Thanksgiving

Our thanksgiving was very relaxing. We spent the daywitb Oma Ronnie and Opa Peter, the New Halsalls and Aunt Gloria. I made green bean casserole and apple berrycrisp from frozen beans and frozen berries from Blakes from the summer. They were both awesome. The whole meal was. Only thing missing was mom and dad. We took some amazing pictures of the little cousins. Liesl did a phenomenal job holding baby Robbie. Lack friday, we went with aunt Gloria to the Henry Ford museum and had a grand time visiting Santa and getting awesome pictures. Jeannie didnt even cry! Today Shannon and the kids and I went to aunt Gloria's and made all kinds of breakfast food and hung out and watched princess movies. Then we came back and hung with Shannon for the rest of the night.

What a great girls day

Oma Ronnie and the kids and I took a day out at Partrige Creek to go shopping. The kids cooperated considerably and we were all able to spoil each other nicely. I have been sifting through a lot of paperwork and laundry and housework lately so it was a very, very welcome change. Jeannie is getting way better at crawling on her hands and knees, almost to the point of getting herself onto her feet, has been side stepping while standing along her toys, has been getting herself into the kneeling position and has been eating more baby food. I had her lay off the other day because she got a little constipated and had a hard time with it resulting in me helping her with the..... Excuse my description..... Caulk incident. She needed to go for several days. Liesl did awesome in swim class this week with 2 other girls in her class, one of them Skyler, John Swanson's daughter. We were at the Romeo pool which was super cool to see some records still were unbroken from my senior class! Missed out on gymnastics by accident and feel like I failed her:( next week. Almost done with Robbie's quilt and I am super proud of it and finished one for Jim too!

Waving hello

Jeannie started waving hello about a week ago. I forgot to mention it. Oma Ronnie was waving to her and she was waving back. Hasn't been doing much of it lately but she definitely was doing it. She has been doping awesome with the baby food and has been trying a lot of stuff. I made Jim his "family time hilt" as Liesl named it. Now I am the only one without one. Will have to remedy that. He picked out all the patterns for it and is quite happy with it. Every night Liesl insists on a story about what Oma is doing so I have to make sure that I keep up with her blog when I don't talk to her in the evening on FaceTime. We bought an activity center for Jeannie at the Funky Frog today. It is super cool. Like one of those that you find in a dr office with the moving beads and animals and floppy parts. Hard to explain. Was an awesome price. Liesl makes the cutest pictures. I have one on the refrigerator that has the cutest sea creatures and a big smiley sun. We haven't been too busy other than with errands, getting meals done, nap times and cleaning house. Tuesday we voted with the two kids. It was so easy, they both behaved so well. We just put them both in umbrollers and they sat under the voting booth so quietly. Loved to see them rolled under there.Especially since there were so many other crazy kids there. Everyone at the polls was ogling them.

Milestones

Yesterday Jeannie and I did a lot of errands. She was very calm for not having a nap for the bulk of the day and everyone she met said she was so happy. Not a peep out of her in the grocery store and the bank. Liesl also improved her outlook yesterday. She has been a little squirrelly about the bedtime thing the past week and she spent the night in our bed effectively kicking daddy onto the couch. We stayed up late with her last night watching Signs which I think she enjoyed. She is really into the aliens thing. All of us really got into it. Today I was a little wiped out and fell asleep on the couch while Jeannie was asleep in her crib and Liesl was watching Sesame Street. I woke to the smell of Reece's Pieces. Little ET had gotten into her Halloween candy. I don't know how much she ate before I woke up but she was just a tad hyped up for the rest of the day. Thank god there is not much of it. Speaking of her getting into things. I was cooking her some fish in the oven and turned my back for a second. She wanted it to be ready so badly that she got out 2 oven mits and had them on and got the fish out of the oven. I almost died and made her promise to never do it again. How scary. She is being very independent.

Jeannie started crawling slowly today. Not the army crawl she has been doing but the full on crawl on the hands and knees. She is still getting used to it because this is her first day. She also started saying Dadda today. I have been feeding her all of the baby food I made a few nights ago. I am definitely going to have to freeze this stuff. I have squash, pumpkin, apple and I will be making some pear as soon as I can. She is really liking the eating at the table with us all and it is making mealtimes so much easier. I got a bunch of spoons so I have a pile of them as she tosses them on the floor. She got me good today and flung a spoonful of apples at me with her spoon. She is really good with feeding herself for 30 weeks.

