Dave's 8th Birthday!

Look at this sweet boy!






This year he didn't want a cake, so we made cookies instead :)

With the birthday sign that was up for about 4 months! :)

Family picture with the birthday boy.

Working on the lego set he got from Gamma.













Dave had a pretty low-key birthday this year. My mom and grandpa had been up visiting for the weekend, so he got to celebrate with them early. We had Josh's parents over and one of the kids' friends for his actual "party".

As for what Dave's been up to, he's still super into video games...doubt that will change anytime soon! He's getting ready to start his first year of basketball at the YMCA and he's super duper pumped about that. Anything basketball related is of great interest to him currently. We got him a little electronic hoop for his room for Christmas and he's been playing it nonstop. Here's a video of him dunking!

I can't think of anything else new about Dave or his personality right now. He still loves to read, enjoys wrestling with Josh, having nerf gun wars with Ike and his friend, and being a smarmy 8-year-old. Ha! He really does enjoy that though! It will be interesting to see what he's like as a teenager that's for sure.

Dave is such a joy to our family, can't wait to see how he changes in this next year!!

Christmas Tree Saga

We went on our annual Christmas tree cutting down adventure the day after Thanksgiving again this year. Unfortunately, our normal spot was closed this year, so we went to a new place to snag our tree. That was our first mistake... :) 

Grandma and Dave ready to hunt down a tree.
















Riding in the back with Dave on the way to the farm.

We found our tree! Getting ready to cut it down.

Grandpa had to hold it on to the van so we could drive it up to pay for it.

Look at that beauty!

Grandpa Dave and my mom came to visit so we got a picture of him with the kids.












So fast forward about two weeks. We went to Evansville to visit family and came back to half the ornaments on the ground and a blanket of needles! Ahhhhh! We have never had trouble with our trees before (and we watered properly and all that stuff). Turns out we picked a Norway Spruce, which unbeknownst to us only usually last about a week or two. Fantastic right?

Part of the tree.














Taking it out of the house was a real treat...almost all of the needles fell off in the process, so by the time we got it outside it looked like this.

Yikes.









Thankfully we are getting a full refund on the tree, I just didn't have it in me to get another real tree this year, so I am so grateful for my friend Theresa letting me borrow an extra tree they had! Christmas decorating was saved :)

We will be back to buying a real tree again next year, but this time I'm going to do some more research on species of trees!!

November Happenings

Lots of fun stuff going on last month (including Dave's birthday, but that's another post!).  Here's a snippet of our activities.




Dave's reticulated python diorama.















Close up of the finished project.





















Alec and Dave went to the Wonder party at the library. We are getting close to finally finishing the book!

Ike's been working hard on his letters and numbers lately!

Ike and Dave reading Captain Underpants.

At Ike's Thanksgiving feast at Preschool.

We went to see the courthouse light up.

Eating some pizza downtown with Augie before the lighting.

Waiting oh so patiently for the lights to come on.

Ike and Bennett having a nerf gun war.

Elli came over to visit and since she had sunglasses the boys had to put their sunglasses on too.