Art Time

Lincoln has an art lesson once a week. It's always teaches some new principle of design and then he gets to do a project. The other 2 usually join him.

 A few weeks ago, he really enjoyed drawing a picture, tracing over with black crayon and then using water color. He liked it so much, he began to make more to sell. He called up family members to pitch his paintings. He sold quite a few for $3 a piece. 

I wish I could say he wanted to spend the money on some grand charitable thing, but is was just used for a new Lego set. I'm proud of this entrepreneur spirit though! He found some money on the kitchen counter and asked if he could have it. I told him no, that my friend just paid me back $4 for something I picked up for her. He then replied, "You should have told her it cost $10." Geez, we may have created a shark!

I think he got his artistic abilities from his dad. The bed he welded for us turned out amazing!

*update 1/11: Lincoln had a call with his teacher. She thanked him for the Batman picture he painted for her for Christmas. His response was, "You owe me 3 dollars." Oh man, we had a serious talk about gifts vs selling. Both Ms. Smith and I had a good laugh though!

November Recap

Lincoln has been enjoying homeschool PE at the YMCA. It's a small group of kids, but they have a great time getting exercise together.

When Dorothy sees an open lap, she quickly jumps on it. 

Cleve and his kids came down in Veteran's day. We spent most of the day playing outside, because the weather was gorgeous! Dorothy gave Cleve the best gift Veteran's Day present by giving him some good hugs.

We normally don't do anything Christmasy before Thanksgiving, but we do make an exception for the member's preview of the lights at the botanical gardens. 

These boys are always making silly faces for the camera.

Drake actually sat in Santa's lap this year! He didn't really ask for much. He asked so softly I couldn't hear.

Lincoln had quite the list including a Wii, Lego Death Star set, and many other things.

While we were waiting on Santa, Dorothy and Dave walked around the gardens.

For thanksgiving this year, we continued with our beach tradition. Just the five of us went to Mrytle Beach. I was amazed that we had 70 degree weather, so the kids were able to get in the ocean.

The first day we got there, we told the kids we were just going to put our feet in the water. Lincoln hikes his pants up to his bum, so that nothing would get wet. Drake on the other hand...

It was as if he had missed the ocean so much, he needed to give it a hug!

Dorothy was fine in the water that first day, but after that, she didn't want her toes to touch the sand at all. We would try to put her down, and she would use all her ab muscles to make sure her feet didn't get on the sand.

Everyone loved swimming in the pools. All the outdoor pools were heated and they also had an indoor pool. Dorothy picked up Drake's goggles and very clearly said "goggles." She is totally holding out on us if she can say atwo syllable  word like that!

We didn't do any touristy things and we didn't go out to eat. The only time we ventured out of the resort was when we walked to Krispy Kreme for breakfast one morning.

We had a great time just being on the beach, trying to fly kites, and playing board games.

We had a small Thanksgiving dinner, but we made sure we had a few pies. A few nights later we were having spaghetti for dinner. Drake wasn't interested in eating, but we reminded him that he couldn't have any pie if he didn't eat his spaghetti. 

I looked over at Dorothy's plate and told her she did a good job with her spaghetti. She looked up at me and said, "Pie?". For a girl of very few words, this made us crack up!

I'm so glad we had that time together! It makes me look forward to having Dave home during Christnas break!

Here is our Thankful list this year:

Happy Halloween

The Monday before Halloween, it was Lincoln's turn for a breakfast date with me. He chose Waffle House. I have 2 very sweet sons, and it was great to spend time with them individually! This month, it will be Dave's turn.

On Wednesday, Cleve and his family came down for our church Trunk or Treat. I don't remember a ton about that night, because mom had an unexpected hospital visit. She is fine, and she

 really wanted us to go so the kids could have fun. The kids did look adorable.

My Dorothy

Chewbaca

Optimus Prime (He won best kids costume.)

The Cousins

Chewbaca got to wear his costume again for the preschool carnival and for a birthday party the Friday before.

Mom and dad came down Halloween night and treated us to dinner. There must have been lots of parties this year, because only about 8 neighbors were gone for trick or treating. I would have taken the boys to anther neighborhood, but they said they were done. They liked passing candy out and checking out their stash!

It was too cold for Dorothy to be Dorohy, so she wore the monkey costume that the boys wore when they were toddlers.

Dave made a Frankenstein Trump and Bride of Frakenstein Hillary pumpkin.

