Catching Up: November 2010

The big event for November is, of course, Thanksgiving! We hosted the meal at our house again this year. The novelty of having enough space for the entire family still hasn't worn off. I remember when we lived in our tiny apartment, and barely had enough room just for our family! We've been in our house over two years, and I still sometimes can't believe how very fortunate we are to live there. Despite some imperfections, and I really, truly, love that place. Anyway, on to the update! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and we had a really nice one this year. The food was great, and of course the best thing was the company!
After dinner, we took some family photos. Here is one of Tandy and Korinne. Aren't they lovely?

Here's mom, looking great as always.

Me & Kristin.

While we were cleaning up in the kitchen, we kept noticing Simon was climbing up on the table. I went over to see what he was doing, and discovered he was licking the butter!

Here's a photo of our whole crazy clan! This is the first family photo we've taken in quite some time. I love when we all get together!

At the end of the evening, after eating, playing games, more eating, and more playing games, our "nephew" Sam came inside for a visit. Wendy and Sean had Sam out in the car, and it got really cold that night. Poor puppy was freezing. So we brought him in next to the fire to warm up. Joey and Kristin were excited to have a dog in the house. I hope it doesn't give them any ideas!

Halloween Fun

No update for October would be complete without talking about Halloween! We had a fun one this year, with lots of fun activities going on. Even Simon was in the Halloween spirit. We went to Target one day, and Simon found this mask in the dollar bin. He insisted on wearing it the entire time in the store, and then wore in most of the night at home.
Clearly, he found it entertaining.

Here Simon is in his actual Halloween costume. He was one of the Incredibles. Doesn't he look cute? I thought for sure he would hate wearing that mask, but he kept it on all night. In fact, he threw a fit when it got loose or started to come off. Sadly, when we were headed to the car at the end of the night, Simon started to cry because he didn't want to go home, and we lost the mask. Pity.

Here are the many, many pumpkins we had for carving!

Here are Matt and the kids hard at work cleaning out pumpkins and getting them ready.

Here's a photo of all our finished pumpkins. Note how Joey's was carved to look like (what else?) Pac Man.

Here's Joey in his costume: Mario!

I wanted to make sure people knew who Mario's mom was!

Kristin dressed as a yellow crayon. Yellow is her favorite color!

In addition to the Halloween stuff at church, and trick-or-treating, we also had a family Halloween party at my mom's house. Here's the gang:

We had a Halloween-themed murder mystery party called "An Affair to Dismember." Murder mystery parties are always so much fun, and this one was no exception.

The Pumpkin Patch

This year for the first time we went to the local pumpkin patch at the Van Omering Dairy farm.
The Van Omering Farm is just a couple miles from our house, and it is SO AWESOME I can't believe we haven't gone down there before. But it will definitely be a tradition from now on. There are so many fun things to do. First of all, there are lots of pumpkins to choose from:

There's also a hay maze that the kids can climb through.

And there's a mountain of cotton seed to play in. The kids can sled down it like snow. Well, not exactly like snow - but it's fun, just the same. Kristin got tired of trying to get the various foam discs to work, so she resorted to simply rolling down the cotton seed hill.

Joey tried to slide on a disc, but it would often slip out from under him.

There was a small petting zoo with various farm animals. I even joined Kristin, even though one of the baby cows took a liking to me and kept licking my pant leg. Go away, cow! (I wish I had a picture of that!)

They also have a hay ride, where they drive you through the dairy and talk about how things work on the farm. It's very interesting, if a bit smelly. And they have these cool stations where you can practice "milking" a cow. Here's Joey giving it a try.

On this particular day, we had all planned to go to the pumpkin patch as a family, but Simon unfortunately had the stomach flu and couldn't leave the house. Matt stayed home with him and I went with Joey, Kristin and Wendy. It's a shame Simon missed out because I know he would have had such a great time!

Catching Up: October 2010

October is a big birthday month for our family. First, we celebrate Alicia's birthday with a family meal, followed by the traditional German Chocolate Cake. My mom has made this same cake for Alicia's birthday for as long as I can remember!
It's always great getting together with the family. Here is a photo of Kristin and her Auntie Wendy, cuddling on the couch. Well, I say "cuddling" but really, Kristin just decided to make herself at home, plunking herself on the couch and draping her legs over Wendy.

After we ate, we thought it might be nice to play some games. Simon wanted to play Apples to Apples. Actually, as you can see from this photo, the game he wanted to play was closer to "52 Pick Up." He had cards strewn everywhere!

Here's a picture of me and my loving spouse, who clearly takes photo opportunities very seriously.

And here's a photo of Joey and Kristin, playing outside. (Kristin also takes photo opportunities seriously!) It was a fun day for everyone!


