thanksgiving and christmas!

we had a great week of thanksgiving -- so many things to be thankful for!!  we were able to spend some time (24 hrs, i think?) with my family in wayland and then spend the rest of the weekend with some of jake's family up here!  yeah!  so fun -- staying up late, playing games, drinking coffee, watching movies, catching up... so fun!  it always goes too fast... just makes me look forward to the next time coming!  :)  

we're so thankful for a wonderful family who is willing to drive a distance to help us with projects ... our backyard has been at the top of our list, trying to get as much done before winter hits.  this final piece of putting in a chain-link fence was finished two weekends ago, by the mighty three-man crew -- jake, ross and my dad.  yeah!   

jake and ross, rolling it out!

all three boys, working diligently at the corner -- just before their lunch break!!

roman has been asking when snow claus is coming ... think we're a bit confused here?  and he keeps asking when it's going to snow, because snow=christmas, right?  oh so many questions, i sometimes don't know what to say!  i'm not complaining - i love that roman is interested and so inquisitive, and glad that he's sometimes ok with the answers of "just because" and "god made it that way".  :)

we pulled out our advent calendar the other night - haven't walked through that yet with roman, thinking age 3 might be a good time to start? he was very interested in each little "door" that has something behind it.  even though we won't start going through these until tomorrow (dec 1), he checked behind each door last night to be sure that there was something actually in each spot.  he asked about it again this morning when he woke up, and then just now asked me if god sent the calendar to us. :)  i answered "sort of"... because it is god-inspired, right?

our house has not been christmasified yet... but hoping to get a tree this weekend!  it will be a big day - the tree comes in and will take the place of "the box", which sets in the corner of our front room.  this box (from diapers.com) has become a house, hiding place, reading spot, ship, and many other things that i'm sure i'm not even aware of.  but alas, we will be ordering diapers again someday, so there WILL be another box!

josiah, just finishing up some reading...

where's josiah?  he's somewhere, but we just can't seem to find him!?!  

both of the boys in the box... this was just before roman asked
me to cut some windows into it... must be stuffy in there!  

josiah loves reading -- it's at the top of his list of things to ask for when he wakes up in the morning!  it is usually ordered:  1)daddy 2)roman 3)books   (i'm not sad that i'm not officially on the list... i'm his mom, and i get to pull him out of bed and be the first to squeeze him!)  :)

a favorite right now... the very hungry caterpillar!

and one more update... Baby Stotts is 28 weeks old now, growing as he should, as far as we know!  according to babycenter.com, he is the size of a Chinese cabbage (just fyi, pic included below!) and can blink his eyes and eye lashes!