Children's choir

The past week has been an absolute blast. Even though we've stayed local, we have barely been home over the past four days spending time with friends and family. It's been wonderful.

But before I do our Thanksgiving recap, I wanted to share about Jackson's "performance" with the children's choir at church this morning. It'd be more appropriate to call it a non-performance-while-standing-up-front-and-looking-bored.

Jackson (white shirt, front row) didn't sing, smile, or do the motions. As you can see, he found himself a seat, hands in pocket, and was sending me a nice little scowl because I was taking pictures. His cousin, Gabe, didn't participate either, so at least he wasn't the only one! I suppose it was better than the spit-bubbles he made during his last non-performance. 

I mean, seriously, doesn't he look thrilled??

Aside from learning new songs and singing, Jackson loves choir and he always wants to go! He was even excited this morning about performing, but as soon as he's put on the spot-- he's not having it, which I find so funny because that's just not like him any other time. 

Even if he didn't have fun singing with choir, he loves hanging out with his buddy, Wyatt. These two were having lots of fun waiting for church to start!

No sooner than the children's choir finished up, the nursery came to get me in church because Belle got sick, so we came home early and finished decorating our Christmas tree. Jackson performed his songs for us at home!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my little turkeys!

For this week's Thankful Thursday, I asked the kids what they are thankful for this year. 

Jackson: My blankie, Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee, and lastly lasagna because it's my favorite food! 

Belle: Pink,  I love pink!
Me: Are their any people who are you favorite that you are thankful for?
Belle: No. I don't like anybody. 

 Ha. She clearly wasn't interested in contributing to this post. Later in the day, she did mention that she was thankful for Grammy. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and that you are able to find many things to be thankful for today. Happy Thanksgiving!

Simple Perfection

Our weekend was simply fabulous. In fact, the fabulousness has bled into the beginning of this week! Tomorrow is Derek's last day of the work week and so the fabulousness will just continue! I love it. :)

On Friday, the kids picked out little Christmas trees and little decorations for their rooms. We also put up Christmas lights in their rooms and they just love them. I promise that we respect the turkey around here... this is the only decorating we've done! :)

On Saturday, we had a wonderful family day. We didn't have anything particularly special planned, but it was low-key, productive, and fun to spend time together at home! Words don't do it justice. It was simply the kind of weekend that I used dreamed about having a family. 

That night, Derek and I went on a date. We haven't been eating out hardly at all lately and so our eating out budget had been growing and growing. At one point, we realized that we had enough to visit this restaurant that I have been waiting YEARS to visit. It was so fun to go try something new and it was absolutely delicious. We visited a Fogo De Chao, a Brazilian restaurant on The Plaza. There's no menu-- just a bunch of waiters carrying around swords of meat and you pick which ones you want. Or all of them ;) 

Both Saturday and Sunday, we spent all afternoon camped out on the floor in front of the fire. It's my most favorite thing ever. We watched the Chiefs game on Sunday afternoon (I'm still grumpy about it and I don't want to talk about it) and then we had a Thanksgiving dinner at church. Brad and Mary came over later that night and we played board games... in front of the fire, of course!

Yesterday, we dropped off our  Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and had another simple day at home. I ventured out to book club last night and enjoyed visiting with my friends.

Today was another really great day. I've been putting off the van inspection because I didn't really want to deal with kids waiting around the auto shop, but we did that this morning. Before we left, one of the men at the shop said that the kids were the best behaved kids he's ever seen. I am sure it was an exaggeration, but it was a wonderful compliment and helped me realize how great my kids really are. The kids helped me clean the house for company tonight earning a penny for every task and they was NO whining and they were actually helpful. We had friends come over tonight and we played MORE games. :) 

Nothing super exciting nor particularly blog-worthy has happened over the past few days, but it's the simplicity of it all that has just felt so good. I don't know how else to explain, other than... it's simple perfection. More than anything else we do as a family-- the fun adventures, celebrating holidays-- these simple moments are my favorite.

