A Happy Thanksgiving

Oliver had a great Thanksgiving. It started out on Wednesday when he and dad took a trip to Toys R Us to get a new big-boy basketball hoop. The toy's fun but apparently the box was too.Things got even better on Thursday. We cooked Thanksgiving dinner at our house and Oliver got to hang out with his cousin Amanda.Auntie Bonnie and he read some stories after lunch. No More Jumping on the Bed has become his all-time favorite.All of the turkeys hung out to watch the Lions game in the office. Great Gramma and Joyce let him sit on the table for playing blocks...And Grandpa lended him his fancy hat. Today we put up the Christmas tree. Olvier just keeps "oooohhing" over it and saying how "pritty" it is but hasn't tried to yank anything off it...yet.

Happy November

A quick update before I head to bed. It's been too long since I've posted but I've got a few things on the camera to remind me what fun we've been having this month... Here are the pictures to sum up the month so far:

Grandma Judy and Grandpa Doug stopped by last weekend for a quick visit. Oliver likes the big-boy jammies they got him.Oliver and I got to hang out with all four Rose sisters while their mom and dad headed to a dinner for Veteran's day. Oliver thought it was pretty fun to have all those extra ladies around to try to impress.The living room doesn't look much different when one kid is playing or when five of them are! Don't you love Gwen's Pebbles-pony? Last weekend O put on his new Carhartt bibs from Grandma and Grandpa Howe and went to hang out with Grandpa Stanley. We had lunch at the Manawa drive-in...

And then headed to Grandpa's house where he dug up what he calls the "legacy chair". It's just a little chair painted red but it's been in the family forever. I remember seeing pictures of Uncle Gordy and dad in it when they were little and I know I have pictures of Shaunie and I sitting in it too, so I will have to dig those up and do some comparison shots.

Oliver thought the chair was ok, but not as fun as playing with all the stuff Grandpa had out for the upcoming hunting season. He loved the walkie-talkies. And checking out the rainy fall weather...

Other than an unfortunate incident involving blueberries at EconoFoods, this week has been pretty uneventful. Both dad and O got haircuts...

Although Shawn doesn't hunt, I consider myself a basketball-widow so on Saturday we joined the hunting widows (Dar, Mindy, Tiffany,Tina) and kiddos (Louis, Evelyn, Olivia, Evan, Aiden, Leif) over at the Bowen's. It was great to catch up and watch the kids run crazy. We tried to nab a picture of the whole bunch but you've gotta be quicker than I was. I only ended up with Oliver, Louis, and Olivia, but it's pretty cute even with only half of 'em.At one point, Pete walked by in his hunting gear and the kids got excited to see all that blaze orange. Love this picture!Last night was Shawn's first game. It was really just a scrimmage in Marion but I thought I would use the opportunity to see how Oliver would do with sitting in the stands this year. He was such a good boy last year and I was nervous that this year would be less fun. Turns out, we need to work on him being able to see dad but not being able to hang out with him on the bench. We were at the game for about five minutes before he noticed Shawn but after that, it was all uphill. He started yelling, "daaadaaad" and trying to scramble down the bleachers to get to him. I ended up spending most of the game out in the lobby teaching the fine art of drinking from a bubbler. A life skill, to be sure, but I'd have rather been able to watch the game. Guess we'll just have to keep practicing. Afterwards, it was bedtime for Oliver and dad and girl-time for me. Dar turned 28 again so we needed to commemorate the occasion at Cedar Springs. It was lots of fun but is also the reason I'm so sleepy tonight and it's only 8:30. I'm thinking of calling it a night early, so let's wrap this up. It's a short week because of Thanksgiving and a number of kids will be excused for deer hunting so I'm looking forward to a quick couple days till the weekend starts again. My family is headed here on Thursday and then I've gotta start thinking about getting my Christmas on.

Finally, a quick video I snuck in while Oliver was playing and singing in the living room. He's started to talk a lot more these past couple of weeks.

More next week!