Suddenly...It's the Christmas Season

Pumpkins in the Patch
The pumpkin patch is always a hit - always.  

Question: You know what's most exciting?  
Answer: climbing on old trucks and tractors, seeing a farm animal use the bathroom, and climbing on old tires.  That's where the fun is for these three!  

So, next year I'll sprinkle a few pumpkins in our backyard after I pull the car out back and let the dogs out.  That outta do it!  JUST KIDDING!  I love that these three are so naive and amused easily by simple things.  These kids love being kids.  They begged to stay longer both times we went.  It's nice to enjoy these simple "country" pleasures right in the middle of the city.  

The littlest pumpkin in our patch

The sassiest pumpkin

The most snaggle-toothed pumpkin

Who are These People?

Crazy Dave, Super Girl, Bumblebee

Show Time

This was the first of many (two to be exact) Christmas performances for the 2 littles.  It was Stella's first ever and she was not about to let the spotlight fade.  Both Samuel and Stella were great!  They sang.  They remembered the motions.  They made us proud and they had fun doing it.  It's so sweet to hear them still singing songs about Jesus in the weeks following the performance.  

Stella can recognize our camera a mile away

Samuel remembered the motions

Took the opportunity for a picture while they were dressed up

And then came #2 for the littles and the first for Joey.  Joey has recently joined our church's youth choir.  He loves music and we thought this would be both a good fit for him and another opportunity for him to hear God's truth through music.  We've all been belting out these songs throughout December after the leaders gave us a CD with the songs to practice.  I don't know if they meant for the entire family to sing along, but that's what happened.  On more than one occasion, I looked in my rear view mirror to see Joey demonstrating the motions for Samuel to repeat...and these were motions that only Joey had to remember.   

The 3 performers

Fun + Learning 
Samuel has been asking almost weekly to go to the children' museum, so we found some time.  Thankfully Hoo Hoo was here for a visit (November) and we got to take her too.  With the public schools still in session, we had the museum mostly to ourselves.  And it didn't take much to impress these 2.  From cup stacking to dinosaurs, they had a blast.  What they really wanted to do was play in the grocery store area, which we did for quite some time.  You should've seen how quickly they could restock the shelves.  What is it about scurrying to put the plastic bread and fish in their designated bins?  Wish I could somehow transfer that idea to the toys in our house!  There was also an area with tall tubes containing gusting air.  The idea was to create a flying creation by cutting and taping paper plates and paper cones.  We spent quite a bit of time at this station mostly because there were scissors and tape readily available.  With some guidance, Samuel made this rather large creation (below).  And he was sorely disappointed when it wouldn't fly.  It's no wonder though.  The creation contained about 5 lbs of tape!  

To Make Momma Happy 
They know what they need to do.  I "forced" these poor helpless children to go stand outside and smile.  It was tough, but they managed.  See...they're so cute!  And they made our Christmas card look cute!

Merry Christmas!

How can it possibly be 3 years ago (tomorrow) that we boarded a plane to bring our Samuel home?  How. Is. That. Possible?