A Birthday Party

Stanley is turning 6 in a few days and since Laura was in town we had his party (along with 4 other February cousins) yesterday. Stanley is really into legos right now, so we went with a lego themed party. This is the pinata after it was smashed up.

I asked B to make these little name cards to put in each kids candy bag.

We played some games in the basement.

After dinner, we had cake and ice cream.

Mike and Clara

Marty

Grace (one of the birthday girls)

Blogging this makes me realize how many pictures I wish I’d gotten, but didn’t . Oh well, these are the best of the ones we did get!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today, we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Dickmann side of the family at my parent’s house.  Mel and all three of my brothers and their families were there.  God gave us beautiful fall weather; the sun was shining on a cold crisp day.  We all got there early so we could play games in Grandpa’s game room.  Mel and I got in a game of ping pong.  The boys played air hockey and pool.  We all shared a time of worship during which we shared some of the things for which we are thankful.  Mel and I took a walk around the circle with a bunch of the littles. 

Mom set the kids a table in the basement.  The table was set with pretty Thanksgiving paper plates and napkins.  She served them sparkling cider and grape juice with their supper.  They were very impressed.

She set the adult table upstairs with her fine china. 

Stanley has been learning about the indians and Pilgrims in school.  This is his Indian bag and headdress.  He loves crafts, and I love how excited he gets showing me what he has made in school.  It makes me so happy that he gets to enjoy doing those things. 

Here is Stanley in his Pilgrim costume after the Thanksgiving Festival at school. 

A Miracle has occurred {Grocery shopping}

I’m probably not alone in my quest for frugality while grocery shopping. Since I had twin boys about two and a half years ago, my quest for sanity outweighed my quest for frugality somewhat. So I usually shop with the twins only at grocery stores with a double cart. Hence, NO Aldi. I have run into Aldi using our double stroller from time to time, but I can’t fit an entire week’s worth of groceries in it, so it feels like a lot of work for not much gain. Today, I decided to really go for it. I brought the baby back pack for Marty and was going to push Mike in the cart. It is chilly out and is misting. I load on the backpack with Marty in it, get a cart, get Mike situated, put my reusable grocery bags in it, and open my purse to get my list. It’s. not. there. At first, I think I must have just left it in the car, so I head back through the rain to the van and search it as well as I can with a 20 pound baby on my back. I cannot find it. At this point, I am not sure what to do. I do not want to go through this ordeal and just have to go out again, because I forgot half the things on my list. I feel like sitting down and crying, but yeah, that’s not going to happen. I decided to get what I could. I could say this was my trial run seeing how I like the whole baby backpack/cart deal. Here’s where the miracle comes in. I prayed that God would help me to remember everything on my list, and He did!! Seriously, that is a miracle. Usually, even when I bring a list I forget something that is staring back at me in black and white. I found my list at home (I had brought it in, accidentally, with some baseball cards I’d found in the backseat) and was amazed when I read through it to discover I’d actually gotten everything on it. So, anyway, I am super thankful.

Sledding

I took the day off of work on Thursday and went sledding with the kids.  It seemed like a better use of my time than being stuck in traffic.

This is Stan’s first year of sledding, and he’s very brave.

There seem to be some extra legs in the picture above!

 

We made it!

 

Whoops!

 

Snow angel

 

It was extremely cold.  I think the temp was in the low teens, maybe the single digits, and the wind was fierce.  Wind chill must have been around zero.  But we stuck it out for quite a while; we were very well bundled.

Cardinals game

OK, I have been neglecting this blog! Time to catch up. In mid-September, Jacob and I went to a Cardinals game. We got some nice seats on the first base side in foul territory (stubhub.com) because Jacob was hoping to catch a foul ball.

We brought lots of snacks - Hot Tamales, Mike & Ike, Pringles, and Cokes.

It was kind of fun to be seated closer to the field, but I actually prefer the vantage point from the cheaper seats up high behind home plate. I like to be able to see the whole game and to glance up at the scoreboard.

Not to mention that I had to stay on my toes the whole time -- with my ball glove on -- just in case a foul ball came our way.

The Cardinals lost, though:

Grace Baptist Chapel

Our family is part of a small church called Grace Baptist Chapel. Our church recently started a blog and if you are interested, you can check it out here:
www.gracebaptistchapel.blogspot.com

Jacob's first day of school

I remember posting about Jacob's first day of school LAST year, and I can hardly believe I'm posting about it already again. He started first grade this year. He enjoys it, but like many boys, would rather be playing baseball. :-)
He is learning "The Swing" by Robert Louis Stevenson right now. He really loves poetry and is trying to learn "The Cow" by the same author on his own. This is his first year of having Art and Music and really likes both of those. He comes home telling us about jazz and Duke Ellington and last week they listened to Checkowsky (I'm sure I am spelling that wrong) and said his favorite music was classical.



Stan wants to be five so badly!! He asks me frequently if he is five yet!! He can't wait to go to school! :-)