Froemmings

Brynn was excited to start getting the house ready for Christmas, so on Saturday we switched gears from Thanksgiving to Christmas. We put up the tree, did the outside lights and wrapped some gifts today. Dana's general feeling about putting up the tree. The ornament Brynn got from Santa last year. Staring out the window after putting together the nativity set. "I wish baby Jesus was still alive," she said.     Auntie Shelly sent a fun ornament craft in the mail. Brynn couldn't wait to put it together, so we finally were able to do that on Saturday, too.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday again this year. We hosted at our house and both sets of our parents and Tessa and her family were able to come celebrate with us. We did a brunch in the morning this time, instead of our usual appetizer spread.  Dana went to Wal-mart and Best Buy last night at 11:00, but other than that, Holly and Kevin and Tessa and I went during the morning/day time this year. It really wasn't too crazy when we were out. I'm hoping to talk Dana into putting up the tree tomorrow. :-)  We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know our family certainly has much to be thankful for. A blog update note: It is around this time every year during Thanksgiving and in sitting down and writing our Christmas letter that I sit back and reflect on the past year. 2013 was an awesome year! So, as I thought about all the fun things we did this past year as a family (and even just Dana and I together and individually), I wanted to shift the focu...

Before heading out into the below-freezing temps for the Holiday Lights parade, we first ate at Rhombus Guys downtown. It's this fun little pizza joint that Dana and I checked out this summer, and decided to bring Brynn back with us tonight. They have butcher paper table cloths for the kids to color on, so Brynn got a big kick out of that.  It did not take long for us all to feel the chill! I could have bailed out at any time, but die-hard Brynn wanted to say to the bitter end. We did run in to a nearby bank's lobby to warm up, though, which really helped. Brynn scored a lot of candy, especially Tootsie Rolls, which are her favorite.  She didn't like the loud police and fire truck sirens, so she's covering her ears. Brynn got this really cool light-up scepter/light-saber thing. 

It seems Winter is now upon us. We've gotten some snow that has stuck around and now Brynn bundles up in her snowpants and boots to ride the bus in the morning. Tomorrow night we're planning on hitting up the Holiday Lights Parade downtown. It's supposed to be pretty chilly, unfortunately. We are getting ready to host another year of Thanksgiving at our house this week, but here is some of what we've been up to the past couple of weeks. A couple of weekends ago, our friends from St. Cloud came for a visit with their two kids. Their daughter is 4 and their son is 6, so the three of them play together pretty well.  We took the girls to get our nails done. Working on a game. On Friday we got some snow and Brynn was pretty excited. She built this little castle in our yard and then had me come out and find the rocks she had hidden in it. On Saturday night Grandma Holly was up shopping and spent the night. We made fried bread. I love frie...

We had another great weekend at home. And now Dana and Brynn are home together tomorrow, as Brynn's school is closed for Veteran's Day. She has big plans for them which include going to the mall, eating out at Lucy's (our fav Chinese restaurant) and getting smoothies at McDonald's. Sounds like a great day! Brynn has been practicing her reading a lot lately and I had wanted to get some pictures of her reading from her early-reader library book she had brought home. I am amazed at how far she has come. She gets frustrated pretty easily, but at least now she is more motivated and wants to sound out words on her own, whereas before when it was just me trying to get her to read, she just wanted me to do it. Thank you, school! :-) I have always thought one of the best things about being a parent is watching your child learn new things, and watching Brynn learn how to read has been no exception for me.  I'm unsure if Brynn did this worksheet in school or at HopeKi...