Half Marathon

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! As you can see from our blog background, we have already shifted into the Christmas mode. Our Thanksgiving day started early, as we ran the half-marathon with our friends Donovan and Bill. It was a beautiful course, starting not far from our house and ending downtown at Turner Field, under the Olympic Rings. It started out a bit chilly (30's), but warmed up quickly and was quite sunny (as you can see from the photo where we are all looking right into the sun). We had great races... Steve finishing in 1:41 and Ann finishing in 1:45.

Jackson turns 7!

Our little guy turned 7 this week!! Hard to believe... We celebrated today with a Lego party at the house. We had a "nice" sized party of 12 kids! We tried to keep the kids busy with a variety of games, but that proved to be much more difficult than we thought!

Here is the "Balloon Sandwich" where the kids have to go the length of the room with a balloon between their backs. Jackson's favorite games from the party were the Lego tower building contest and the balloon fighting. Obviously, the balloon fighting was not a sanctioned event!

Catie demonstrated outstanding grit and determination fighting off the older kids on her way to a final 4 finish in the old favorite, musical chairs.

She had a blast with the big kids at the party...

The kids seemed to prefer the ice cream over the fancy Lego cake...

We capped off the party with a Lego Pinata full of a candies and other useless crap that the kids seemed to love.

Abster going for an airplane ride.

After the chaos and being over run by the children, we were surprised when the kids organized the singing of happy birthday by themselves, like a group of professional party planners. See for yourself below.....

Fall Weekend

We have remained busy this fall, largely with birthday parties. It seems that we are invited to at least a few parties each weekend. Above, Jackson at his friend Anya's birthday party which was at the Gwinnett County Pool and Recreation Area.

Here Jackson is enjoying the "lazy river" at Anya's birthday party.

We really have to keep an eye on Abster these days... she is crawling at a good pace and is very curious!

Here she is, enjoying her saucer. Her days in here are limited as she prefers to be on the move...

Here are babies Abby and Landon. We had to keep a close eye on Abby as she was very interested in touching/poking Landon.

The boys are enjoying a 3D movie in the Wilson's theatre room.

Halloween

We hope that everyone had a nice Halloween. Here the kids are suiting up for trick or treating. Catie is Tinkerbell, Jackson is Anakin Skywalker, and Steve is a Rastafarian Jedi.

Jimmy and Tricia hosted a pre-Halloween Party, complete with pizza, desserts, decorations, and even goody bags for the kids! The kids had a blast! Above, a storm trooper (Jimmy) and the Jed is (Jackson and Luke) are in a light sabor battle.

Tinkerbell, Jango Fett (Micheal), and Anakin Skywalker head out in the neighborhood trick or treating...

Here's Tinkerbell, gathering quite a load of candy...

Tinkerbell and Dorothy (Sarah) are enjoying some of their candy after trick or treating.

Our little Hulk Hogan...

Abby didn't stay in her chicken costume long, but we did get a few pictures.

The kids got into a Halloween box with some old costumes and had to try them on....
Good grief! We didn't even needed to buy new costumes... these are adorable!

Today, Princess Catie had tea and crumpets for Princess Bailey's 4th birthday. The girls were treated to beautiful ball gowns, jewelry, and of course, were crowned with tiaras. Steve was Catie's chaperone for the event and was WAY out of place as he had to help dress our little "princess." See the video below to witness Catie's walk down the "red" carpet....

There is no such thing as too many tattoos for Catie. She asked for the tattoos to be placed on her stomach because she ran out of room on her arms. Hopefully she will grow out of this before her teenage years...

Grandma Moe and her friend Jill visited for the weekend. Jill was hoping to see the elephant Kelly, as she has a painting that Kelly made (we are quite curious as what this painting looks like!). Our timing could not have been better... just as we walked into the zoo, Kelly was performing some tricks for an audience. Above she is "waving" with her trunk, and below, she is taking a bow.

Here's Abster, with her new hat. Check out the video below of her crawling...

Having guests in town gives us an excuse to go to various attractions around town. On Sunday, we also went to the Aquarium. The kids had a blast and I think we were all worn out by the end of the day. Below, Jackson and Catie are being "Scientists" and identifying the various fish with their guide.

Here is some footage of Abby crawling...

Busy Fall Weekend

Once again, it was one of those weekends with nothing scheduled, yet turned into a busy weekend. On Saturday, Catie went to Arden's birthday party, where there were pony rides. Here is Catie with her best friend Bella, on a stuffed pony. This pony had to be moved inside as they were afraid it would scare the real ponies...

We also had the Midvale Fall Festival, a carnival for Jackson's elementary school. Jackson is enjoying the "Sponge Toss" above. Steve stayed busy working at the "Beading Station." Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of Steve and a group of girls making bead bracelets and necklaces.


Today, we went to Stone Mountain Park for the annual Pumpkin Festival. Jackson and Catie enjoyed finding their way thru a maze. At the end, was a bubble machine, which was quite a hit.

Here we are, on the giant pumpkin in the patch.

Abster has started pulling up... it won't be long before she's running after her brother and sister.

Here are the kids by the Three Little Pigs...

Jackson and Catie, painting faces on mini-pumpkins.

Ann was looking forward to the Pumpkin Pie eating contest at noon, but Steve was a party pooper and insisted on leaving at 11:45, so she didn't get to participate. She and the kids were very disappointed.

Trip to Florida

We took advantage of the Columbus Day holiday, and drove to Florida to visit Grandpa Jim and Grandma Sandye. The kids did surprisingly well on the 7 hour drive. The Boston Schwartz Family also came down and we all spent a great weekend together. Above, the kids and Uncle Dave enjoying the hot tub at Grandpa and Grandma's house.

Abster seemed to enjoy the beach... here she is heading for the snacks.

She is not so sure about the ocean!

Jackson working on a sand tunnel...

Typical Jackson... he met a friend within a few minutes and spent the next hour with him and his family.

Catie also loved the beach!

Here are the kids, hanging out in the condo with Brown Eyes, wearing their possum shirts...

We stopped at a pumpkin patch and picked out several pumpkins. The kids were very excited about carving the pumpkins. They drew their faces, but then quickly lost interest once we started the carving. They chased Mason (Grandma and Grandpa's Scottie) around and swam while the adults worked on the pumpkins. The pumpkins turned out well, but we forgot to get a picture of the finished product.

We all went to a Marine Center and saw various fish, snakes, crabs, etc. This turtle was just walking down the street outside of the center. Many thanks to Grandpa and Grandma for having us and hosting dinner at the house every night so we didn't have to take all the kids out. They had quite a job cleaning up after dinner every night as Uncle Dave and the children are quite messy. Of course, the Boston kids were messier than ours, but who's keeping score?