite nice and very mellow… or maybe that was just the effects of turkey and pumpkin pie!

We spent the day at my folks eating good food and playing with fun toys. I think LiliBee snacked for 6 hours straight, she’s quite a grazer. CareBear is a bit pickier about what she eats, but she had quite a variety of fruit to enjoy. We’ve been pretty busy lately, so it was nice to have a day “off”.

We had another ultrasound to see Banjo last week. Apparently, that’s going to be a monthly event now that I’m both old and showing signs of gestational diabetes. It’s always fun to see the little hands and feet waving around! They got the pictures they needed of the heart and face and everything looks good. Banjo is measuring right on target for 22 weeks and still has everything in all the right places.

There was more remodeling over the weekend. Chris’ folks came up Friday and Saturday to help with molding and baseboards… it’s all so pretty! Parts of our house look like a real home again. The puppies and kitties are sure happy that things are getting back to normal.

The day after Thanksgiving, I came down with a cold… Chris had it a couple of weeks ago, but it took it’s time passing on to me. On the bright side, at least it waited until after LiliBee’s birthday party and the holiday! Also, at least it’s not the flu… On the other hand, the kids don’t let me rest enough as it is! Still, I seem to be much better today, which is good since I’m supposed to go to school with CareBear tomorrow.

This week should be fun, assuming I’m on the mend. We don’t have any doctor’s appointments (which is getting to be more rare now that I’m all “high risk”) and I get to be “art mom” at school, which is the most fun parent helper in my opinion. We’ll be visiting the farm as usual and might even do a little Christmas shopping. The girls love all of the twinkly decorations around right now.  And I don’t think we have anything actually scheduled for this weekend yet! That, in itself, is amazing.

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? Christmas? New Years? Where did this year go, anyway?

We had a fun birthday week… LiliBee turned two years old! Of course, if you ask her she’ll tell you that she’s three. I can’t convince her that she’s actually two and now she has CareBear on her side. Anyway, she got to have a special birthday dinner of spaghetti and both she and CareBear helped me make the birthday cake.

We had a nice little birthday party for her over the weekend (even smaller than planned since Cousin H had to stay home with the flu, poor kid). LiliBee wasn’t too sure about blowing out the birthday candles, but she’s apparently some kind of present prodigy since she tore right into them with almost no prompting! She loves all of her gifts and the party balloons, but mostly she was impressed by everyone coming to her house all at once.

In other news, LiliBee had her 2 year check up! She’s still tiny for her age, but perfectly healthy. Both kids got flu shots at that appointment and CareBear is still complaining about how annoyed she was by “LiliBee’s doctor” giving her a shot.

After all of the party fun, Chris and his folks continued our renovation project by painting the living room and getting molding up around our doors! The project is almost finished and the house is looking really nice… and I can’t help but think that being pregnant is an excellent way to be allowed to just stay out of the way!

This week should be pretty fun. We have our follow-up ultrasound on Banjo (and I promise to actually get some pictures out from this one!) and lots of Thanksgiving fun with my folks. This weekend will be more work on the house and, hopefully, a little bit of downtime to enjoy the new stuff before gearing up for December.

My kids are nudists. It’s hard to keep clothes on them and even harder to keep coats and shoes on them. So, of course, they like to go outside. In November. When it’s practically freezing.

They’re apparently playing with scraps of the new floor.

And fishing in the water dish, or something.

I ask them “aren’t you cold?”…

And LiliBee agrees that it might be a bit chilly.

It’s a blustery day today, but I kind of like it! Of course, we’re cozy inside with no where to go (for a change) so it might not be so fun for those of you out and about.

We had an exciting week… we made the big move back down into the rest of the house! It’s pretty nice, but there’s still a bunch of stuff to do before everything is back in it’s usual place. Unfortunately, that might have to wait a bit while take some time off to enjoy LiliBee’s birthday and Thanksgiving. We’ve actually been spending most of our “free” time running all of the errands that were put off during the floor work.

I was “snack mom” at preschool last week. CareBear and I made pumpkin oatmeal bars for her class and the kids really loved them. Chris had an extra day off due to the holiday so he was able to tag along and see what preschool is all about, too! CareBear was excited to have him there while she was the special helper (the kids who bring the snacks get to have extra responsibilities) and had a great day.

We did a little window shopping yesterday (and birthday shopping… shhhhh) and ran into Santa Claus! It seems a little early to me but CareBear was fascinated. She went up to say hi and got to chat with him for a few minutes. He told her to be sure to pick up her toys and brush her teeth, which she talked about for the rest of the day. LiliBee decided to be shy.

Our big news this week, of course, is LiliBee’s birthday! She’s going to be two years old tomorrow… I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that she was a tiny baby. She’s still pretty tiny, of course, but she’s a little girl now. She does so much by herself these days and gets really annoyed if we try to help. We’ve even had a couple of the famous “terrible two” tantrums! That’s kind of new for us since CareBear is more drama queen than tantrum thrower. Still, it’s amazing to watch them grow up and gain their individuality.

Other than birthday fun, we don’t have too much out of the ordinary planned for this week. LiliBee will be going to the doctor for her check up and shots, which I’m sure will go over well. And have to figure out what cake to make for the birthday girl… CareBear is pulling for chocolate, of course, but I think I might try something else.