Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving was once again at the Domrese. It was great! The kids played, the adults chatted, and good food was abundant. Did you think you'd get pictures of the children? Oops! We were so busy cooking and cleaning, we neglected to do that! But I DID get these pictures:

We made a "gourd"geous (Get it? Gorgeous?) turkey out of a butternut squash, some grapes, cheese, and a little pepper. The kids had a great time, and then ate it at dinner time.
I made mini-sugar-free apple pies. They turned out really cute!

My Two Favorite Katie's

We took a day off of school and went down to Endicott (where I use to teach). I've taken the kids down a few times each year since I've quit teaching. I love the people there, I love to see my old students, the environment, it's just a lot of fun.

The kids enjoyed eating lunch with the big kids, recess, buddy reading time, and just playing in the classroom. I enjoyed chatting with my friends!

Our Katie was named after my good friend Katie. My friend Katie is an amazing person. I've never met anyone like her. She is so positive, so compassionate and caring, and just an all-around great person. And it seems she and my Katie are a good match. :) My Katie does not go to people easily, but can go to Katie easily. Maybe it's the name? Either way, I love to take pictures often so that Katie grows up and knows the person she is named after.

The First Snow of the Season

It snowed! Hey, maybe it was only a couple inches, but it snowed! Enough to put the kids in snow clothes and send them outside. By themselves, can you believe it? I've never had kids old enough to send outside without them getting stuck, falling on their face, etc. Of course, pictures were necessary, so I had to bundle up and head out as well.




The Greatma Wall of Fun

We love playing at greatma's house. We go out there once a week to play, visit, and have fun. I love that the kids are so close to her. Not often do you really get to know your great-grandma, and really spend time with her.

On this particular day, the kids needed some fresh air and decided to play outside. They were climnbing and jumping off the wall (not abnormal but super cute). Here's the best pictures I got.






The Wobbly Tooth

We went to the dentist in July, upon checking Thomas' teeth he announced that Thomas would be short a couple teeth the next time we visited.

On November 5th, we were sitting at Luigi's having a family dinner when it happened! Thomas bit into a piece of bread and out that tooth came! At first he was excited, then a little scared at the aspect of losing a body part then excited again!


The tooth fairy had not anticipated this happening (maybe the tooth fairy was in denial?) so she was unprepared. We had decided that each child would get a $2 bill for each tooth. Grandma Dolly would give the kids $2 bills for Easter and Christmas. It was something special she did. We thought this might be a fun way to carry on grandma Dolly's tradition and memory through the generations.

Just last week Thomas lost another tooth! While brushing his teeth! Down the drain it went. Luckily I had somewhat prepared him for the possibility that he might swallow his tooth, so this was not a huge surprise. Again, super excited. And this time the tooth fairy was more prepared!

Happy Halloween 2011

What a crazy crazy Halloween! The kids are getting to an age where it's really enjoyable, even *gasp* fun! The boys were both ninjas and the girls were a lion and a monkey. No great pictures of just them, it got too crazy and I forgot. Oops!

Trick or treating at grandma Patti and grandpa Bob's house the night before:
We visited grandma Patti at work and trick or treated through her office:


On Halloween, continued our traditions. We visited greatma when she was at dinner:
We trick-or-treated at grandma Alice's and then had dinner with her:

We then went to the South Hill and really enjoyed walking up and down about  5 blocks with the children. Their buckets were full, Molly was near asleep, we left on a high note with NO CRYING CHILDREN! It's a new era for the Domrese family!

Tennis

The boys have started tennis lessons. A good friend told us about them, and we thought it would be fun. It is! The boys have really seemed to enjoy it. It's in a group with other children their age, and we sit up above in the viewing area and watch. It's so much fun to watch them learn new things!