Thanksgiving Day 2008

a very large table for a very large group and wonderful meal!

Daddy and Ethan

Avery sitting at the "girls and Grandpa and Grandma table"

the boys table

the boys had a sleepover Thanksgiving night

a worn out crew of boys

the girls had their own slumber party

they could only stay awake so long

unpacking Sunday afternoon-the girl just wears me out!

We went to Hutchinson for Thanksgiving Day and weekend. There were i believe 37 people at lunch on Thursday! Raegan was exausted by lunch time so we layed her down and she conked and slept through the whole afternoon and ate her Thanksgiving lunch mid-afternoon...made for a more relaxing lunch time :)

The cousins all had a blast as usual, the trampoline and playhouse being the main hangout spots of the weekend. Grandpa and Grandma got Christmas decorations and they all decorated the playhouse together which i failed to get a picture of.

Raegan didn't sleep well the whole time we were there, i assumed she had an ear infection...starting to trust my intuition on this since they are a common thing around here. I didn't want to take her to a different dr though cause she just got off 20 days of antibiotics for the previous ear infection and so we stuck it out and thankfully used some numbing drops my sister had the last night we were there and she slept great. (sure enough when i took her in she did have an ear infection and they gave her a shot and we will be discussing tubes at her 15 mo check...don't know that i want to do that but i'm getting tired of going from antibiotic to antibiotic!

The parents did a lot of trading off...guys going to a movie...girls going to walmart or target...guys going to the pawn shop...girls going shopping again...we did not go to the stores early though...the last time i did that in Hutch the stinkin newspaper people decided to chase down my sister and i and interview us for the paper...yeah and we tried to dart away from them but he was a determined guy who seemed to not give a flying flip that we didn't appear to want to be interviewed and definitely did NOT want our picture taken...aww the memories :)

It was a great weekend and i'm quite sure my mom and dad are ready for me to send my little monkey down for a couple week visit to grandpa and grandma :) She was INTO EVERYTHING the entire weekend...climbing on table, chairs you name it. Sooo this last picture is for everyone who had to place my child down off of a high place, rescue an item of yours that she thought was a great toy, take trash from her and put back in the trash can, and probably much more that i missed :)

First Thanksgiving Celebration

Trey just hanging out after a big meal

the girls getting crazy with some sidewalk chalk

Daddy and his kiddos

Johnny helping to carve the turkey

We had our Thanksgiving a few days early with the Seaba side of the family since everyone would be gone on Thanksgiving day. We decided to make it really feel like the holidays and after i got off work Friday night wake the kids and head out to Grandpa and Grandma Seaba's and spend the night. This all happened around 11 pm and halfway there we were re- thinking our great plan... Ethan did not want to wake up and was bawling his head off waiting to get carried to the car...Raegan cried the whole way till we finally stopped and got her some chicken nuggets in Bonner Springs...we were desperate to get her to stop crying :) It worked too! Once we got their and got all the kids settled everything was just fine and we were glad we had done it! Wheww! We had a very nice relaxing day with a huge meal!

Little Piggy And A Couple Of Monkeys!

Raegan LOVES to eat! She is my least picky of eaters of the 4 so far. She will eat pretty much anything we feed her and wants more, more more! I have been every now and then letting her try the spoon out.

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I have hit the treadmill hard this week (getting ready to pack away the food at Thanksgiving!). I finally tried out leaving Raegan running free while i run. Previously i have gated the area off or strapped her in her highchair which didn't last very long (with her being happy anyway). The first day i thought she was going to put her hand on the treadmill once and about tripped and fell telling her "no touch!" She got the hint and stays a decent distance and hasn't tried to touch it since. The loud "ouchie" i yelled must have scared the daylights out of her :) She now peeks around corners and waves at me over and over (so cute), runs the "circle" in our house, or as she did today climbs on the kitchen table and throws every last ball of the bowl of decorative balls all over the house. Before that she and Ethan had been fighting over the tike bike and i finally solved that problem by convincing Ethan to get her the shopping cart to puch around. Once i started seeing the balls come flying form the kitchen i decided my run must be over peeked around the corner and about had heart failure, lightning quick grabbed the camera and proceeded to take pictures of BOTH my monkeys. I don't even know how she managed to get up but i'm sure it was with some assistance by her loving brother, or maybe not, shes a pretty determined little thing! Needless to say, along with baby locking all cupboards, shutting the toilet lid, turning the trash can around backwards, and making sure they both have a drink i will put up the decorative balls before starting my run.

Time For The Wonder Pets

This does not happen every day but on this particular day last week Raegan was very interested in the Wonder Pets and sat their with Ethan for about 10 minutes, that is until she started bugging him...then he no longer had any interest having his little sister sit beside him!

