A little family...a little Chirstmas

We just returned from some Thanksgiving celebrations in the cities.  We had a big gathering with my family on Thanksgiving day.  In the picture below, the color coordinated (blues and greens) people are my brother Jeff and his family.  Dan (in orange) and I hoped that by not matching we could get out of pictures.  Mom said, "now way!"  It is a nice pic!

We also spent time at Troy's sister's house.  Above is a nice picture Troy's mom and sister.

This is Troy's mom holding here three little girls, as she calls them.  The one on the right is Teresa.  The other two are the children of Teresa's cousins...does that make it cousins once removed?  Teresa is 16 months, Vanessa (the middle) is 10 months, and Ariana is 13 1/2 months.

When we arrived home from our travels, Timothy wanted to put up the tree right away.  He had seen trees at his aunt's house and his Grandma's house.  So after unpacking the car we hauled out the tree and decorations.  Timothy was a great help putting up the ornaments.

Teresa was interested in the tree, but mostly she liked carrying around the animals from the nativity toy!

This past weekend Troy also put up the outside lights.  Timothy really wanted to help.  Well, he really wanted to climb the ladder!!  Teresa supervised from the ground in her pink puffy coat!

And of course after hard work outside, one must warm their hands with some hot chocolate!

Tuesday Night Basketball

Teresa is getting the hang of basketball! Timothy has nearly outgrown our hoop, but Teresa is just getting started. :-) I took a video of Teresa, so Timothy wanted to have a video too!

Slam dunking a soccer ball--guess we got our sports mixed up a bit!

15 months and pumpkin soccer

Teresa just turned 15 months this past weekend.  She is a full fledged walker now and likes to challenge herself by walking down slopes (the driveway) and new surfaces (grass).  She really wishes she could walk down the stairs holding the railing--and she does try with help!--but her legs and arms are truly too short.  She had her 15 month appointment yesterday and she is still hanging onto the growth curve at the 6th percentile--28 1/2 inches.  We'll just call her short and sweet!

She has mastered a few words--mainly dog, hug and da.  Shoe loves dogs and calls just about any animal she sees a dog.  Occassionally she will say cat and bird.  She knows Troy as da, but she will also call herself, me and Timothy da as well.  And because she loves dogs, she has come to love a stuffed cat and dog that we had.  She would bring them everywhere if we let her.  She used to love her little baby, but then I lost her after her birthday and all love was forgotten.  She has moved on now!  Hug is a fun first word because it means she gives lots of hugs everyday.  She just climbs on a lap says hug and snuggles up close.  It is really sweet.

Teresa likes to do what Timothy does and play what he plays.  So lately she likes building with blocks and playing with cars.  She likes to ride in the little wagon outside and has just become interested in sitting on the trike.  She has a mind of her own and lets you know when she is not happy about being picked up to do something she does not want.

Practicing her walking outside.

Teresa is also a pretty good eater, although she varies from day to day what she likes.  She seems to like most kinds of meat and fish (including shrimp!).  She does pretty good even with vegetables and a drop of ketchup gets her to eat things like edemame!  I was just going to write a few things about Teresa, but it is fun to record things that I know I won't remember later.  One thing for sure, it is fun to see all that she is learning.

And on to 'pumpkin soccer'... Troy's mom gave us a bunch of the tiny gourds to decorate our lawn.  Timothy really wanted to carve them, so we did two.  Much to my surprise, they were very easy to carve.  And today we found another use for them.  We were outside and I was making up a story (at Timothy's request) about lonely pumpkins after Halloween.  Timothy brought the two little pumpkins over near us.  Teresa started to kick it around.  Timothy liked the idea and the little pumpkins soon became our newest ball.  The actually rolled quite well. A good way to get a little more use out of our pumpkins!!

A little pumpkin soccer.

Happy Halloween

We carved pumpkins on Saturday so Troy could join us for the fun.  I thought Teresa might be interested this year.  Last year she just sat in her bouncy seat.  Nope!  She wouldn't even touch the pumpkin.  She walked around with her stuffed animals and was happy to have no part.  Timothy on the other hand wished he could have done more.  He really wanted to have the knife to cut on his own.  I think next year we will have to look for some of those safe carving tools for kids.

To pass some of the time in the afternoon I dressed the kids up and we headed to Gloria's house for some practice trick or treating.  (And since Gloria is so nice, she let two little trick or treaters explore her house and see the toys she has for when her grandkids come!)

We had an orange themed dinner...squash pasta sauce (thanks mom and Costco!) and meatballs, carrots, cream cheese pumpkin roll ups, and clementine oranges.  A great dinner that everyone loved! (Love those nights!)  Then it was a few quick pictures and time for trick or treating.

Timothy went trick or treating with his friend Jaeger.  This was his first year to go with a friend.  He had a lot of fun and asked when he and Jaeger could go trick or treating again.  Teresa and I went to three houses, but declined candy...well I declined the candy for her.  She doesn't really know what it is yet and I am going with that as long as I can!  She was happy just to shake all of Timothy's candy and take it in and out of his pumpkin.

And of course the morning after...lining up all the candy just like last year.  Timothy got a plastic spider from someone and that it what he is showing off in this picture.  It was a fun night and Timothy said he was sad today because the fun day was all over.  But he does like choosing his treat to have after dinner and he likes to share his candy too.  What a great boy!