10 Years = 70 Dog Years, right?!

Friday, November 28th, was our 10 year wedding anniversary! It has been a wonderful 10 years. To celebrate we went downtown and stayed a night at the new Four Seasons hotel. We did this a few weeks ago when Scott's parents were in town to keep the kids. It is a delightful place to stay, we felt very pampered. Scott made all the plans (with a little direction :)). We went to look at a couple of dogs since we were without the kids and then we checked in. We had a really wonderful dinner at Carmine's Steak House. Scott had steak and I had scallops. Below is our view out of our 17th floor window.


So, we went to look at a couple of dogs before checking in to a hotel to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Well, that is not as bad as going to the grocery store. We have been in the market for a family pet and are trying to make a better decision than our puppy decision over the summer. One of the dogs was a friend of a friend and the other one we found in the paper. We went to look at both dogs, Blitzen and Sadie. Blitzen was hyper, but Sadie was hairy!! We decided to dog sit Blitzen for a couple of days to see if he would calm down once he got to know us. He did but we still did not want to rush into anything. We sent him back to his owner and took a while to think about it. We ended up getting Blitzen on Friday. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!

Blitzen came with his name and since he seems to know it and it is festive we have decided to keep it. He is a chocolate lab mix and weighs about 65 lbs. He should be full grown...we hope. He has golden eyes and an adorable head tilt he does when you speak to him. He appears to really be listening although most of the time his behavior does not prove this thought! We hope he integrates into our family over the next couple of weeks and that he ends up being a good fit. We are not sending out the Christmas cards with his picture just yet!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I feel bad for Thanksgiving. It is so forgotten by our money driven materialistic society. Maybe they should drive up the price of turkey so the stores will pay more attention to this holiday. My kids have been commenting all week, "Mom, look they have their Christmas tree up and it is not even Thanksgiving yet!" I appreciate all they have been doing at school in learning about the pilgrims and native Americans, but somehow I think some of it is lost when Thanksgiving is not really treated as a holiday. So to protest, we hung up every turkey we made at school on our front door, used our pine cone turkey as our centerpiece today and used our hand woven place mats!! We will wait until at least Saturday to bring out the Christmas stuff :)

Thanksgiving is our holiday. Today we hosted 23 people at our house. For the record books I feel like I should list them: Papa Chas, Grandma Lorene, PaPa Dave, Aunt Tracy, Uncle Chris, Aunt Cathy, Donnie, Donna, Frank, Miriam, Nick, Michael, Rick, Marcelle, Justin, Steven, Uncle Martin, Aunt Vera and our family of 5. It was a beautiful day full of lots of soccer and football in the back yard followed by lots of yummy food.
I love that my family has always enjoyed getting together on the holidays. My mom's side of the family is unique, at least in this day and age. She grew up really knowing her cousins. They saw each other every weekend. My Great Grandma would cook for all of them out on the farm. I grew up always getting together as many people as possible on the holidays. Every year is different though, depending on who can make it. This year was the biggest crowd we have ever had. We stuck with the traditional foods this year with the exception of carrying on the hot dogs after dinner tradition! Scott did 4 turkey breasts on the grill. I did the stuffing with raisins. We are Germans you know!! Everyone else brought side dishes, drinks and pies!! We have a ton of left overs. I love leftovers too. Come Sunday I will no longer love leftovers.

Emma, Justin, Steven, Sam, Michael and Claire playing around outside!

Thanks to everyone that made it today. It is always a lot of work, but in the end it is truly a blessing to have a day that is all about being thankful and a day to focus on family. I also think about food and how it brings people together. It can be mediocre but if everyone is sharing in it together it tastes good! Not that our food was mediocre, don't get me wrong! It was great!

JK Feast

Today was the JK feast. This is one of my favorite CCS events. Scott and I were both able to attend. Every student brings in part of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, they sing, we eat and we watch a video that Mrs. Burzinski has put together with all of her photos of the year. It is so sweet. It is almost tearful...or at least for me since this is my last kiddo in Mrs. Burzinski's class. I just love her. She knows this, it is not a surprise. I tell everyone that I love her, including her. One day I will have to make a list of the top 10 reasons why I love her, but now is not the time. Anyway, it is a wonderful time of praising God and enjoying all of his little children!

