A Photographical Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  We headed up to Delaware for our celebration, while Mom headed to Ohio.  The rest of our family is scattered around the world, so we are pretty used to feast or famine when it comes to family gatherings.     As always, it's great to see Brantley's family and this year, we doubled up and celebrated Christmas on Thanksgiving Eve.  Needless to say, it was a fun, family holiday!   

Look at Delaney and her sweet smile. She's wearing Brant's bandana as  a do rag!

The boy cousins!

Now aren't those desserts yummy?!
And the Give Thanks sign courtesy of
Brant! 

The following photos are courtesy of our oldest nephew Jacob,
who got a hold on our camera early on.  

Sweet Dunny and Evans!  Jacob, you cut Hazen's head off!

There, that's better!  Although Hadley doesn't look too pleased!

Say cheese, our self portraits!

Unfortunantly all good things must come to an end, and we had to head home.  Learning our lesson several Thanksgivings ago, we left a day early.  The following photos were taken on the approach to the Chesapeake Bay bridge-tunnel and on it.  Only three words to describe it...beautiful, cold and windy!!

Brant pointing out our location, accurately I may add

Totally freezing...that's why they look pained!

The wind was buffeting Brant so hard the camera jiggled!

And now, we are on our final approach to Christmas!  Can't come soon enough!  Lots and lots of Christmas activity coming up...stay posted!

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May Flowers bring?

Happy Pilgrim Day!  Last Friday was Native American Day, now Pilgrims!  While not as large a scale as the last one, the little K4 Pilgrims got to do a lot of neat crafts, poems, stories and more!

Listening as Ms. Jodi reads the story of the first Thanksgiving.

Getting ready for Pilgrim day!

Dipping candles, just like they would have in Pilgrim days.
 Brant said he wanted to put his on his birthday cake!

Is it getting bigger yet?

A snapping Pilgrim!

Cutest Pilgrim class at "Plymouth BDS"

The students also got to shake up butter and try it on crackers!  And of course, finger puppets topped off the day with a great Thanksgiving poem!  We really can't say enough about the experiences BDS provides for Brant, it's why we are there!  Thank you Ms. Stacy and Ms. Jodi!

Renovation, one step closer to complete

While things have be going full steam ahead around here, we've slowly been completing some of our renovation/home improvement projects.  Err.. I saw we, but all I'm involved with is design.  Brant is the mastermind of carrying out my design (sometimes a bit over-ambitious!) AND keeping it within the affordable range for our family.  As far as major redos, we are on our third room.  Checked off the list are the kitchen and sunroom.  Currently on the list...laundry room.   Pardon me for a minute while I walk you through the steps (and years) it's taken to get our laundry room.

We began with a screened in porch
 (I forgot to take the before photo before the screen came out)

And an very multipurpose grungy room our washer and dryer were in.

But our handy Brantley enclosed it, added new windows, door and drywall inside.
This photo was before the spring painting of the whole house the same color and dark brown trim. Door is burgundy.
By the way, 90% of the construction materials were from Craigslist!!

Little Brant has followed his Daddy through every step.  That's how big Brant learned his stuff, so I have high hopes for Brant's future renovations!

We ended up here.  This is where the screen in porch side was.

Ha, ha, always tools around our house, see the air compressor?!

So, after a summer break we began again.  This is the laundry room side. The walls were exterior  from the house
when the room was added on.  It was grubby.  Where are the washer and dryer you ask?  You got it...in the completed sun room!

We have drywall and a floor

And one step closer!  We have cabinets AND working appliances again!
Steps to complete include lower cabinets and countertops.
I was so excited to come home to this!

Our freezer which we couldn't do without!
We salvaged the cabinets from Brant's parents' kitchen redo

The beautiful ceiling handmade by Brant with LOTS of lighting.
We used to have a bare bulb!

So, now you've seen our walk through renovation. It's tried our patience, drained our budget, caused us to use some choice word, but made us so proud to say we did it ourselves!  Stay tuned for the final pics and the NEXT project?!  The bathroom!  That should be fun!

