Catching Up

We've been busy around here and it seems the month of November flew by. Here's a quick catch-up on what we've been up to.

Pinterest is one of my new favorite things to peruse after the kids go to bed. I made the JOY artwork on the mantle. The best part was it was under $10!:)

Reagan and Luke had their school Christmas concert last weekend. We tried to take a couple of pictures by the decorations, but it didn't got super well. Lauren was grumpy and refused to even pose for us.

Drew & Lauren designed and built this tower using all our blocks. They were quite proud!

We decided to get a real tree this year, but it has been non-stop trouble. The thing is ginormous and we had to hunt down a tree-stand to fit it in, because ours was too small. It hits the ceiling, so we weren't able to put the star on top this year.:) We have cement blocks holding the stand in place so that it stands upright. Now we discovered that it's not sucking any water, so we had to remove it out of the stand and cut some of the trunk off. Ugh! I think I'm sticking with artificial from now on.;)

Every night in December the kids unwrap one Christmas book. Luke read the story to the other kids on this night.

Luke with the other 1st and 2nd graders at his program. We couldn't get any good pictures of Reagan at all.

Drew helped Ryan hang the lights on the tree out front. He's been wanting to wear his "glasses" alot lately.

My cousin Shelley and her daughter Anna invited Reagan, Lauren and I to go see a Junie B. Jones play at the Children's Theater in town. It was a lot of fun and the girls had a good time.

The kids are waiting for a big snowstorm to come our way. We received a couple of inches one day, so Drew & Lauren quickly went and played before it all melted away.

Ryan participated in the Living History Farms off-road race this year. He and a bunch of co-workers ran together with their matching Occupy LHF shirts and picket signs. He was filthy when he got home and had to throw his shoes away, but he had a great time.

CANDY!!

The cutest little cowgirl and superhero you ever did see. Drew's look cracks me up.

The original plan was for Lauren to be a butterfly, but then when Drew decided he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, she just had to be Jessie the cowgirl from Toy Story. I had a terrible time tracking down a costume, but our friends Heather & Chayse gave us this one now that Chayse has outgrown it. She was beyond excited!
Straight out of Top Gun and he knows how to act the part.:)

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue...complete with laser!

Her cute little hat kept blowing away so it only lasted for pictures.:)

We got to use the spaghetti and meatballs costume again, because last year we didn't trick or treat in our own neighborhood.

Candy time!

All five of the kiddos. Anna was a lovely Japanese girl complete with chopsticks in her hair.

The kids went trick or treating around our neighborhood last night. They had a fabulous time and returned home with bucketfuls of candy. I am positive this will last them until at least Easter! Our friend/cousin Anna comes to our house on Sunday evenings, so she got to come with us. Ryan was a trooper and took them all out while I stayed home and handed out candy to the neighbor kids. It turned out to be a great night, so there were lots of characters out and about, but I didn't see any other kids in the same costumes as ours.

Picking Pumpkins at the Patch

At the beginning of October we headed up to Northwest Iowa for Ryan's cousin wedding. While were there we had to make a trip to Pumpkinland. We had never been there before because we usually aren't up there around pumpkin season. The kids had a fun time and we got some pumpkins for our front porch. I didn't get a picture of the pumpkins after they were carved, so that will have to be a different post.:)

The kittens were a huge hit with the kids. There was a sign that said "Please don't put the kittens on the ground because they are fast." They were right.:) We saw more than one that had to be caught, one of which was dropped by one of our children.

This was taken either at the beginning or the end of the cornmaze. The bigs went with Grandpa and Daddy through the maze while Grandma and I hung back with the littles. There was a little munchkin maze that was more their speed.

So many pumpkins to choose from!

I'll take that one.

Scooping out the goop

Lauren telling me what kind of face to create.

We tried some carmelized pumpkin seeds this year! They were nummy.

Summer rewind

Labor Day weekend we had the annual Van Mersbergen family campout. The kids look forward to this every year. It's a nice end to summer activities and a fun time spent with family. We had chilly, rainy weather on Saturday, but we were still able to get most of our activities in. Thank goodness for a camper when it's storming outside!:) I was slightly worried Friday night during the storm that it might collapse, but we were still intact in the morning and most of the kids slept right through it.

Luke is getting really good at helping Ryan take the camper down and put it up.

Lauren, Hailey, Drew & Brynn had a good time playing together.

Aunt Sharon helping Drew find the ge0-cache in the tree.

Aunt Lisa and her geo-caching crew

Cheese!

The kids acted out the Sunday morning Bible story on the Jesus' birth. Grandpa Wayne got roped into being a shepherd so that the littles would participate.

Drew really got into the singing..."I just wanna be a sheep" is one of our new favorite songs.:)

We had a Christmas theme this year, so the kids decorated gingerbread houses. I never got a picture of The De Bruin and our camper, but we won first price in the decorating contest with our gingerbread theme campers.:)

All the kids decorating.

This was part of our geo-caching team. I definitely got a work-out in.

Minute-to-win-it games

Here's Drew with his final product. Nice job!