Keeping Busy!!

Quite often when we visit Claire, Chloe, and Chris at their home, as we come through the front door, we are met by little faces popping up from the end of the couch and little voices shouting, "surprise!" We always act very shocked and amazed that they fooled us, but truthfully, it doesn't take much to entertain them, or us, for that matter.

Last Sunday our family traveled to Aunt Jen (Papa Norm's youngest sister) and Uncle Mark's house to celebrate the 16th birthday of Cousin Jesse, one of the twins' all time favorite people. (Shown below in a picture from when he visited our house in September.) What a fun party we had! The food was delicious and the laughter was continual.

 Below Uncle Jon and Claire share a moment.

Uncle Mark and Claire share some chatter as Uncle Mark finishes up the yummy Caesar salad.

Uncle Mark and Chris share a little fun as Chris tries to scare him with a mask.

Chloe enjoys her dinner and demonstrates what a good eater she is, particularly loving the meat that was served.

After an excellent dinner of tri-tip and baked potato bar, Uncle Jon supervises and Chloe, Claire and their cousin Haley sample the homemade ice cream paddle.

Uncle Larry entertains us with one of his wonderful stories below, it was a great Sunday afternoon!

This past week we spent a morning with the three C's and ventured out to a Taco Bell lunch and then to the local apple orchard. One of our laughs for the day was as we got into the car and were planning our route, (ATM, lunch and the orchard), Chloe pipes up from the back with a firm plan for the time. She insisted that we needed to go to the ATM first (she was right about that) and then to lunch and THEN to the orchard. We are finding her to be quite the planner and organizer. The kids did very well at Taco Bell, using their best manners and making friends around us. The first picture is Chris showing us his gold fish crackers when we arrived and the following pictures are at lunch.

At the apple orchard each of the children picked out a few apples and also their favorite fresh apple juice. Chloe held the juice part of the way home and Claire part of the way home but somehow Claire got to carry it into the house...I think Chloe decided to go find some pretty leaves.

They do have beautiful trees and leaves in their neighborhood as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The trees at the top of their driveway do not seem as colorful as last year, but are still quite stunning.

Looking forward to seeing the girls' in a Thanksgiving program at their pre-school on Tuesday and then Claire and Chloe will come home with us for a couple of nights while Mom and Dad prepare to host Thanksgiving on Thursday. Should be a great week as we pause to give thanks for the blessings we have. Too many to count, that's for sure! Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!