Thanksgiving

We had a nice day out at my parents celebrating both Thanksgiving and my sister's birthday. The girls were absolutely tuckered out the next day. Edith enjoyed her pie sampler and both girls ate a lot of food.

The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. My favorite is our wonderful families.

There be tall pirates here.

We have noticed that Addie has had a huge growth spurt. Her ankles are getting cold hanging out of her pants. Here she is wearing(for the last time) her favorite hoodie she got this summer. Just look at her wrists poking out! That is a lot of growth in a few months.

Addie is delighted with her face paints that she got for her birthday. She asks to use them almost everyday. We all had fun painting our own faces. Addie made herself a pirate (I helped with the bandanna), Edith had fun making herself a rainbow person (?), and I even gave myself a little crown (with a few green accents from Edith). Addie is showing off her best pirate face, Arr. Face painting also demonstrates how Edith is obviously right handed as she basically just paints the right side of herself.

Artist Addie

Today Addie decided she would draw one of her favorite babies. She tried to trace her head and then had me come help her. Then she colored her in. It was real cute to see her keep picking up Baby Ann to look at her to see what she should draw next. She did struggle with the eyes because brown marker does not show up well on top of brown marker or the same color. The black ring around the eyes is the mouth. Impressive, Addie! What was great is that Addie did all of this without any prompting from me. All I did is supply the requested white pencil for the eyes.

Two Birthdays and Halloween

Well Birthday Bonanza has come and gone. We enjoyed a great visit with all of Brian's family. Lots of fun and a little bit of work getting our house in an unpacked state. Thank you to Gloria and Leith for all of their help unpacking, shopping, and driving our stuff around. I made 4 cakes in 6 days and surprisingly enough we only have a half cake left.

On Halloween morning the entire Butler family went to the Davis Megamaze in Sterling, MA. We had a great time solving the maze and enjoying the various activities within. We ended up leaving at the halfway point because Addie and Lily were plumb tired. After a nice lunch we headed home and started carving pumpkins. We had to work in shifts because 12 pumpkins cannot be carved simultaneously. Then it was time for trick or treating. We went to a small subdivision next to us and hit about 8 houses, the perfect number for our little ones. Edith wore her Thomas costume for the picture only and then wore a Santa hat for collecting candy. Addie was Dora the Explorer. She was funny because she was confused about how her costume could possibly be made from her real clothes. I had to explain that Dora is a girl just like her and wears normal clothes. We spray painted her hair black and she was ready to go. It was fun to have the cousins to go along with the girls.

Grandma and Grandpa had a cousins sleepover at their hotel. The three girls had a blast, staying up late and giggling. I had fun going to bed early.

The grand finale was Addie's first concert, The Wiggles. We dressed her up in a pink shirt that read "I'm the Pink Wiggle." Addie asked that morning if she had to go on stage because she was the pink wiggle. Very cute. She did great at the concert although was a little nervous for the first half. She was in total disbelief when the first Wiggle came on stage. She seemed surprised that they were actually real people not just people in the computer. All in all a great concert although Addie complained it was a little long. We came home and had one of Addie's favorite foods for her birthday dinner, Campbell's Dora soup. Addie was exhausted and insisted on finishing her second bowl of soup before blowing out her candle. Then she didn't even finish her cake and just wanted to go to bed.

Another full week

How much can happen in a week? Quite a lot. Here it goes.

Sarah and I celebrated my birthday by visiting my favorite museum, De Cordova, in Lincoln. It was quite chilly so we tried to keep the kiddos bundled up. Unfortunately the museum was between exhibits so there wasn't a whole lot open inside. I was inspired by the childrens area and may try to replicate it for the girls room. Luckily my favorite part, the sculpture gardens, can not be closed. We wandered around outside and had a great time. Edith was quite the character, not wanting to stop her rest on the tower sculpture and calling both this head and the red man, "Daddy."

Then we celebrated my birthday with my parents and Sarah's family with a nice dinner at my moms.

Then we did some packing and more packing and more packing. Then the packers came and packed up the rest of the house. I had taken the girls to church and then came back to help after leaving them with my parents. They had already packed my spare shoes so I spent the day packing in my heels. The next day the movers came and moved all day long. I was greatful that I didn't have to move any heavy boxes. Addie was real cute saying as one of the movers went by, "Wow. He has big strong muscles."

We are now starting to enjoy our new house. Hurrah. Lots of space. We still have a lot of work to do unpacking but I already feel that I am home. Our first full day in the house was my birthday. Couldn't have had a better present. The girls also survived dinner out through dessert which was also especially nice. Now we just need to locate the hardware for Edith's bed, the girls' socks, and a few other essentials.

Addie and Edith are thrilled to have Grandma and Grandpa visiting us. All yesterday morning Edith was chanting "want Grandma Gloria" over and over again. We are looking forward to the rest of the Butler clan arriving this weekend to celebrate the girls' birthdays.

And a very Happy Birthday to Aunt Casey, today.

Catch Up Post

So I have forgotten to post about many things as I have been busy with moving related tasks. (move date Oct. 19) I will start off with today and go backwards.

1. I love the mannequin game. When we are at the mall, I have Addie look around for certain kinds of mannequins to buy me a few more minutes or to keep her moving. I ask her to look for ones with no heads, or no feet, or her favorite, kid mannequins. Since she likes mannequins so much, one day when I wanted some peace and quiet I created the mannequin game. Here is how it works. I tell loud wiggly kids something like "be a running mannequin or be a swimming mannequin." Said kids freeze into the required mannequin pose. After a while I request something else and then kids start naming their own and I can get something done. Always a crowd pleaser and today Addie requested it.

2. My best buddy was up visiting her family and we actually managed to squeeze in a nice morning walk at the reservoir. We even got to hop the fence because the gate was closed. Addie took this picture of Bess and Beth, dynamic duo. Also featured is Bess's nephew, Austin, and Edith's pigtails.

3. Scarecrow Festival: We headed out to Leominster to the scarecrow festival. I wanted to be there early before it got too crowded. This was a bad idea because how the festival works is people bring their old clothes and then make scarecrows with the provided frames and hay. This meant there were only 6 finished scarecrows to look at. Not wanting to just leave I bought the girls a pumpkin and we made a jack-o-lantern. The girls scooped it out and gave input to how it should be cut. (While Addie complained continuously about how windy it was). And again Addie decided to name her pumpkin diarrhea. Lovely. (that is also what she named her pumpkin last year and of course it made everyone crack up)

4. Celebrating Dad's Birthday: We had lunch and cake to celebrate my Dad's birthday. Edith wore her new I love Grandpa t-shirt. She loves this shirt and has since asked to wear it everyday. Cute. I guess the elmo shirt is now in second place for favorite. Dad was happy to have parsnips as part of lunch as he really likes them and doesn't get them at home, and I was happy to have someone be pleased that we were eating parsnips. He turned 1 year old. (I only had one candle that wasn't an inacurrate numeral)

She'll be coming round the mountain

Today's lyrics to "she'll be coming around the mountain" courtesy of Addie

She'll be bending all the jewelry when she comes....

She'll be blowing up the anchor when she comes...

She'll be poking all the trees when she comes...

She'll be eating cake on the lawn...

Who knows where all this stuff comes from. Al1though I suspect blowing up the anchor is taken from a pirate song about pulling up the anchor.