Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This was a quiet Thanksgiving for us because we didn't travel anywhere for the first time. For the past few years we've either been in Southern California visiting my sister or visiting Jason's family in Minnesota (we missed them all this year!) . We had fun hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Some of my family came over and we had a small, intimate gathering. Jason was on-call but fortunately he was able to come home for a few hours. Last year Anna and I went to Southern California and Jason stayed in Sacramento because of his work schedule. It was great that we could all be together this year even if it was only for a few hours! It was also Jason's birthday yesterday! Anna and I made him an actual birthday cake and didn't have him blow out candles on the pumpkin pie =). Anna was so incredibly excited to have everyone at our house on Thanksgiving and "daddy's party" but the poor thing fell asleep before we ate! She was out cold for hours and I couldn't wake her up. When she finally woke up everyone was gone except Ben and I and she asked "where did the party go?".

Benji with his cousins Maddie and Olivia

Jason and my dad going for a pre-dinner stroll.

Possible Christmas card picture =).

Anna putting fun toppings on daddy's cake. She picked M&M's and mini chocolate chips to decorate it with.

Here's a pic of Ben on Wed. I can't believe he fell asleep like this!

It's official, Jason matched at UC Davis for fellowship! We are all very excited that we will be living in Sacramento for one for year. Jason will be specializing in minimally invasive/ advanced laparoscopy. The fellowship starts in July after Jason graduates from residency.

A Train Filled Weekend!

Anna has become increasingly fascinated with trains lately. She's interested in transportation in general but her most favorite are definitely "choo - choos". Grandpa Jim came to visit on Saturday morning and we took Anna and Ben to the California Train Museum. The second floor of the museum is dedicated to children and has a great set up of Thomas the Train for the kids to play with. Grandpa Jim bought Anna a Thomas the Train choo-choo from the gift shop that she has had in her hand ever since! She sleeps with it, has it in eyes view during mealtimes and even tried to take a bath with it! Jason went to Target and found a Thomas the Train starter set so now Anna has tracks for train =). Anna likes the tracks because they fit together like puzzle pieces.


Yesterday we took the kids on the city train. It's walking distance to our house so we put the kids in the stroller and checked it out. Anna was thrilled to say the least! We took the train up to Folsom where we got off at the outlet mall. What a perfect stop =). Ben really seemed to like the motion of the train and all of the new faces.

Waiting patiently for the train to arrive.

On our way home ...

Thanksgiving Feast

Today Anna's school had a Thanksgiving Feast. It was potluck style and the kids had the full 9 yards ranging from a big Turkey to pumpkin pie. Somebody else made the turkey but it was my job to carve it. I wouldn't recommend carving a 20 lb turkey using a toddler fork and a big huge chef's knife! Grandma Lana came up to join in on the fun and all of the kids enjoyed having a grandma there =).

Anna insisted on wearing this beanie cap with a big peony clipped on it to school the other day. She put a sock on her baby's head to look like a cap =).

Ben looking snug as a bug after our morning walk.

Jason is on-call today so we decided to something fun and messy since he won't be home until tomorrow =). I borrowed my mom's rhinestone applicator and have been adding "bling" to lots of things =). I'm making these flower hair clips for my nieces and their American Girl dolls for the holidays. Not sure what I'm doing with the poinsettia flower clip yet.

Have a great weekend everybody! Monday is match day for Jason so we'll keep you posted!

Fun at the Fish Hatchery

It was absolutely beautiful here today so I took the kids to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery up by Folsom since it's mostly outdoors. November is a great month to see all of the salmon. For 5 cents they give you a handful of fish food to feed the salmon and Anna had a blast doing that. We both were wet from all of the salmon jumping out of the water! Ben was happy as long as we fed him snacks as well =). There was an elementary school class there on a field trip and Anna followed the "big" kids around. When we were walking back to our car we ran into a man who was taking his lamas for a walk along the American River Trail =).

We're bringing snack to school tomorrow so Anna and I winged it and tried to come up with something entertaining for the kids using stuff we could find in our pantry and refrigerator. We made muffins again b/c the kiddos seem to like those and we tried to make happy faces out of fruit. If anyone has any fun ideas for preschool snacks let us know!

Cute pic of Benji taken yesterday =)

The Duck Pond and Ben's New Moves

This weekend we went to the duck pond at McKinley Park. Anna seems to be heading in the animal lover direction so she just loved feeding the ducks and thought it was great that about 30 ducks and geese chased us around the pond once they knew we had food. Ben wasn't as amused as Anna and took a nice snooze =).

Afterward, Anna fell asleep with daddy on the couch ... how sweet =).

Ben is officially crawling and is now starting to pull himself up to his knees. Here you can see how proud Ben is to be pulling himself up.

And here's Ben after sissy comes to help.

They kissed and made up =). Ben doesn't see that Anna has his toy though! That sneaky big sis!

Playing in the Rain

It looks like the rainy season has already started here in Northern California. Jason spent hours on Saturday trying to find a pair of rain boots for Anna. He finally found a pair in her size after going to Target and a few stores in the mall. Needless to say, the hunt was worth it because Anna loves her new rain boots =).


Benjamin has really been paying attention to Gracie lately. I don't know if Gracie is the sweetest cat on earth or just lazy because she doesn't move when Ben crawls towards her.