Kids all snug in thier beds with visions of snicker bars dancing through thier heads

What a fun night trick or treating in Romeo. We started the day out showing off our costumes to Oma Ronnie and Opa Peter for a bit and they were a big hit. The girls got some non candy and candy treats for thing 1. A Barbie Halloween doll
For one of course and the other got a
Cute Little Pooh bear. Thank you Oma. Then we stopped by to see Auntie Melisa, Robbie and uncle Scott. Last night Jeannie called him Tot with a little encouragement. First time
I have seen the Melisa and the little guy for almost a month with this Alien virus gone from
My system finally we thought it would be safe. Last night I guess when we visited Tillson Liesl walked a lot of it with Mike. He said that she walked it so fast because she wanted to be brave so she had to do it fast. She said it was beautiful though and she really enjoyed it. Tonight she walked both sides of Pleasant street with Shannon and I. She didn't get too much candy but it was definitely enough for my tastes. She was all lit up like a Christmas tree with LED lights all over her and she really liked showing off her costume. After trick or treating, gorging herself on what little candy she collected and watching her spin around the room like a top we watched Scared Shreckless on Netflix with Mike and Shannon and headed home to let them get some rest. Liesl fell asleep on the ride home but woke up after an hour just in timeTo video chat with Oma. That was very cool.

Tillson street

Visited Tillson street this evening wi th Shannon and Mike. Liesl loved it as usual. She thinks it is beautiful. Liesl is doing better and better every day with the reading. She has pretty much mastered the first 5 Bob books. She always seems to master something when Oma goes on vacation. Last time it was the potty training. Yesterday Liesl and I did some leaf rubbings. She had a blast with it and it looked very cool. She also drew what I thought was a super cool tree. Its a keeper. This evening she had her first gymnastics class which she really enjoyed. I think she will really get into it. Jeannie and I enjoyed watching her learn and figure it all out. We will have swim class in a couple weeks too. She is really looking forward to it. We did a little late night pumpkin carving this evening before bed. Finished 3 of them. She really enjoyed it and was out like a light after. Cant wait to show off the new costumes on Tillson tomorrow.

I finished them

Finished girls costumes ....check
Fixed long standing garbage disposal issue....check
Cleaned up about a weeks worth of dishes....check
Helped Liesl with her "homework" reading her books....check
Got a little family game time in....check

What a great day it was. I got a lot in and still feel ok even though I coughed so hard I lost my cookies. This alien virus is really killing me. Hope it is on its way out because I would love to see Robbie again. I made a Dorothy costume for Jeannie using one of her dresses and eyeballing a picture from the movie. She even has ruby slippers from some red velvet fabric I had let over and a blue bow for her hair and a toto stuffed dog. Going to be the hit of Pleasant street. Liesl is a super cool looking witch. Her hat has feathers in it, she has striped purple and black tights, moons and stars on her dress, sparkly spiderwebs on her cape, and authentic looking broom and a raven to carry around. I am quite proud of it. Made the dress and cape from scratch using one of her dresses as a guide. Liesl wore it all day and she is super proud of it too. I can't wait til Halloween to show them off. I made them so well they will hold up to a lot of dressing up. Liesl watched the Wizard of Oz in her costume today. She is super excited to show the costume off because she had a hand in making it. She also likes the whole coordination with her sister thing. Liesl has been doing really well with her "Bob books". The are super cool reading teaching books mom got for her. She has made it through the first 6 books and she is definitely catching on. I am sure some of it is due to her wearing her glasses all of the time. She doesn't seem to be resisting them bat a anymore. She is also doing well with her writing too. The books also help with that. Hoping soon she will be writing her name. We will start on that soon since she is writing the S pretty well now and we are over that hurdle. Had a lot of fun visiting Grady this past week. Liesl is missing hanging out with him. They had such a blast with the Gator and visiting Klackle's cider mill and riding the pumpkin carriage. They both got to pick out a pumpkin and get some doughnuts which was their highlight other than riding the seesaw and Liesl jumping off on Grady. Poor guy.

Jeannie has learned how to wave back to people which is super cool. I put the legs on the standing toys and she has really gotten into standing with them and playing. I tried a little banana with her this evening. She does really well with the spoon and feeding herself.. I am so happy with how well she does in her own crib for naps and her bedtime. She does ok with the brace but it could be better. I am sure that it's restriction is not something that makes her happy.

Liesl has been talking a lot about Ota, trying to wrap her mind around it all. Wondering what happened. In the car she was telling me she wanted to hug him. Not in her dreams, for real, she wanted to hug him tight. She misses him and doesn't fully understand. I feel bad for her, he was a big part of her life and she loved him so much.