The Ending of November

Mer's wisdom teeth came out smoothly and uneventfully. She hardly swelled up and didn't have any bruising. As she was coming out of the anesthetic she talked nonsense for about an hour before she finally woke up all the way. Thankfully she was able to eat by Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving morning we woke up and ran the Turkey Trot 5k. Jack, Max, Luke and I ran. Mer represented our cheering section.

This was Max's first 5k since his days as a track star so he was anxious to see how he would place even though he hadn't trained.  He ran the race in 19:47 and took 2nd in his age group. He was pretty excited.

Thomas and I ran alongside Luke. It was his first 5k ever. He and Jack are in jog squad at school so they have been training for about a month. He's such a cutie.

That afternoon we had a fun celebration with my friend Kristin's family.  It was quite a tasty feast.

That week we spent a lot of time at the soccer park and just loving being outside. The weather is Perfect here right now.  It's finally enjoyable to be outside.

We also met up with some friends for some good old Florida fun. Box Sledding.

We have to drive about 30 minutes to the side of a big canal to find a hill large enough to do this. There are really no hills whatsoever where we live.

Thomas is 11 months old now. He's so much fun.  He recently conquered his fear of the stairs and love to escape to climb them as otfen as he can. 

He is also getting couple of new teeth and has his first runny nose.

We got a shot of his 3rd tooth at the run. 

We are busy getting ready for Christmas here but I'll share more about that later.

Life is good

Thomas and I spend a whole lot of time in the car some evenings, driving the rest of the kids to various places. Luckily this has slowed down quite a bit now that soccer is over. We still pick up Mer every day from conditioning and sometimes we have to wait for her to finish. Thomas still doesn't like his carseat too much, especially if there isn't anyone in the back sitting next to him.  If he's lucky I have time to pull him out and play with him a little before we head home.

Jack and Luke baked cookies and helped staff the local light fest as part of cub scouts this week.  Here they are hoping their cookies will sell. It was pretty fun. We got to direct traffic throughout the park with our new cool glowing flashlights.

Mer babysat a sweet little friend this weekend at our house. It was so much fun having a little girl running around the house. Luke did most of the entertaining so Mer gave him a cut of her earnings.

Mer is going to get her wisdom teeth out tomorrow. She's pretty nervous. Hopefully all goes well. 

Two more days left of school until Thanksgiving break. There is a slight chill in the air tonight. The holidays are upon us. Life is good.

Thomas 10 months

Okay Thomas is really almost 11 months old but here are some photos I captured over the last few weeks. We are having so much fun with this guy.
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 He pulls himself up and stands next to everything.

 He's so fun to play with, he is starting to mimick sounds that we make and the kids take turns having squealing competitions with him.

His teeth are growing right in. He has 5 of them now. Yesterday Mer noticed that there was one more little tooth on the bottom. I didn't even know it had come in. Maybe that's why he didn't sleep so well a few nights ago.

 I caught this nice photo of Jack massaging Dougs back. Doug make him and Luke do this all the time. They are less than excited to do this chore.

I caught Mer in a rare moment of crafting. We were missing a letter for the 10 month photo shoot and she decided to cut one.

Max pulled straight As for his first quarter. His first time since starting middle school. He was pretty proud.

He's also had a great season in soccer this year. It just ended last weekend. One of the mom's was a professional photographer so we got some pretty awesome pictures of him.

Thomas was a champ at the soccer field this season. He did eat dirt and grass a few times but mostly he liked to push balls around and eat the cars. 

Jack and Luke have started gelling their hair everyday for school. Just like Max does. It's pretty cute.

These two are the best of buds. Thomas totally lights up when Luke walks into the room.

Thomas like to put is little finger into any hole he can find.  It earned him his first bandaid the other day.

He was playing on the floor next to the slider and I found him playing in a little pool of blood. He had stuck his finger in and out of the hole on the side of the tile and got a few slices in his finger that wouldn't stop bleeding. 

 That same day he somehow scratched a nice gash in his face. 

  

I should not that Thoma likes to play with big boy toys way more than he likes to play with his age appropriate ones.

I have more to post but I'll take a break and finish tomorrow. Good night!

More Halloween Week goodness

We took Thomas to his first pumpkin patch.  

Isn't that little tongue the cutest.

The kids picked out a few pumpkins and had fun taking pictures in the cut out booths.

The Wednesday before Halloween Meredith had the opportunity to swim at her District swim meet.  The whole family came to cheer her on.

She swam the butterfly and the Backstroke. She cut 1 more second off of her 200 fly time. I think she's down to 1min 24 sec.

Mer was excited that her name was on the board during her heat

We didn't get a video of her races that night but here's a great one from her Cape Coast Conference the weekend before.  She came in first in her heat. 

Thomas Turned 10 months that same week. His Second front tooth broke through that day and I captured this little gem.

Oh and we bought our selves a new dishwasher. Our old one was on it's last legs. I can barely hear it when it's on. A quiet dishwasher is life changing.

The night before Halloween Luke, Mer and Tom and I hit our ward Trunk or treat.  The costumes weren't quite done at that point.

Halloween morning Jack and Luke got to finally carve their pumpkins. Do you see Tom peeking through the window in the back?

While trick or treating Luke met his twin. :)

 The Halloween aftermath

 The great candy sort is the best part.

And I'll leave you with one last photo of Thomas.  He fell asleep on Doug's shoulder at church. I just love how he's curled up here.