I have spent the last few days just letting them soak in, not wanting to miss out on the moment just to try to document it for the future. Spending time with family and friends-- this is the best part of life and I'm looking forward to getting to visit with more family and friends over the next few days as we celebrate Thanksgiving! 

Five on Friday

I'm linking up with Five on Friday today!

1. I didn't get around to my Thankful Thursday post yesterday because I wanted to read my book instead of blog... so, I'll go ahead and just say that I'm thankful for good books!

2. Speaking of books, I started reading some chapter books with Jackson this week. After asking for recommendations on facebook, I started with the Magic Tree House series. Well, in 3 days we finished two books and Jackson is eager to find what happens to Jack and Annie on their next adventure!

3. Derek and I took the kids to a high school basketball game last night. After the kids went to bed, we both brought up how doing things as a family is so much easier these days. At the game, we were able to spend time with the kids and also visit with some friends-- we didn't spend the entire time chasing down and worrying about them running into the court. It's so nice to be able to take the kids and do things... and it's so enjoyable too! I love our family. :)

4. Speaking of kids, they do and say funny things. Here are a few funnies from the week:

• Jackson, while he loves being 5, is really bummed that he's not old enough to watch the "TG-13" version of Transformers.
• Derek was having the kids pick up and Belle starts crying, "It hurts!" He rushes to her aid to see how she has likely hurt herself and when he inquires about what hurts she sobs, "my feelings!!" 
• I bought some mini-cinnamon rolls from a bakery last week. Jackson rationed them out because he wanted to make sure they lasted several days. He insisted that we each only at one each morning. Since when does a 5 year old have that much will-power? I may have eaten some behind his back. 
• Belle missed out on most of the cinnamon rolls because she was up at Grammy's, but after she ate one for a snack, she walked in the kitchen and said, "that made my tummy VERY happy." 

5. Despite the cinnamon rolls, Derek reached a huge weight loss milestone this week-- 30 pounds! Since September! I, myself, have reached 24 pounds in twelve weeks. It's unbelievable... especially because I haven't exercised in weeks and have been enjoying cinnamon rolls (a treat from a "clean" bakery) and occasional daily dark chocolate. The pounds just keep coming off as we make sure to eat the foods that our bodies were created to consume. And I haven't counted a single calorie or carb or anything equally as annoying... just ingredients! :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Soccer Stud

Soccer season ended several weeks ago. Tonight, Jackson happened to be playing with his soccer medal and it reminded me to post about it!

Jackson really had a fun time playing soccer this fall! I hate to be the parent who just thinks my kid is perfect at everything, but I do have to say that he's got some talent. Jackson played with 3-4 year olds, though by the end of the season he was just about 5. This is clearly an advantage. Jackson would almost always be the first to get to the ball at the start of each play. He played aggressively and he stayed active near the ball.

It's not that he's better than all of the other kids, it's just that he gets very into competitive sports and takes the game seriously. He wouldn't have "stood out" quite as much if he was playing with several other players who wanted to play hard like him.

During soccer practices, the coaches encouraged "short kicks" to stay in control of the ball. Jackson was never a fan of this to the point to where he'd never actually try to kick it short. He always made long, power kicks. I tried to practice with him at home one time, but he said to me, "I want to play grown up soccer! I want to do LONG kicks." Turns out, he always thought the coaches telling the kids to do short kids was baby soccer and not grown up soccer. 

Most importantly, Jackson had a lot of fun. He liked practices and he liked scrimmaging.

And he LOVES his medal.

Belle, on the other hand, isn't a fan of soccer. And honestly, I can't blame her. I remember being bored while going to all of my older brother's games and stuff. Sorry sweetie! Not only would she be bored, but near the end of the season-- it got COLD! We deserve a medal for enduring nearly freezing temps and sprinkling rain on the sideline!

 Jackson seems to have a natural thing for sports. He likes working on skills and he does well with instruction! He's big on competition too (not sure where he got that from!). As long as he's having fun, we'll keep doing sports! I think basketball comes around this winter!