Advent Wreath

Our church has an Advent wreath making evening each Christmas. We have enjoyed it each year. It is a very nice evening to kick off the Christmas season. They have our weekly Wednesday dinner beforehand, and then we all move into wreath making.

After doing this a couple of years, we look like professionals!

I had to put all the pine on the wreath before the kids could decorate it.

Clemson Christmas Tree

I realize I need to post pictures of our actual tree, but here is the kids' Clemson Christmas tree upstairs in their playroom.

Closet Renovation, just like on HGTV!

We have been wanting to expand the closet in our guest room for awhile. It is a massive room that had a double door closet, which sounds great, but it still had a lot of dead space in the room. Most of November, we were under construction. Our contractor did a great job, even with the delays of city inspectors just now showing up when they were supposed to come. It was finished before Thanksgiving, and we are still getting everything situated.

In progress...

The double door closet used to be just to the right of the door to the hall, so we pulled this closet out quite a bit to create a walk in.

Almost done

Room back in order

A place for the skis!! Now, the attic door is located within the closet.

Our plan is to move Madison into this room once we find out for sure we are staying a at Bragg. Then, the boys will each have their own rooms too.

Mannheim Steamroller

Mannheim Steamroller is one of our favorite Christmas music groups. They played in Fayetteville for one night, and we were able to get tickets. We took Madison because she loves music. She loves it so much that she is already picking out what instrument she will play in orchestra and band. Here, orchestra starts in fifth grade and band in sixth. She has decided to play the cello in orchestra and the French Horn in band (she loves it because it is the one true left-handed instrument to play). We all really enjoyed the concert; they were fantastic.  A special thanks to my parents for watching the boys , who would have not enjoyed the concert that late in the evening.

Veteran's Day Breakfast

The kids' school has a Veteran's Day Breakfast each year. Since we live in a huge military town, it is not shocking to know that the breakfast is always packed. It impresses me so much how the school supports the military.  It is a public school, not a DoD School, so it is very nice that they put on this free breakfast.  It probably helps that several teachers (and even one of the principals) is a military spouse  :)  The kids loved having their veteran home to take to the breakfast.

Yellow Belt

Luke has worked so hard in karate the last year. A few weeks ago (long overdue from scheduling issues), he earned his Yellow Belt!

Preschool Field Trip

Alex's class took a field trip to a local farm for a hayride and some nice, outdoor activities. It was a beautiful, but extremely cold and windy morning for the field trip. The kids had a great time. His class is so sweet. There are only nine of them, and they are all very good friends. I love that there is no fighting or complaining from any of the kids; they just really enjoy being with each other.

Tyler, Micah, and Alex

His class

This spider display was really cute.

They loved the slide.

Our hayride was a bit bumpy, but the kids loved it.

Alex and his pal, A.J. Love to be silly.

The boys with their teacher, Renae.

The class on a bounce house

After a picnic lunch, we all went back to the preschool. I really enjoyed hanging out with this group.

Halloween

The kids love to dress up as a theme for Halloween. This year , they went as "The Wizard of Oz" and had such a great time. This turned out to be a great theme for all of us.

 

 

Boys' Day Out

Edward tries to spend some one-on-one time with the kids after each deployment. He took Madison out for the afternoon after church two weeks ago. With that, I had a date with my boys. They decided they wanted Red Robin for lunch. Both were so excited to get a milkshake. They were some hungry boys that day!!! They both had a milkshake, their full meals, and some of mine. A couple stops later at Target, they were starving for popcorn and pretzels again :)

We had a nice day and were able to accomplish our mission of church shoes and belts for these growing boys.

Alex had a milkshake, macaroni, and oranges. Luke gobbled up a milkshake, pasta and a garden salad.

Halloween Preschool Party

I love Alex's preschool. Luke went here too and had the same preschool teacher Alex has this year. Alex will be the only one of our kids to attend the same preschool all the way though, without moving! His class had a Halloween party last week.

The Scarcrow

His class is so cute, and most of them have been together the last two-three years. Their costumes were great. The turtle's shell kept falling off to which we all said, "The turtle has lost his shell!" It was also cute that friends of ours also did the Wizard of Oz there (we did not plan it) and came as the Tin Man and Lion. Alex walked in with them, and one of the teachers was dressed as Dorothy. She was cute and said, "There are my people!"

Alex's Class

Soccer Season

Madison and Alez finished their soccer seasons on Saturday, Oct 26.

Alex was on the Dragons for the second year. He moves up to a new league next year.

The soccer stars

Madison was on The Lady Panthers for the second year. Her coach has been great and even co he'd this year starting out with a one-month old. Madison will also move up to a new league next year. Her team finished undefeated, and Madison was the starting center-forward all year. She scored five goals this year.  This was a really cool cake idea one of the parents thought of doing. They had the team picture put into an icing form.

The team party immediately followed their last game, and all the girls decided to wear their cleats to the restaurant :)

 

Luke still has another game and will finish this weekend.