It's that wonderful time of the year...

It's been a rough couple of months. We love our boys and we love living here... but lately it's been... well... rough. We have been counting down the days to Christmas break for weeks (all the guys will be spending time with family and friends until January 2nd). We're just a LITTLE bit excited. Probably the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is having the freedom to leave the house whenever we want (and only having to pick up after 2 kids instead of 6). We are so thankful for these times of getting to recharge and prepare for the next semester. I know we will look forward to the guys checking back in... especially looking back at this video from last week of Ty're coaching Carter on how to do flips on the couch...

Salt

I know it's not officially winter yet... but the entryway to our house sure looks like it is. Growing up in the part of Northern California that I did... I don't think I ever fully understood what cold was. I also did not understand salt outside of baking and seasoning. After almost 8 years in the midwest... I understand. During this time of the year... we have a daily battle with the white stuff. I am SO thankful that we don't have to worry about anyone falling on our front walk... but with at least 7 pairs (usually more) of shoes constantly in and out of the house it is a losing battle. I have a rug and blanket at the front door where everyone takes off their shoes... but it doesn't matter. Salt is everywhere... and it drives me CRAZY. Thankfully the floors were cleaned tonight (not that it will last long :)).

Dealing with the mess on our floors makes me glad this sweet girl isn't crawling yet. Here she is with two of her favorite guys yesterday...

One of the reasons I really love that picture is because it reminds me of this post from almost three years ago with Jude's older sister.

And... continuing with the winter theme... here is a picture of our living room. Pay close attention to the bottom, left side of the tree and to the cranberry topiary above the fireplace. The tree was decorated by Carter... and Carter only... and the topiary was my attempt at some creativity this year. BAD idea! One of our boys jokingly said that it took me like two weeks to make. It really didn't... but it sure felt like it... and the cranberries have already gone bad! Oh well... maybe next year I can try something with salt. :)

Ending on a good note...

It was a crummy roller coaster of a week. I actually wrote an entire post this morning that I could not bring myself to publish. Let's just say we are SO thankful Joe's Place exists for the kids in this school district!

Moving on... about a month ago we transitioned to a cash budget... which has made us drastically cut back on eating out... one of our favorite things to do (it's actually been a lot easier than we thought). Since it was such a rough week... we decided a visit to our favorite restaurant (Schlafly Bottleworks) was in order tonight. Those folks make us feel so loved! Carter always ends up with his favorite juice (fixed just for him by one of the awesome bartenders) filled to the top with cherries. And sometimes they even deliver a special fruit face on a plate to the table for him. It's just so nice to feel known when you walk into a place. So... after an awesome dinner there... and then spending some time in front of the fire with a sweet chubby baby... you can't help but feel a little better. :)

Staying at home...

When you have a baby and a 4 year old and it's like 10 degrees outside... there's really not any point in going anywhere if you don't have to. That is really hard for me... but today that's what we did. Actually that's what we've been doing a lot lately. I really don't even bother getting Carter dressed MWF... because he doesn't have school. I am so thankful that I get the chance to be home all day with my kids (although there are days I want to run screaming out the front door as soon as Dan gets home :)). I know there's a lot of parents that don't get to. Anyway... I figured I would put up a few pictures from our day at home...

And then there was one...

It was a sad day in the Reeve family yesterday. On Sunday Dan dropped his not so trusty truck off at our mechanic to have a few problems checked out. On Monday our mechanic called and said... "Not even a doctor can save her." We were more than a little shocked. We had the glass replaced in two different windows last week... and were planning to have her cleaned up since we've been needing a 2nd vehicle more lately (the truck is usually just parked in back of our house). So... we are back to being a one vehicle family. I always say we really could live without any vehicles... I just wouldn't want to (we are a block from Dan's work, 3 blocks from Carter's school, 6 blocks from church and just a few blocks from two different grocery stores). I've really had a love/hate relationship with that truck... but we do have some great memories with it. Just to name a few... it drove Dan down into the city for his first teaching job (where he had to walk through metal detectors to even get into the school building), Fred took his driving test in that truck and Carter spent hours sitting in the cab pretending he was driving. We had to go drop the title off with our mechanic yesterday and clean some stuff out of it... so we let Carter take a few minutes to say goodbye. He was trying so hard not to cry. We took him for a chocolate milkshake after we left the shop. Here's our goodbye picture (taken with my cell phone). We'll miss you old, dirty, white truck!

She may not be able to roll over...

But she can jump! :) I'm not a huge fan of video on the blog. I would usually rather put pictures up... but when you live so far from EVERYONE in your family... I figured a little video can be nice at times. :) Claire has been hilarious lately in the Johnny Jump Up. It's funny because she's not a big fan of trying to move once you put her on the floor... so it's nice to see her actually try to get somewhere. She tries to jump as far out from the door frame as possible and then finally gives up and swings back... it's pretty cute!

She goes nuts in the exersaucer too... but of course wouldn't do it once I had the camera out this morning. She just had lots of smiles (and a few coughs :))! Still kind of figuring out the video function on my camera... that's why she keeps jumping out of the frame.

Thanksgiving Week

We had an incredible Thanksgiving break. We missed being with family... but we did not miss the traveling. We actually stayed in our pajamas until 3pm on Thanksgiving day... it was great! Skype has made holidays so much easier since we've lived out here. It's so nice to chat face to face.

So... here's a little picture recap of our week...

Headed to gym with Daddy for an end of the school day basketball game...

With Ty before the high school team started practice. Just to show how awesome Ty is... the ENTIRE high school basketball team was standing right behind me while Ty played a little game with Carter.

Claire on her 7 month birthday. Totally forgot to do a picture earlier in the day! I don't have a flash on my camera... so I wore a head lamp. That's why the color is a little funny.

Ty with his uniform before his first basketball tournament of the season.

Our three oldest boys on Thanksgiving eve. They came for dinner and ended up staying for five hours hanging out, laughing, looking at pictures and talking about favorite memories from their time here. Really wish we could see these 3 more!

Our first "snow" of the season on Thanksgiving day!!

Our low key, but very delicious, Thanksgiving meal.

On Sunday... Dan, Carter and Ty went and got our tree.

Carter has spent the last 4 days decorating our entire tree by himself! I'll have to post pictures of that later. Some parts of the tree have a ton more ornaments than others... it's pretty awesome!

Such a relaxing week. Can't wait for Christmas! :)

Life's not always fair...

I think being a twin has ruined me. It is incredibly hard for me when things aren't exactly equal or fair. When I buy certain favorite foods for our boys... I'll buy 3 of everything and write their names on it so no one takes more than their fair share. So... right now I'm struggling because I'm posting more pictures of Claire than Carter. I know it's ok!! Anyway... I'm telling myself I'm going to be better about posting this month... and I'll have more pictures of Carter later... so here we go...

I always swore my sweet boy would NEVER play guns or shooting. I've heard that boys make guns out of everything and anything... but I knew that we weren't going to talk guns with Carter... so he wouldn't play them. I was SO wrong. Everything right now is about guns, shooting and dying. For example... today Carter wrapped himself in Christmas garland and told me he was being crucified. I had to ask him to repeat himself because I was sure I heard him wrong. A little later in the day (in the picture below) he was Goliath. At least we know he's paying attention during our nightly devotions. :)

And thankfully this sweet girl is ok with all the shooting... because she gets shot at A LOT during the day. She thinks it's really funny. She sure LOVES her big brother... and any and all types of food. Here she is feeding herself puffs while I'm feeding her peas...

You can just never enough of these kinds of shots! :) Happy 1st day of December!