Additional weekend pics

We had a packed Thanksgiving weekend--spent the actual holiday in Plymouth at my aunt and uncle's house, took the ill-fated Christmas card photos, went to Madison Friday night and stayed at Jenn and Pat's, attended the UW-Penn State football game on Saturday while Mom and Dad babysat the kids (thanks!), and finally, had Josiah baptized on Sunday at church (more pics on that in its own post). 

We need a vacation from our four-day break!

Dad and Jojo, sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey

Both mine and Niki's birthdays are right before Thanksgiving. She turned 18 and I turned...29. Or something like that. We celebrated by putting candles on the pumpkin torte (and btw, pumpkin torte is better than pumpkin pie any day of the week--yum!)

It's become a tradition to play our own football game on Thanksgiving. This year we played on the local high school football field, which was cool. Thomas even got into the action, being the pre-center and hiking to the actual center. We played kids against the grown-ups, and the way the numbers fell, I was on the kids' team and Ed was on the grown-ups' team! The kids won, which was mostly thanks to having an awesome ringer--Niki's boyfriend Eric is a varsity football player. For fun, we kicked field goals at the end.

The four of us at the game. It drizzled most of the game, but we had our waterproof gear on. 

This picture on the top is a bit blasphemous--poor TJ seems to have his loyalties confused! Much better in the lower photo where Uncle Pat has his own helmet on and TJ's sporting the green and gold.

Jojo, meet Jojo (Pat's youngest brother)

Christmas Card Outtakes

We spent some time trying to take a posed Christmas card picture over the weekend. It was not easy, and that's only with two kids! Every time Thomas finally started to cooperate, Josiah started crying. Every time Josiah was happy and looking at the camera, Thomas was either running off or saying "cheeeeeese" while looking anywhere but at the camera. 

One outfit change, three days, and four backdrops later, we have about 80 outtakes (we were using two cameras for maximum opportunities since attention spans were short) and a couple useable pictures. 

I don't think I need to say much more--the photos tell the story!

 

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Life's been a little busy but I still wanted to put up a quick (belated) Thanksgiving post. We have much to be thankful for this year, starting with these two cuties!

  This group of pictures foreshadows our attempts at taking a Christmas card picture (more on that--including plenty of blooper shots--at a later point in time). This is the "best" one we have in their turkey gear--they're both looking at the camera and mostly sitting upright.

Josiah's looking good...Thomas is not.

I have a feeling that over the next year or two we're going to have a lot of these "nervous" photos of Jojo. He looks concerned about what Thomas might be planning to do next...

More nervous eyes. Not sure what Thomas is doing. 

A little pre-Thanksgiving fun...

Jojo is big and sturdy enough to sit in the bumbo--yay! I love kids in bumbos--they're so cute! 

Having two boys, I didn't think there'd be much opportunity for dress-up, which I loved as a kid. It may have only been hats, but the scene that plays out below proved me wrong.  I brought TJ's fleece hat over to join the party because he was being a little aggressive putting the not-so -soft plastic fireman hat on Jojo's head. Happily, little J didn't seem to mind this game, even when his eyes were covered.

Laughing yet? 

As a bonus, please enjoy the video below. A genuine Jojo smile, with an unexpected twist at the end.

Please note that no babies were harmed in the making of this video. Jojo is still young enough that he's as flexible as Gumby. He didn't even cry.

Birthday Fun

We celebrated my birthday Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, Thomas helped me make a cake. It got just a little messy...

 Scraping the bowl

 "Yicking" (licking) the bowl...the best part!

Helping me blow out the candles

Kathy came to visit on Sunday and brought this enormous sausage coil. We popped it in the smoker, along with a turkey breast, and had twice baked potatoes and cornbread stuffing for a little Thanksgiving preview. Delicious!

 Our pre-Thanksgiving feast!

Mama and her boys

 T's new favorite way to be wrapped up after a bath, and then Ed added the turban.

 Daddy and Jojo watching football

And a little video of Thomas singing me "Happy Birthday"

Some smiles

Josiah gives us these huge smiles--ones that start small and quickly spread across his entire face. They're great, and they're contagious. You can't help but smile back. The one exception to these smiles is when I pull out either the still or the video camera. Then he's super serious. I've gotten a couple good smile photos (and too many rejects to count!), but the huge growing grin has been elusive when I've tried to catch it on video. Here's a little montage of Josiah smiles/faces, but I'm still hoping to catch him at his best.

Oh, and your other reward, besides seeing Josiah's cute little face, for watching the entire 1 minute and 4 seconds of this video? Hearing Ed sing "My Little Buttercup" during the last 10 seconds or so. It's probably good that he doesn't read the blog often...I'm not sure he'd be thrilled to know his performance was up for the world to see! :)

Last weekend

We took the boys to a nearby park last weekend. Jojo slept in the stroller the whole time, but TJ played on the jungle gym and ran around. 

This is our most frequent view of Thomas lately--he's always running, and he's usually running away from us!

  

Daddy and TJ

Some other people (see them in the background?) came prepared for the ducks and geese--with plenty of bread. They were nice enough to share. Thomas practiced his awesome throwing skills as he tossed bread chunks to his feathered friends. 

I bought a desk for (eventually my office, but for now...) our bedroom. TJ was all about helping daddy put it together while I made dinner. It came with far too many pieces, and a few of them were damaged, so the desk adventure included a trip back to the store for some undamaged parts. Happily it's now assembled, and I've enjoyed working at the desk rather than on the bed! Pictures of the desk and the rest of our place to follow at some point (as soon as I take them). 

Jojo signals "touchdown" during the Monday night Packer game.