Thanksgiving 2015

We had a great Thanksgiving!  First we celebrated with our TN family on Wednesday...I'm sad I don't have any pics but I was not feeling very well at all and I just sat on the couch list of the time and rested :(

Then we traveled to celebrate with our NC family for a few days. I actually didn't take these pics either but Mark and Uncle Dolph sent them to me. Good times with Grandaddy Dunn!!  He is loved by many kids, grandkids, and he he is with some of his great-grandchildren!!

Ben's First Lost Tooth!

Ben has lost his first tooth!!  It was loose all week, and he came home from school Friday and it was gone! He said it came out at lunch when he ate a "hard piece of chicken", and that it might be on the cafeteria floor, but he doesn't know. Haha!!  (What must the janitor think?!)

So, we left the Tooth Fairy a Butterfinger Bite piece of candy in liu of the tooth, and the next morning...Ben had two gold dollar coins!!

Cruising with Mickey and Friends!

Over Fall Break, we went on a Disney cruise with three other families from church. It was a super fun time, and the kids were over the moon to be on a cruise AND spend 5 days with their buddies!  Here are some of our favorite pictures:

Let's get on that plane!!

Our stateroom...

We had a group costume for all 15 of us one night and we were all Coca Cola bottles!  It was definitely the hit of the whole ship.

Family Pirate Night - Disney loves a Galloween celebration!

One of the highlights of the week for Anna: the night they put princess sheets on her bed!

Absolute highlight of the week for Ben:  one of several waterslides!

Ben's first time snorkeling...

I love this picture of Anna seeing Mickey come around the corner!

It was all so fun...we hope to go again one day!

Fall Times

Lots going on these days!  Last week, Ben had Farm Breakfast Day at school. They made grits, toast, cracked eggs, and made sausage patties all by themselves!  Then we all enjoyed a yummy feast.  For extra fun, everyone dressed up as a farmer.

Anna is excited about Halloween coming up and has been testing out her Elsa costume daily. She decided it didn't look so great with Mommy's boots.

Twice this month, Ben has gotten to read to a trained listening dog at the public library.  This was a nice dog named Toby.  Hopefully this will give Ben practice reading while helping him not be so anxious around dogs.

Saturday Fun

Well, we all went to the ETSU football game today, but it started raining halfway through the second quarter.  So we headed home and rested up for a friends birthday party. 

Here's Ben riding Patches the Pony!

And Anna on this cool swing called a Swurfer - you can stand up on it and act like you're surfing.

They had a ball jumping in the bounce house, decorating pumpkins, going on a scavenger hunt and just playing with their buddies!

Only 17 more days until...

...our Disney cruise!!  Ben and Anna are so excited, even though they only have an inkling of how much fun a cruise with Mickey and Minnie mouse and all the friends will be! We made this fun countdown calendar yesterday, and will take a link off the chain every day until the big day gets here.

Birthday Girl

Anna had a BIG time celebrating her 4th birthday!  First we had a "Fireman Sam" party for her at our house.   

She wore her fire fighter boots & shirt, and mommy made her a fire truck cake, just like from her favorite show!

A big surprise for her that day was a fire truck bouncy slide that we rented for the party...it was a huge hit, of course.  

The kids played games, ate cake, and had a ball.  

On her actual birthday, she had a great day at school.  

Minion cupcakes for the class, and Daddy came, too.

Then it was off to Chuck E Cheese for a pizza dinner and fun games with the family.

Whew!  What a fun day for our sweet girl!

Birthday Boy

Just a little belated...but I wanted to share. In keeping with Ben's obsession with garbage trucks lately, he had a garbage truck-themed party at our local Hand's On Museum.  We had a few party games, dug into Ben's garbage truck cake and then everybody had a ball running around the museum playing. Perfect party!!

Here is Anna, pinning the garbage bag on the trash truck!

Ben and his best buddy Jaxon.

Later at home on the actual day, we celebrated more!  A fun trip to the library for Touch a Truck Day, and then dinner with tech while family where they serve his favorite dessert - a cookie in a skillet with ice cream...yum!

Late Summer Project

Farmer Ben and Farmer Anna have been working hard!  Daddy made a planter box out of some old shelving we had, and we planted carrot and spinach seeds in it. 

I sure hope they grow because these kids are excited!!

Maybe growing their own will be enough motivation to eat spinach!!

First Day of School 2015

Big day for these sweet little ones!  Ben's first day of Kindergarten at his new school, Towne Acres, was today.   Anna is at Central Baptist Preschool again with her new teacher Mrs. Linda.

Ben was such a big boy today - I was WAY more nervous than him!  

First we went to the cafeteria and waited for all the kindergartners that were assigned to come to school today.

(He's giving me "hug".)

Then we went to one of the kindergarten teachers classroom where we stayed for about 10 minutes. Ben ran right over and started playing with the toys, Legos, and made a friend playing with an airplane.

Then it was time to go!  He said he had a really fun first day… Crafts, reading, and playing on the playground. I'm so proud of him, and I know he's going to have a great kindergarten year!

After that I took Anna to school and you'd never know it was the first day. She ran around like it was old hat. I'm so proud of my sweet girl, too!

The Last Week of Summer Vacation

As summer is coming to an end. We've been busy having fun!  It rained yesterday and the first thing they wanted to do was put their bathing suits on and rather bikes in the rain. It wasn't thundering, so they did!

Earlier this week we had a fun visit to Gastonia. It was very excited about getting to take out the trash, of course!

We went to the Schiele museum and saw a fun exhibit on Tony's ice cream shop, and an outer space exhibit, too.

They always love looking at all the animals, and here it was all fun and games until Ben tried to take his head out of the alligator's mouth. He actually did end up crying a little bit when a tooth scratched him.

These kids are pooped!