A Whole Bunch of Stuff...

It has been a while so I have a lot to catch up on. First is a day in the leaves with P'pa. We pulled in the driveway and the entire yard was covered with pretty yellow leaves that had just come down over night. The Boy was ready to rake leaves as soon as he saw them. He made P'pa go out with him and blow them into a huge pile.



It didn't matter that P'pa uses a tractor to pick up his leaves, he went out with his leaf blower and made a huge pile just for the kiddo to jump in. He had to go back later and spread them all out so the tractor could pick them up. Anything for the boy! I got in the pile with him and Meemaw video taped it.



Amazing how much fun a pile of leaves can be. The first picture was so cute I had it made into porcelain Christmas ornaments.




We are halfway through soccer now. Jaykeb loves it. He had one bad day there and ever since then has been bugging me all week about going back to soccer. I can't wait to put him in the spring league. He looks so cute out there in his soccer clothes. He is getting the basics down but when it is time to scrimmage he just runs back and forth grinning at me the whole time. Last Saturday he actually kicked the ball during one of their games. His team won too! He has a favorite coach who they call Captain Norway because that is where he is from. There are two little girls from his preschool class who play too so he has familiar faces there.



There hasn't been another Twila yet but he has two friends who are boys who he talks about alot now. He really likes his teachers too. He got his picture taken for soccer and for school. We got the school pictures back and they were pretty cute. He looked like he didn't really want to smile in them though. I am anxious to get the soccer pictures back now.

We play outside a lot. There is a lot to do here for little guys. Where we live now is where I grew up so I have been having fun taking Jaykeb to do all the things I did as a kid. Walks in the woods, picking up buckeyes, blowing milkweed seeds, and climbing on Grandpa's equipment.




As you can imagine, The Boy LOVES all the construction equipment that is available for him to get rides on. He doesn't look thrilled in the picture but that was because I was making him pose all over the place for pictures. He is getting tired of that. He has started giving me goofy faces when I tell him to smile for pictures. I guess this will be a stage for a while. I did manage to get a cute picture of the two of us for our Christmas card this year. We had it taken in the woods one evening before it got too cold out.



We got our Christmas tree put up after he got back from his weekend with his father. Oma and Opa came over for dinner and decorating the tree. I will put pictures of the finished tree later when I get some good ones. I have been decorating like crazy for my party I am having on the 14th. I've never had a Christmas party so I will probably go overboard like I tend to do, but it is giving me something to look forward to right now.




Along with tree decorating, we also baked Christmas cookies. This was quite a production. I let Jayke cut the cookies out himself and I even gave up control of the decorating and let him do it all.



We had all kinds of fun stuff to put on them. Jaykeb liked the sprinkles and icing pens the best though. When we were finished we were both covered from head to toe with flour. That is the only way to bake though! At one point I looked at him and he had this funny look on his face. I just turned my back to him and told him to brush it off. He wanted to know how I knew what he had done. I told him it was because I was the mom. I had a big white handprint in the middle of my black shirt. I think he was in shock that I wasn't mad. I had already decided that we would just have fun with the cookies and I would clean up the mess later. Much easier that way, I don't spend the whole time worried or upset about the mess and just have fun with him.





Before we left SC we had sent out a Flat Jaykeb to visit my cousin, Kelly, in Colorado. We got Flat Jaykeb back today and boy did he get around. Kelly took him to work with her and had tons of great pictures of what all they did there. She also took him to see the butterflies and to the aquarium. After hanging out with Kelly Flat Jaykeb got to go on a cruise where he visited Turkey, Croatia, Greece, and italy. Man do I wish I were Flat Jaykeb! My other cousin, Ryan and his wife Serenity, took him to see all of these places and had wonderful pictures all with Flat Jaykeb in them. I wish I could put the whole book Kelly did for us on here. It was fantastic! I bought the book, Flat Stanley for Jaykeb so he could read it then see where all his Flat traveler went. She also sent lots of post cards and little toys from where she works so he was in heaven when his package arrived today.



My only problem now is that I have no idea where to send Flat Jaykeb next. I had planned to send him to Indiana to go to work with Opa and hang out with Oma, Meemaw,and P'pa but now Jaykeb can do that in person. Also, I told my mom that Kelly did such and outstanding job that she may have raised the bar too high. I guess I will have to think about this for a while and figure out where Flat Traveler can go next.

Thank you Kelly! We were more than pleased with your hosting duties! I knew you would do it up like that though.

We have a Christmas party to go to this weekend with a bunch of friends and their kids. We picked names and are doing stockings for our exchange gift. Jaykeb got Avery, who is five and a new little friend of his, so it should be super cute to see him give her her stocking. I finally got to buy for a little girl too...you know I had fun with that right? Can you say Pink and Hello Kitty?!?

We are supposed to get snow in the near future so I'm hoping we get enough to go out and use the really nice snowman building kit Aunt Dona made for Jaykeb. We will make a snowman and a snow dinosaur and all kinds of cute animals. P'pa saved a bunch of sleds for us too and I want to go to the Me Zoo in the snow. Just plugging along trying to feel normal. Still no luck in the job department though. I turned in an application today that I have high hopes for. The job is exactly what my degree is in so hopefully I will hear something soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me.