Sam chomping his yummy food!

Sam and Anika

This face was a favorite today!

Guys weekend

I will post today for Scott. Scott does not yet know how to post! One night when we don't have anything else to do I might teach him...or maybe not. I don't want him to get into blogging and take over my little precious piece of cyberspace that is currently all MINE! I'll have to think that one out a little bit more.

Either way, the latest in the life of Scott, that I am sure he would consider blog worthy, is that he had a hunting guy's weekend last weekend. He left on Friday with all his gear, a pot of chili, and his assigned food. Our friend Nick followed him out to Steelville to the "hunting lodge". Scott has the privilege of hunting every year at the farm of a friend from church and it is so nice. Not really a cabin, more like a french chateaux. Not canned food or camp food, but really good food. Not hand warmers, but a real wood burning fireplace. What I am trying to say is it is a really nice way to hunt...not exactly roughing it! Plus Scott loves the company. He loves all these guys and enjoys that they all share in his passion of hunting! I really think this is the highlight of his year.

We have gone out with him before, but we stayed home this year. We had a full weekend here of birthday parties and other activities. Plus we know that Scott really has more fun without us. We rented a movie, had ice cream, ate junk food, went to see Santa, didn't clean up...all the fun things that I let the kids get by with when dad is not around!

So, what did he come home with? All I know is that he got a buck (only 8 points--not worthy of mounting!!) and a small doe. 2 deer, not bad. He and Nick are sharing one deer for processing. They are getting smart that their wives don't really love the stuff! The other deer he gave away to other people which is great! I would post pictures, but I will spare you all the blood. If Scott gets into blogging he will want to post pictures. I am still thinking about that!

Thanksgiving play

Emma and Anna

The Pilgrims and Native Americans

The cutest pilgrim named Emma

"Tommy the Turkey" dance

These are some pictures from Emma's Thanksgiving play on Thursday. I was unable to attend but I heard Tommy the Turkey was quite a hit. Emma has been singing it for several weeks and I am sure she shook her tail feathers with the best of them! Thanks to Tiffanie who took these pics for me!

Funny kids

The past couple days had some great funny conversations that I thought might be worth documenting.

Emma had a homework assignment due on Friday. It consisted of about 5 different "mini assignments". It was all associated with the letter "P". We were to read Psalm 23 and then she was supposed to write what she thought a pasture was. This was about the 3rd question of the 5 and she had truly had it! She said she didn't want to write any more and since I know art is more of her strong point I handed her a green marker and said, "Okay, why don't you draw what you think a pasture might look like?". I continued cooking dinner and when I went to clear the homework papers from the table I saw her paper. I had to laugh!! I called her over, looking at the green man she had drawn on her paper and I calmly said, "Emma, describe to me what you drew with the green marker?" She replied, "Mom, I drew a pastor!"

This morning I was upstairs and Sam calls up the stairs, "MOM...guess what I just had Buzz (Lightyear) do?" "What Sam?' I replied. "I just had Buzz turn off the TV with his finger" Sam said. I replied "Buzz is so smart. He must not want to warp his brain!" Sam just laughed. The TV stayed off.

Claire's Field Trip

Olivia, Rachel, Hannah and Claire

Today was the 2nd grade field trip to a theatrical production of several short children's stories. Claire knew it was going to include "If You Give a Pig a Pancake", but we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it also included "Lilly's Big Day", "The Diary of a Worm", "The Paper Bag Princess", "Prize for Fluffy" and a couple more I can't remember! It was so cute! These are great children's stories and it was very entertaining...even funny! I drove my van with the four girls and we had so much fun listening to our Justin Roberts CD's on the way there and on the way back to school.

I love this age. Everyone can strap themselves in, no one needs to ride in a booster seat, they all went potty before the show, they sat still and they were quiet. I think the worst part of today was that about 3/4 of the way through the show I had to ask Claire if she wanted to sit by me. Not that I minded sitting by Hannah, but I was sort of sad I wasn't sitting by Claire. I wanted to laugh with her. So she moved and I was happy. I hope she was too!

