Thankful tree

Since completing the new kitchen, we have started a family devotion time that occurs after baths and right before bed.  We have molded and adapted things along the way.  The key ingredient, however, is a candle and a cool snuffer to put it out. :)  Every November, we try to do a thankfulness activity.  This year we added to a Thankful Tree during devotion time.  We did something similar two years ago using pressed real leaves.  This year we used leaves and pumpkins cut out with the Cricut.  Everyone wrote or drew a picture of something they were thankful for each night.  It was fun to see the board fill up!

Thanksgiving with family

We were lucky enough to see almost everyone on both sides of the family in NW Iowa over Thanksgiving.  We ate our Thanksgiving meal with my parents with my sisters joining us at night.  The cousins had a lot of fun being monkeys jumping on the bed.

We spent most of the day in LeMars on Friday visiting Austin's grandmas and other family members, including an aunt and cousin from Colorado we don't see very often.  We enjoyed a trip to the Wells Blue Bunny ice cream parlor!

One of the most special events for me was a gathering of almost everyone on my mom's side of the family with my Grandpa Vander Kooi at the nursing home.  I don't know the last time that many of us have been together.  My 93-year-old grandpa has been going downhill as of late, so this was a bittersweet time.

Our family

My mom's family

The extended Vander Kooi family minus two cousins with spouses and three great-grandchildren

Football slippers

This little guy is proud and cozy in his new football slippers!

Concur awards

Austin attended his company's annual sales meeting back in October where he was awarded "Business Development Manager of the Year" for the second time in three years.  This is out of a group of about 30 people.  The Travel Channel Sales Team he manages also hit all three of their numbers for the first time in the history of the team, so each team member received a miniature bat engraved with the "Triple Crown" award.  His actual display awards just arrived in the mail.  It's so great to work for a company that recognizes and rewards your efforts!

West Cedar bake sale

Yep, I'm THAT mom.  I've been looking forward to the bake sale for Emily's elementary school for weeks.  I was especially excited about using my new kitchen and double oven!  I baked and froze a bunch of stuff plus a few fresh items that day.  Here was my total donation:

The bake sale was free-will donation during the Hometown Holiday Market in Waverly (which makes it super easy to organize and manage).  I volunteered to sit at the table for a good chunk of the day.  Austin and both kids were home in various stages of a nasty 12-hour stomach bug, so I selfishly stayed away.  The event raised over $400 for the Parent Connection group, which funds things such as a new supplemental reading software program, new playground equipment and gas money for field trips.

It was a miserably cold day, so I thought traffic was a little lighter than normal.  It was very interesting to observe which items were the most popular and which ones were passed over.  After all my creative baking and new recipes, I decided the top sellers will always be Scotcharoo bars, the giant Monster Cookie pies and homemade cinnamon rolls.  Mental notes for next year! ;)

4 years + 6 months

Lincoln's imagination has really blossomed lately.  It's fun to just sit and listen to him engaged in pretend play.  He has also started another question phase.  There are a lot of "Why?" questions, very few of which he is actually looking for an answer.  Another popular question is, "What time is it?" followed immediately by, "What does that mean?"  He constantly wants to know what time it is and is trying to figure out the relationship between the numbers on the clock and the next activity coming up.  Similarly, he frequently asks, "What month comes next?"  This was inspired by Emily's birthday, which is causing Lincoln to try and figure out how long it is until his birthday.

Lincoln knows his name and can recognize it in print.  When asked his first name, he replies, "Lincoln."  When asked his last name, he replies, "Lincoln Austin Lorenzen."  He insists his last name is all three names put together.  

Lincoln has made huge strides in writing.  At the beginning of the school year he had no recognizable letters.  Now he can write his name and the letters & numbers they have learned about so far.  Here are some pictures I just took of his work one afternoon when we were practicing on a white board.  We are working hard on holding a pencil/marker correctly.

Lincoln is done with any kind of regular nap time, so we usually don't even try.  The exception is weekends when Lincoln will crawl in bed with me to take a nap together--especially Sunday afternoons.  He has also started a bad habit of picking at his fingernails.  It's a good thing they grow so fast!  His toenails are starting to actually grow somewhat normally for really the first time in his life.  It's quite a contrast from hands to feet!

 

Below is some of Lincoln's November preschool art--including the projects made during his preschool field trip to the middle school to visit their "Friday Friends".  There is also a picture someone captured of Lincoln peeking out of a turkey blind.

Balancing act

Seussical Musical

The W-SR fall musical this year was "Seussical Musical."  I was so excited to take the kids.  Andjelka also went along with us.  The cast and crew did a phenomenal job and everyone loved it.  The kids took pictures with Carrisa Ewest as the fox (occasional babysitter for us) and the amazing girl who starred as The Cat in the Hat.  I wish I had a picture of the whole cast--especially the mind-blowing hair-dos of the Who's!

Hearts at Home

I had the privilege of once again attending the Hearts at Home North Central Regional conference in Rochester, MN.  This time I went with a fabulous group of ladies from the Mom's Morning Out group at church.

I drove the early vehicle and enjoyed some highly successful shopping.  The conference itself was awesome as usual.  The theme was No More Perfect Moms based on Jill Savage's book of the same title.  I particularly enjoyed hearing one of my favorite speakers, Dr. Kathy Koch, twice.  The workshops she did on technology and millennials were fabulous.  She recently posted a recorded version of something similar on her blog here:

I'm excited that Dr. Kathy will be a keynote speaker next year with Hearts at Home founder, Jill Savage.  They are currently co-authoring No More Perfect Kids.  I'm also excited to see the movie Moms Night Out when it comes out May 9.  The star, Sarah Drew, spoke and signed autographs.  The official movie trailer is here.

New truck

Austin has been looking for a new truck for over a year now.  He had some very specific parameters and wasn't really in a hurry.  With winter approaching, it was definitely time to find something, though.  His trusty 1999 Ford F150 needed new tires, had rust chunks falling off, paint scrapes on the side, iffy door locks and neither the heater or A/C really worked. 

He checked out a couple deals this week and came home with a 2010 Toyota Tacoma with 27,000 miles.  It's a pretty sweet ride.  It feels like a car in the inside and fits in the garage a lot better than the F150.  It sure makes me feel better having him driving it!

Ballet class

It was observation week at Emily's dance studio, so I was able to sit in and watch her ballet class.  She looks so grown up!

Fun with Ellie & Owen

I had a lot of frosting left over from Emily's playdate, so I made another batch of cut-out cookies and let the kids decorate more cookies after school.  Ellie & Owen (the kids I watch after school 2x/week) were also there.

Lincoln & Owen have lots of fun building block towers.

Birthday playdate

In lieu of a big friend birthday party, I told Emily she could have a playdate with the Abben triplets, who are in her class.  They pretty much always dress alike, and I'm still trying to remember who is who.  :) This was Emily's first ever real playdate (only her peers with no moms).  Lincoln had a hard time with that.  He has never really been told that he can't play along with Emily.

Our snack/activity was frosting cut-out cookies.  I made the letters spelling out each girls' name plus some other fun shapes.  Lincoln got to frost some cookies, too.  I think over half of them got consumed before even making it onto the take-home plates.  :)  Then they played a little of this and a little of that all over the house and yard.  It was a fun little shindig, but I'm not looking to plan big friend parties anytime soon.