Dottie, Dottie, Dottie

I think this picture is pretty self-explanatory...the dog did it!  It never occurred to me that the Christmas tree and Dottie would be a problem because Kenda was never interested in the tree or ornaments. 

 

The first thing I noticed was that the tree skirt was always pulled away from the tree.  I'd put it back and a few minutes later it was gone again.  So I gave up on that, but then the ribbon in the bottom branches kept getting pulled out...Hmm.  And finally, as we were reading one afternoon I watched Dottie as she stood on her hind legs trying to grab ornaments.  I moved all the ornament to the top of the tree and thought that would solve the problem.  On Friday afternoon I was washing dishes when I heard a clinking sound and turned around to see a glass ornament roll across the floor after being  dropped from Dottie's mouth.  I had a moment of panic as I realized that this ornament had been at the very top of the tree...how did she get it?  This is what I found when I got to the living room!

 

Last night was our church Christmas program so bedtime was a little later than usual.  Dottie loves to hop into bed with the boys each night but she's can be a bed hog.  I moved her from the middle of the bed to the foot of the bed, turned off the light and then heard Henry saying, "Ouch!  Who is that?"  We turned on the light to see:

Apparently the foot of the bed is not good enough for her because she repeated this one more time before Nate came to take her downstairs.

The Works

Last week we tried out The Works museum.  On our way into town we found out Mimi Megan had the day off and we were very happy to have her join us.  Henry and Walter gave the museum a thumbs up.

 



 Walter and Mimi Megan trying out their experiment.  You had to build a car and then power it with air from a balloon.

 Meanwhile, Henry and I were building with GeoMagz.

 

Then off to build a car or two before we ventured downstairs to the other part of the museum. 

This was a sensor maze.  You could try to figure out how to locate and activate all of the sensors as you went through the maze or you could try to sneak past all of the sensors. 

Trying out the pulley experiment. 

Programing the bug to navigate through a maze.

 

We stopped for a little pie, sundaes and French fries after our field trip.

Friends

The week after Thanksgiving we had our friends over for dinner.  The kids had fun running around, jumping in the bouncy house, trying out a Rainbow Loom and eventually watching a short movie before heading to bed.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving involved a quick day trip to Grandma Bakkel's house.  Grandma sold her house and the process of sorting, packing and cleaning was well underway but we still had a delicious dinner with our family.

 

The talk at our house has involved a lot of Indiana Jones and whiskers lately.  Mimi Megan found some sticky mustaches for the boys and we all got a good laugh out of them.   Unfortunately, Grandma Bakkel took her mustache off before we could get a picture of her with the boys! 

The "Partyboy" mustache

The "Bandit" (Left) and the "Partyboy" (Right)

 This is one picture I never seem to be able to capture well!

We got back to the Grandma and Grandpa L's house late in the evening so we stayed overnight.  The next day, the four of us went to see "Frozen" and then Henry and Walter got haircuts.  I'm drawing a blank on the rest of the day...but we stayed another night and got home on Saturday afternoon.

 

Walter and Henry enjoyed playing with the barn set from Grandma and Grandpa Berg's (Bakkel) that we (sisters and cousins) spent many hours playing with when we were kids.  Walter would look at each animal to see if they had "gutters" in order to figure which ones were girls.  The stories they invented while playing made me smile.

Visitors

Our friends came to stay with us a couple weekends ago.  They arrived Friday evening to lots of happy yelling (Henry and Walter are quite the welcome committee).  Saturday morning, Randy and Nate went to the range and then joined us at home for lunch.  On Friday we found out Walter had another double ear infection, so when he requested Ramen noodles instead of chili or soup, I didn't think much of it.  Turns out all the other kids ended up wanting the same - so I guess we could have spent $2 and fed all 7 of them instead of making chili and homemade soup!  It was a successful weekend: the guys were able to hunt, the kids had a ton of fun being together, and we all enjoyed a little down time.  A few of us even squeezed in a couple of games Saturday night.  We're so glad they came but just wonder how the time flies by!

 

The young guys spent a lot of time playing football together.  The cold drizzles didn't seem to bother them at all.  It was fun to watch them (from inside the warm house).

 Tough Guy poses

Melanie and Brooke were making bead jewelry.

Play dough fun

Our friend, Ben, and his dog joined Nate, Randy, Melanie and Dottie for an afternoon of hunting.  They brought home 4 birds.

Ben's daughter came and spent the afternoon playing with the our kids.  They were very busy!  We finished off with rock painting.

Dottie sat outside the kitchen door waiting...she knew the birds were in the garage waiting to be cleaned and she was ready for any chance to get in there!

 

 Getting ready to hunt on Sunday afternoon.

And then there were none!  Henry and Parker bonked into each other while playing football and out came Henry's other front tooth.  He ran into the house looking so sad and when I asked him what was wrong, he opened up his mouth (which alarmed me a little because it was pretty bloody) and then held up his tooth.  Over the last few days he's been practicing different words that are tricky to say without front teeth. 

There were four little boys who were starting to show some wear and tear so we turned on Looney Toons to let them relax while the car was getting packed up.  They went through a loaf of banana bread, a big bowl of watermelon and a few other snacks while they laughed together.  Before we knew it, they were heading home - the time went so quickly! 

q

Family

 

 We think this picture of Dottie is so funny.  The boys think she looks like a robot dog from the wild west.  What a puppy!

Mimi Erin's Birthday

The first week of November, Henry had two days off from school for parent-teacher conferences.  After our conference on Wednesday, the boys and I hopped into the car and drove to Grandma and Grandpa L's house to celebrate Mimi Erin's birthday.  We're thankful for both of the mimis, so we're glad when we get to celebrate with them!  After a yummy dinner, there was...

 

Present opening:

Walter was the efficient assistant-present-opener (he may have been a little too efficient). 

A Massive Wrapping Paper Roll Battle:

 A Few Pictures with Mimi Erin

Another Battle:

A Photo Session By Henry:

Cake and a round of "Happy Birthday"

 

A Sleepover and Late Night Movie:

Unfortunately, there were naps on the drive in so Mommy was very tired but the boys were much less tired.  We paid dearly for that nap time over the next few days!  Grandma and the Mimis spent some time with us while we watched the movie.