November!

 Yes, it's January and we've had a wonderful winter so far! But catching up on pictures and rewinding now to November! Here are scenes from our November adventures!

Hannah is part of a service club for preschoolers. It is a small group of kids and moms that do simple service-related activities a couple of times a month. It was the brain child of a friend of mine and the group has been so much fun. We've delivered cookies to service people in our community, we've worked at a thrift store, and we've made sandwiches to be delivered to homeless people. It sounds like a lot of work, but honestly it's been really simple to organize the activities and it has been so much fun. I would recommend this to any other moms reading...such a great experience. Anyway, in November we took part in a "gleaning" activity at the pumpkin patch near our house. They were trying to get 1000 volunteers over the weekend (and I think they did) to pick and deliver all of the remaining thousands of pumpkins left in their field following Halloween. We helped out with it and the kids had a great time!

Here's Lolo at the library. One of her favorite things to do there is to play the "puter". I actually despise the computer at the library because I hate the fact that we go there and instead of getting excited about books, they want to play the computer first. Ugg. Anyway, the kids both love it and Lauren looks so darn cute in the oversized earphones I had to snap her picture.

And here she is checking out her books by herself. Very independent...

 Story time fun for Lo-lo

Enjoying a nice fall day by going for a ride :)

When it's cold outside we have to get creative! This was probably my one and only project from Pinterest :)  I generally get overwhelmed with all of the ideas on Pinterest and try to keep stuff simple, but this one was pretty fun. And easy too--cook spaghetti then dye it!

Having fun riding scooter and biking in the garage :)

And then playing dress-up with pool toys. ?? Always creative :)

 Lauren just looking cute at breakfast one morning :) She always has to eat breakfast RIGHT when she wakes up. Like immediately upon waking she says "Eat!" and then she goes down to get her banana, mini-wheats, or waffle. She is a great eater, which is awesome.

Lauren playing doctor...she looks unhappy here because she decided at the last minute she didn't want her picture taken. But the picture shows how she has all of her doctor equipment lined up and ready :) She LOVES playing doctor and loves collecting her doctor stuff all together :)

Watch out world! Here they come! This picture makes my heart skip a beat because I think about in 12 years when this could actually happen! At least driver Lauren is wearing her helmet :) Very safety-conscious!

The Dyer kiddos came to visit on one of their days off of school and we all had a great time!

 Went to Paradise Park where Kate and Grace rocked the climbing wall! Posted these pics for Carla and Jon to see.

 Played some mini-golf!

 Ate some ice cream sandwiches!

 And the next day, headed to Amazing Play!

This is a special picture posted just for Uncle Dave!! Hope he is checking the blog still :) This picture required no posing or prodding...just Lauren on a typical day...biting her toe nails...

More shenanigans...Hannah having fun with olives :)

And more craziness...a giant pile of pillows/blankets that the girls were leaping into from the stairs. I had to convince Hannah that she could go no higher than five stairs high...and that she could not do somersaults.

And then they build this monstrosity...I think this pile consisted of approx 99% of our blankets/pillows in the entire house! And they jump/somersault off of the chair into it. It is actually safer than it sounds...I hope! Desperate cold fall days call for desperate measures, I guess!! 

And forts are another way of keeping busy...a fort with books and flashlights and the occasional "special treat" snack inside is always a hit!

Here's Hannah's heart-shaped pizza :)

 This picture is hard to see, but it is of Lauren after she dressed herself up like a baby. She puts the bib on and the pacifier and bottle and blankets, and then she runs around calling herself "Baby Lo-lo!".

On a brave Saturday in November, Greg and I decided to take the girls to the Nelson-Atkins art museum. They had a couple of kids activities there, but mainly we just walked around for a little while and pointed out some different types of art. I hadn't been since high school and I really enjoyed it and I think it was a good first visit for them. The museum has some neat Egyptian art as well as oil paintings, sculptures, etc. The girls did well for being in such a "quiet" place. Here they are with a snack in the very neat museum restaurant with the giant fountain.

This picture was taken at Hannah's Thanksgiving Day Celebration at school. It was a great time and so glad that Gramma Jan and Grampa Bill could join us. The school does a nice job of organizing it and the kids are so cute. I need to upload a few more pictures of the actual performance and Hannah at the performance. The songs were so sweet and they had worked so hard to have several cute homemade crafts to decorate the tables. A fun time was had by all! Lauren kept shouting "Hannah! Hannah! There's Hannah!" when Hannah's class came out to sing :) She was very proud of her sister :)

Thanksgiving weekend! Since Lauren is now out of the crib, this was the first time the girls had slept together at Gramma Jan and Grampa Bill's house. They were so sweet :)

The Drymalski family joined us for Thanksgiving dinner at the Mees's and it was tons of fun! The kiddos had a blast playing and making advent calendars and the adults all had a great time catching up. It was a great holiday! We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Dyers later that weekend also, although my camera was not working that day so no pictures right now...but it was a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We have so much to be Thankful for and I try to be mindful this time of year and all year long of all that is good in life and in the world. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!