'Pending the night at Grandma's

After all the excitement of Native American Day, Mommy was looking forward to a snuggly evening with her best boy, but HE had other ideas.
"Mommy, is it a school night?" (asked almost every evening)
"Nope!" (which actually sounded more like NOBE, due to my stuffy nose)
"Then I'm spending the night at GRANDMA'S!" (this accompanied by a dance and scramble to get his bag)

So, I packed his bag.  Asking which animal would be accompanying him to Grandma's (thinking it would be faithful Percy the "Pola" bear), I was surprised by the sudden scramble for almost ALL of his animals!

"Mommy, don't look!" I heard while getting his things together.  Never knowing what this entails, I peeked.  And what I saw absolutely melted my heart.  My precious little boy was kissing the animals he was leaving behind!

From left to right  Ruffy the dog, (hidden Delaware bear), Phillies Bear, Percy.
In bag, Winn Dixie the dog, another dog, Bluey the bluebird

Brant with his best snuggle buddies

So, right now, he's at Grandma's and I'm here.  And I miss him.  Five minutes after he falls asleep, I want to wake him up.  Five minutes after he's left, I want him home.  What a sweet little boy the Lord has blessed us with!

A Pow Wow and Fun Friday!

Remember the paper bag vest of last week!?  Well, today was the day Brant got to wear his!  It was the Kindergarten Native American Day!   And it was an O'Day family affair, as Grandma and Daddy got to come too!  Set up in the gym, the kiddos got to play their drums, climb a mountain, hunt a deer, play Native American games AND fish in an Indian pond.  Our little Indian brave won his feather and had a fantastic time!

Walking down the hall to the gym, Brant shushed Grandma for talking in the hall!

Chief Shooting Deer plays his drum around the tee pee

check out the cool noodle necklace!

The Pow Wow begins with great music!

Grandma helped the princesses and braves play Pebble Magic

Daddy helped with the deer hunt, throwing a "spear" through the hoop at the deer!

Creating sand art

Climbing Eagle Mountain (which Mommy built!)

Reaching for his feather!

Fishing in the Indian pond

Tasting beef jerky..the verdict? "It's too hard for me to chew!"

The class in front of the tee pee 

Nate, Brant, Izzy and Zaid, great K4 buddies!

Finally, a non-eventful week!

As I was considering our blog topic for this week, I realized that NOTHING had gone on, other than normal school, work type things.  What a relief to have a week in which we came home from school, and enjoyed being a family!  While we still were busy in our own way, the important thing is...it was OUR choice!  

Something cool that happened this week though, is we received 75 hits on our blog in ONE day!  On the bottom of the blog page is a revolving map.  Click on it and you can see where the visitors to our blog are.  Our Japan crew shows up off the coast of Africa, must be something with Department of Defense.

One milestone Brant reached this week was learning to snap his fingers!  He's now snapping to music, to get our attention, when upset...you name it, he's snapping!

Last night was quite fun, on the spur of the moment we decided to go see a movie!  Mom had been wanting to see Secretariat, and the boys wanted to see MegaMind.  So, off we went! It was an early birthday surprise for Mom, and I have to say, the boys and girls in the family both had great choices!

Brant is preparing for his Native American day next Friday, and our "homework" is to create a paperbag Indian (I know, it's not PC) vest.  Well, this morning, Brant decided to work on it while Mommy and Daddy were still in bed.  Running in to show us, we had to congratulate him on his cutting, because he had cut a perfectly straight line through BOTH sides of the vest!  His bag was in two parts, connected only by the handles!  Needless to say, Mommy stopped at Lowe's foods today and picked up another bag (and a spare).  We started decorating it tonight.  Here's the vest (not quite finished).

Concentrating on his eagle

Right before he added a laser to one wing "To fight bad eagles with!"

Adding a feather to the headdress Mom Mom and Pop Pop brought him back
from out west

Didn't he do a great job?! I outlined a the eagle and the diamond,
but he did the rest!

Chief Brantley with his "NO DRUMS" symbol on the front of his vest. 

Keep posted on the Native American day, all my middle schoolers are on a trip next week, so I can spend most of the day on Friday in Brant's room.  I'm sure it's going to be great fun, and LOTS of photo opportunities!

From the calm, somewhat rested, relaxed O'Day home, good night!