The second birthday we celebrated in October was Kristin's 6th Birthday. I can't believe she's SIX! Time sure flies. Kristin was pretty excited about her birthday, as evidenced by her reaction when we brought out her birthday cake:

She wasted no time digging in. She eats like a lady.

Ooh! We're approaching the holidays! Tomorrow: Thanksgiving photos!

Catching Up: September 2010

September 2010 meant the return to school and also the return of soccer season!

Here are Kristin and Grandma, relaxing on the sidelines during a game. While Kristin seems to enjoy soccer, it seems what she likes best is watching soccer. She'd often volunteer to sit out. And sometimes even when she was playing, she'd stand and watch the game go by.

Kristin's team this year was called The Super Stars. Here is their team banner:

Here's Kristin and her team warming up for a game. They had a really great coach this year. She always made sure the girls had a good time.

Here's Kristin after a game, showing off her "Super Star" pose.

This year, Joey was once again on the lime green team. The name of his team was The Alien Demolishers.

Joey learned a lot about soccer this year and improved his playing skills dramatically. He usually played defender, but sometimes he was a midfielder. We had an unusually rainy season this year (not that you can tell from these photos) so a few times Joey had to play in very wet weather. But that didn't stop him.

It was a great season. Though, just like in years past, it was kind of a relief when it was over! The practices were on the same night, at the same time, in two different locations. They were also at a time when Matt was still at work - so it meant lots of running around for me! And there were times when their two games overlapped on the weekends as well. It was quite an adventure, lugging equipment and wrangling Simon without a spouse to assist. But we made it work. The fun starts again in the fall!

Pac Man Cookies

Another fun summer activity was when we made Pac Man Cookies. I don't know where Joey even heard about Pac Man. But he's been semi-obsessed with it ever since. (In fact, he had a Pac Man birthday cake this year - but I'm getting ahead of myself). Joey and Kristin wanted to make cookies that looked like Pac Man. Here are my little bakers, ready to help in the kitchen. Joey is showing off the Pac Man he made of Legos. Actually, it's supposed to be a combination of Pac Man and Mario - that's why it's half red. Um, maybe we need to cut back on the video game exposure?

Here, The Bakers show off the tools they will use. We didn't have actual Pac Man cookie cutters, so we improvised! A tulip and a house? How will it work? You'll see...all in good time.


First, Kristin starts on making one of the Pac Man ghosts by cutting out an upside-down tulip.

Then she cuts off the tulip's stem.

Voila! It's ghost-shaped!

Then Joey cut out a simple circle with a glass, and used the roof part of the house cookie cutter to cut out Pac Man's mouth. I suggested just doing it with a knife, but Joey looked at me like I was crazy. There's a science to cookie baking, see?


Then we started decorating!

For the ghost's eyes, we used white chocolate chips and topped them with a single mini-chocolate chip.

Here are a couple more shots of The Bakers. I love how happy they look. They were really having a great time making these cookies!


And the cookies came out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Catching Up: August 2010

What's this? Two blog posts within a week?!? I'll give you a moment to recover after passing out from shock...

So, as I said, I wanted to catch up on where we LeVines have been since our last post back in August. When you last joined our heroes, Matt had just undergone minor surgery on his finger. That was at the beginning of August. The rest of August was packed with fun activities. First, there was Korinne's first birthday. We had a lovely family party at Grandma's house with lots of great food. Can't believe it's been a year already. Look how big she is! (And, of course, this was almost 6 months ago, so she's just bigger now!)


Also in August, my mom went to Minnesota for a visit. Since we didn't have childcare while she was away, Matt and I took some time off to spend with the kids. We had a great time playing around town, going to the park and the Science Center, and working around the house. We also went to the Birch Aquarium for the first time.

I don't know why we haven't gone before. It's really fun and educational, and not as crowded (nor as commercial) as Sea World. The kids had a great time. Here's Simon checking out the kelp bed:


Here, Joey and Kristin are checking out the tide pools. There are lots of starfish and other sea creatures in the tide pools - like squishy sea cucumbers!


I think the thing we liked the best was playing with this water table. It's supposed to demonstrate how ocean currents work. So you build a little water maze out of colored planks, and then put little toy boats into the water current. Of course, Matt was a master engineer and came up with lots of fancy configurations.


And no trip to the aquarium would be complete without a visit to the shark tank. Here, we pose for a picture like the tourists we are. I love this photo so much. It's so typical of our family outings. Simon isn't really interested, and is trying to get away to do his own things. Joey and Kristin are pushing each other's buttons. Look at Joey and Kristin's faces. Ah, siblings.