It is beautiful when it isn't raining. The kids have all natural jungle gym in our backyard.

This is proof that I do get out sometimes. A group of ladies from church took a sweet friend out to dinner for her birthday.

Dorothy was still in dress up mode the next day before church.

Now we are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving!

Fall Festivities

What a gorgeous time of year. The weather has been amazing lately, so we have been able to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Our Fall started out with a visit from our dear friends, the Edwards. I'm so glad the puppies feel right at home with us!

I'm not sure why all of my kids are ok with open mouth puppy kisses though!

Dave and Dave watched all the puppies and kids, so that Rachel and I could go out for lunch and do a little shopping in downtown Belmont. It was so refreshing and much needed for me!

It has been lovely to see the cousins catching up with eachother. I traded Drake for Carson one Friday night. I'm pretty sure I got the easier trade! I took the boys to the park, where they spent more time wrestling with eachother than playing on the playground. They had a great time playing with action figures and stayed up way way way too late talking!

Drake and Prmny got along well at BB's house. They even got to roast marshmallows on the outdoor fire pit. I love this picture of Penny singing and Dorothy just amazed by it!

The boys wanted me to make. Mummy recipe that was in their highlights magazine. They didn't turn out as cute as the recipe, but the Nutella and banana combination was pretty tasty.

Dave and I decided we needed to be better about spending one on one time with the kids. Drake was up first. We let him pick out where he wanted to go to breakfast and if he wanted mom or dad to take him. He chose me to take him to McDonald's. We had a great time together and he told me when he grows up he wants to be just like me. It made my entire day to hear those sweet words! 

Bear Bear came too, and Drake didn't want him to feel left out without his picture taken.

Dad was the only one who was able to cheer me on during my marathon 8 years ago. He loved the energy of the crowd and the atmosphere, so we said we would do a marathon together. 3 kids later and dad's 2 knee later, we decided to still check it off the bucket list, but with a big compromise; a 5k instead of a marathon. The race was mostly on a trail in Belmont. I'm pretty impressed with how we did for not doing any train race training. We finished middle of the pack with the 3 kids cheering us on. It was a fun race and a beautiful day, so I'm so glad we did it!

The next day, I needed to go on a walk to stretch my legs. Drake really wanted to come with me, but I really wanted him in the stroller so I could go at a normal pace ( not at a stop every 2 minutes and fix my shoe pace). I did stop when I saw a pretty leaf and when I found a feather, which he lived so much he said he wanted to keep it forever. A few minutes from home it got very quiet, and this is what I found...

I was shocked he fell asleep in the stroller, since he rarely naps anymore. I guess it had to do something with the fact he was still in his pajamas and had his bear bear. I think it's adorable that he fell asleep with the leaf in one hand and the feather in the other. 

The tooth fairy has stopped by 2 nights a week apart. This face is so stinking cute, even with 2 teeth missing! He thinks it's awesome that the hole looks like a batarang. 

He cracked me up/grossed me out last week. I asked him to grab 2 pairs of socks, one for him  and one for Drake. It took them a while, but finally they came downstairs. Link was wearing socks but Drake wasn't. Drake handed me the socks and they were wet.

Obviously the next question was, "Why are these socks wet?" Link said because they were in the toilet and he had to grab them out. I told Drake to go put them in the laundry room and I asked Link if he washed his hands. This answer is what cracked me up, especially with the hand motions he did: "No mom, I didn't need to. I reached arroouunnd the pee." 

Because Lincoln's teacher is in Raleigh, we had not met with her face to face until our first field trip. Both boys were really looking forward to meeting her. She is just as sweet and lovely in person as she is on the computer screen! She took lots of time talking to Lincoln and Drake about books, sports and video games.

The farm we went to had a great hay ride to the 25 acre pumpkin patch. There weren't anymore small pumpkins left, so we ended up with 3 large pumpkins. That was pretty fun to manage while keeping my eyes on all 3 kids! Lincoln had to roll his pumpkin, it was too heavy for him to carry.

We had our second annual dinner/ pumpkin carving night our our neighbors, the Sherills. I had sugar cookies for the kids to decorate after dinner. 

After all that sugar, they ran and played outside for a couple hours. It was already dark, but they had such a great time chasing eachother, yelling and acting like typical boys. I don't have pictures of the pumpkins, but Drake wanted a smiley face with a tongue sticking out (that's his signature face he makes for pictures.) and Link wanted a happy pumpkin. Dave got off easy this year!