Grandma and PaPa Smout visit!

Fall, leaves, and grandparents are here! When Scott's parents come we usually are able to get a lot done and that means we had extra help with raking and blowing our leaves out to the street. The kids always love to jump in them. They did this several times this week and never got tired of the thrill of running down the hill to jump into the huge pile of leaves. We love having a shady backyard in the summer, but we do pay for it in the fall. Above is Emma in the leaves!

On Sunday Grandma and Papa took the kids to the zoo! This was Sam's second trip to the zoo in a week. He also got to go on Friday with Scott and PaPa. They got to see the baby tigers. Even though it was cold they still had a great time! Here they are on the beetle outside the butterfly house. Did the beetle get a new color? Sam thinks his back did not used to be red! He is an observant little fellow...he is probably right!

Grandma and PaPa Smout took Claire and Emma to see the Noah musical in Branson over the summer so Sam was due a special outing with them. PaPa saw that the "Greatest Show on Earth" was going to be in town so they took Sam to the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus on Saturday. Above is Sam at the show. It was a long show, 2.5 hours to be exact. It was reported that he sat very still, ate his snacks and watched the show. His favorite act was the tigers! When he got home he was sure to tell me that the circus was at the same place "they play hockey!" I am sure he had a great time, I mean it is the circus after all!

One more leaf picture! There will be more to come as half of the leaves are still on our trees! Thanks Grandma and PaPa for a fun week!

Half Marathon!!!

We did it!! Melanie and I finished the 13+ mile race-WOW! We are so proud of ourselves and we had the cutest cheering section ever! Thanks to Scott and Peter for hauling the kids and the signs around to 5 different places on the route! Thanks to Audra, Olivia and Lucy for making the largest sign we saw anywhere on the route! Thanks to Sherri, Eric and Diana who gave me a piece of bubble gum on the last mile! Thanks to God for protecting us from any injuries or falls :) This was a very memorable day! We accomplished our goals of finishing and having fun! We can always improve our time but not our experience!!

CCS soccer season

Soccer season is officially over. Claire showed great progress this year as a soccer player. She scored several goals and became more aggressive overall. Her team was undefeated this year!

Emma is a member of the kindergarten blob or mosh pit! It will be neat to see her progress over the next couple of years. She enjoys playing but is still very distracted by other things. Her team won 2 games this season but had a lot of fun! I am very proud of both of them for working hard and putting in lots of practice hours in the back yard!

Halloween

Sam needs a better candle next year!

I unfortunately do not have any pictures of my kids dressed up for Halloween this year. Scott's camera is in the shop and we don't have any other camera with a flash so our pictures did not turn out for posting on the blog. However, I can assure you we had the cutest puppy (Emma), dog (Claire) and knight (Sam)! Our costumes were easy. Emma and Claire were really into the face painting this year which was sort of fun.

I have included some pictures of pumpkin carving with daddy on Thursday night. They each got to decide what kind of face they wanted on their pumpkin and I think they turned out pretty cool! We even roasted and SALTED the pumpkin seeds this year! They need lots of salt in my opinion!

On Friday, Halloween, the kids were off school. We had a relaxing morning and then headed to Powder Valley to do a little hiking midday. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I don't remember the last time Halloween has been so nice here. Halloween night we had a pre trick-or-treating party at our house for some of our neighbors. We had chili, PBJ's and lots of yummy side dishes. Once it got dark we headed east on our street for some trick-or-treating. My kids had jokes to tell and received lots of yummy candy in return. Here are their jokes:

C: knock, knock. Who's there? Spell. Spell who? W-H-O. you told me to spell who!!

E: what is the ghosts favorite food? Booberries!

S: Why did the boy throw the clock out the window? So he could see time fly!

Sam headed back home early. He is still freaked out by people in masks and once he saw someone in a mask it was all over. The next morning they sorted out all of their candy and then combined it all into one big trash bag. I think it weighs about 10 lbs!