A Good Night

Our church has been having a revival this week with Dr. David Wood. Unfortunately we weren't able to attend until tonight because of my work schedule and a program at school last night. Tonight he did the presentation of Jesus dying on the cross where he tells the whole story up to the crucifixion and then actually has a man "on a cross" playing Jesus as he finishes the story. It is very well done and no matter how many times you see it, it really get's you. This year was Trey and Avery's first year seeing the presentation and they both raised their hands that they prayed and both went forward. Trey said "he was so little when he got saved and it feels like a dream and he wanted to make sure." Daddy was able to talk with him. Avery doesn't remember very well when she was saved a couple of years ago so she wanted to make sure and jumped up and headed to the front all on her own. Grandma Seaba was able to talk with her and go over some verses. We made a video of each of them when we got home because we thought that would be an exciting night that they could later look back on! We are so very proud of you Trey and Avery and so happy that you want to make sure that you will spend eternity in heaven!

A Beautiful Fall Week

i love this picture if only Ethan hadn't crammed half his pop tart in his mouth :)

Raegan get's so excited when she sees "sammy" the dog in the yard behind us

the kids were tackling in the yard last night

Raegan was thrilled to be outside

enjoying the beautiful weather

you can be sure Avery had a shower after laying in the grass- i wish i didn't have to worry about how much they were going to itch after the girls play in the leaves!

silly boys

Trey was making a soft landing of leaves for Avery to push Raegan down into

If the weather stayed like it has been this week all year round that would be perfectly fine with me!! It has been in the 70's everyday and the kids have taken full advantage by playing outside quite a bit, it helps that i'm practically shoving them out the door saying "this will probably be your last chance to play outside while it's nice!" Avery even wore shorts to school one day, i thought that was pushing it a little much but i wasn't in the mood for arguing over it that morning!

Yesterday we got the a-ok to start bi-weekly shots, apparently the first freeze already happened. Hip-hip-hooray i'm not going to spend EVERY Tues, afternoon in a waiting room for half an hr with 4 crazy little kids :) They sometimes do very well, it's just the harder days that seem to stand out the most to me, you know how that is! Twice a month won't seem so bad. Hopefully she will do well on the bi-weekly or they will have to switch her back. She freaked me out last week, i had forgotten to give her her loratadine in the am and after her shot she started coughing a lot and started wheezing. They gave her a pill and thank goodness that slowed it way down. We did have to stay for almost an hr instead of the 20 minutes but at least nothing more came of it!

Last night i let the oldest two stay up and watch the news of the election with me. Johnny wasn't feeling well and went to bed early. Avery conked in the recliner not long after but Trey stuck it out and conked during Barak's speech. Trey and Avery were very dissapointed. They had both voted at school for John McCain. Trey had aprox. a million questions regarding the election, who was winning, what everything on the tv screen meant. Very hard things to explain to kids, when sometimes you don't understand them all completely yourself!

Trunk or Treat

Ethan and Raegan crashed on the way to trunk or treat. They were already exausted from the busy day.

Grandpa and Grandma Seaba has their trunk in the 50's theme complete with juke box with 50's music playing and a 50's table with milkshakes- pretty cool

our little hula hoop queen could go forever with the hoop

our trunk- spider man and NYC- Johnny had to correct me when i called it Gotham City-oops wrong super hero :)

Ethan hanging out with Daddy

the wandering lady bug

i have no idea what she was doing here

Daddy and Ethan waiting for the trick or treaters- when they started streaming through we could hardly keep up cause everyone was playing the toss the ball in the pumpkin game which is why we kept losing Raegan.

Trey and his good bud Braden (i can't think how to spell his name correctly at the moment)

Our church had it 2nd annual Trunk or Treat on Friday. We had a LOT of kids come through. I think there were around 18 -20 cars and a giant slide and the big bounce house (can't think of the name for it). There were free hot dogs and hot chocolate and cider and tons of candy! The two oldest were off and running with their friends from the time we got there and Ethan stayed fairly close and helped Daddy some once he woke up. Raegan wandered the area and sent mommy into a panic at least 5 times if not more. Thankfully there were other people watching out for the little lady bug as well and stopped her from getting too far. It was a beautiful night but got pretty chilly towards the end of the night. Because of the youngest two sleeping in the van for the first hour we were there and then it getting a little hectic after that i did not get a picture of the kids all together which kinda upset me but oh well...

School Parade and Parties

a very tired clone trooper

Avery's class party

Trey's class party

Avery's self portrait

Avery and her friend Mikayla-oh i mean Hannah Montana

Trey and all his star wars buddies

Ethan and Raegan waiting for the parade to start

daddy playing a little teather ball with his little clone trooper

Johnny called yesterday and said he was getting off a little early, i was Thrilled that i wouldn't have to do the school activities by myself with the little ones (during naptime!). Since it was beautiful yesterday the annual costume parade was held out side on the brand new walking trail. We then went back and forth from Trey and Avery's classrooms during the parties.

The Pumpkins

Avery's pumpkin

Ethan's that Trey helped with

Trey's pumpkin

We didn't carve pumpkins this year, we drew on them, too much going on! We only got 3 because we were headed back out to pick out a small one and Ethan started having a meltdown, realized i had to pick up a rx before 9pm and the pharmacy closed, some more melt downs and i was just thankful to get out of the store and that Raegan could care less if she had a pumpkin or not!