Busy, Busy, Busy! (super long post...beware!)

I have been bad. I have been neglecting my precious blog. Things have been a little crazy around here lately and I just haven't had the time or felt inspired to blog. I love this blog, but I always feel like when I finally do commit to sit down and write a blog, that it has to be something wonderful, something inspiring, something poetic and thought provoking. I can't put words together in the way that I want and they never end up coming out as smoothly and beautifully as Kelly or Tisha, but I try. Then I just have to tell myself, "This isn't a contest. No one cares. Everyone just likes to see the pictures and see what we've been up to. You don't have to write a novel." So, with that said, here are pictures from our life these past couple of days. No great stories. Just little explanations here and there so you know what's going on. Sorry. That's the best I can do. But in exchange for poetic words and stories, I have millions of pictures. You all know that I'm always good for those! :)
Enjoy!


First of all, our breezeway is filled with the noise of Danny's drums and filled with the drums themselves and the new couch and chair we got from Danny. So, when I say the breezeway is filled - I mean it in every way possible! Chris is in heaven. He's been going out there in the freezing cold (we don't have the new heater hooked up yet) and playing his heart out on those drums. And might I just add - he's pretty good too!



When Joe and Paulette brought us the furniture from Danny, they mentioned Danny had asked them to store his drums for him. They also mentioned that Danny said that Chris could store the drums if he wanted so he could play them. So, I called Chris at work to tell him that we could keep the drums here if we wanted. I should have thought about my choice of words more carefully because it came out, "Danny said you could have the drums." HAHA. Chris got real quiet on the other end of the phone, and then it dawned on me what he probably thought I meant, so I quickly said, "To store. Not to have." Then Chris replied, "OH! DON'T DO THAT TO ME! I thought Danny was giving me his drums!" lol



Like father like son. He had to have me bring his drums out there so he could play too. How cute is that! :)



Thanksgiving Day! I made three pies for Thanksgiving, plus cinnamon roasted almonds. Mason wanted to help me so bad. So, I had him help with the Apple Pear Crumble Pie.



almost done....


ta-dah!!!


Thanksgiving was at Tisha's this year.




The cinnamon roasted almonds. They obviously didn't all fit on that tiny plate, so the rest I left in the tupperware container I brought them in. The plate was empty before we even sat down to eat, then after dinner, I noticed Chris, Josh, and my dad sitting on the couch watching football passing the container of almonds back and forth. They were gone within minutes! I think they were a big hit. :)




Fat Lucas (as his mother so affectionately calls him lol)










Late Thursday night, I contemplated going out at 4:00 in the morning to Kohl's. I have never been shopping on Black Friday. Never had the desire. I'm not a pushy person. I do not have patience to battle tons of pushy, rude people rushing around the stores, stand in line for ever waiting - that's not me. But, I saw the Kohl's add and I saw a few things that were very tempting to get out of bed for. But...in the end, sleep won me over. We slept in (well, the boys were up by 7:00, but we tried to sleep in) and as we were laying in bed, Chris asked me what I wanted to do that day. I didn't have any ideas. Then he said, "Hey, want to take the kids to the hands-on museum?" I thought, "That's a good idea! We haven't been there in a long time!" So, that's what we did on Black Friday. While every one else was battling people and lines and fighting over the last item on the shelf, we were having family time. It had been so long since we had been able to go out as a family and do something fun like that. It felt so nice.





They had a huge section of Bob the Builder things. Cole loved the vegetable garden.



Time to go fishing!





I couldn't resist this picture. :)























I'm always behind the camera and there aren't many pictures of me. So, I thought I would take care of that. I'm behind the camera AND in the picture! The best of both worlds! lol











Couldn't resist again. hehe







Testing my flexibility. I was able to make it go all the way down. Guess that's not hard to do when your legs are the same length as your arms. lol

























The shadow room. That was the boy's favorite! It was really hard to get a picture in there. Chris was able to shoot these, but I had to lighten them up so you could see our shadows.





This was the funniest and the most disgusting. I just tried not to think about how many snot nosed kids had their faces and hands on these things. lol

Mason...



Chris...


Family portrait...me and Chris on top, the boys on the bottom.


And that's it so far! Whew!!!! Today is photoshoot day. I will have more pictures to post soon. Hope this has kept everyone satisfied for a little bit. Sorry it took so long. :)