Kennedys visit

Right before Halloween, we had a special treat - a visit from Mom & Dad Kennedy!  They got to see a glimpse of our fun, action-packed life.

We listened to Jessica's preschool class sing us several Halloween songs

We got to pass out candy to her class during the "parade" in the gym

Jessica's 4yo preschool classmates

On Friday, we also went to mass at Megan's school, and toured Katie's school.  On Saturday, we saw Megan's last soccer game, where she scored a hat trick!  (what do you call it in soccer when you score three goals??)  And we saw Katie's last soccer game, where she NEARLY scored a goal.  We made cupcakes for Mom K's birthday, and made "finger" cookies just for fun.

Cupcake decorators

Finger cookies, complete with sliced almond fingernails on one end, and the other end dipped in raspberry jam to look like a bloody stump!  They were delish!

Grandma and Grandpa with the girls, before heading out to Kruse & Muer to celebrate Grandma's birthday

On Sunday we enjoyed breakfast donuts at Knapp's in downtown Rochester

 As you can tell, we all had a fun time, and Mom & Dad K needed a nap by the end of the weekend!  :)

Jessica

Big news - Jessica is blind as a bat!!  She flunked her vision screening at her 4yo checkup, so I made an appt for an optometrist visit today.  She is severely far-sighted and has very bad astigmatism.  Guess who's getting glasses??!!  She tried on a few pairs today and they were all ADORABLE on her cute little face. We will wait til next week when Chris is home to pick out "the" pair.  Be on the lookout for pics of Jessi's new look!

Halloween! (a month late)

Just had to share a few belated, but cute, pics from our Halloween festivities!

Katie the ballerina in her school parade.

Megan the pioneer in her school parade

 Katie & Megan had a half day of school on Halloween, and got to wear their costumes to school for the party and parade.  We spent the afternoon carving our pumpkins.

Jessi is just cute!  Her preschool Halloween party was the previous week.

Trick-or-treaters

 Katie went trick-or-treating with her friend Maile and her mom.  It was the first year we didn't all go out together...Katie is growing up!  Megan and Jess went out with Chris for a while, and then went out with me for a while, and then came home to pass out candy with us.  It was windy and cool, but not too bad out.

Megan's Angry Bird pumpkin

Katie designed and carved her pumpkin

Jessica's kitty pumpkin

Katie (ballerina) with her stash

Megan (witch) and her stash

Jessi (Belle) and her candy haul

Megan organized her candy - look at each shelf!

The girls enjoyed sorting and trading their candy for WEEKS!!  We have pretty much forgotten about the candy by now, thank goodness.  It was another great Halloween!!

November

Let me do a quickie overview of November, in pictures!

Girls playing outside on one of the many warm November days we had.  Notice Jessi's bare feet!

Girls playing in the leaf pile in our back yard.  There was much screaming, running, and jumping!

Family pic at Grandpa Christensen's visitation

Siblings all together

Cute pic!

All the Christensen cousins (aka grandchildren)

Grandma Christensen with the grandkids AND great-grandkids

Our little family

Grandpa's funeral was on a very warm day, so after the luncheon, we went back to his house and took a family walk to the woods.  The girls found lots of corn and beans to play with!

Our final carrot harvest, and our first stalk of brussels sprouts (of four plants)

Yummy rainbow carrots from our garden!

Jessi would NOT eat the squash or brussels sprouts one night.  She didn't put up a fight, she simply fell asleep at the table!

Girls singing together in the combined Children's Choir (Katie) and Praise Kids (Megan and Jessica).  It was the very first time Jessica was in the choir!  She did a fabulous job.  It was Megan's first time this year, and she did great, too.

All in all, November was a fabulous month for our family.  We had many days off school and Chris had several days off work.  Soccer was over, so we had lots of free time compared to Sept & Oct.  We had time to go swimming once a week, go on lots of walks, and clean up all of our gardens and the yard.  The girls are working hard in school, and are all doing very well.  We are in a great routine of homework and reading each night.  Megan loves to read to Jessica, and Katie loves to read to both of them!  I feel surprisingly rested, and ready for the chaos of December!  (let's hope this feeling lasts!)

Thanksgiving weekend

Happy Thanksgiving!  We have had a fun weekend so far.  We hosted Thanksgiving, and the highlight was Chris' deep-fried turkey.  Everyone loved it!



Thanksgiving feast with Mom & Dad Christensen, Joe C. and his girlfriend Stephanie:

Joe & Stephanie spent Friday with us, too, before they flew back to Boulder.  We hung out all day, and the girls were extra crazy with an audience around.

Today started off on a very sad note.  Chris took Kenny to the vet, who confirmed what we thought - the FIV disease progressed quickly.  Kenny was down to only 8 lbs, and has been vomiting and poo-ing everywhere in the basement.  We made the difficult decision to put him to sleep.  RIP, our Kenny-cat!

Later today, we took the girls to the zoo to enjoy the warm weather.  We saw all the animals, and had a picnic lunch outside - without coats!  The new lion exhibit is way cool - we got so close to the lions!

 The butterfly house was a huge hit, too:

I put up some Christmas lights today, and ordered our Christmas cards.  The tree may make its appearance tomorrow!  I want to get started on Christmas stuff ASAP since Chris is heading to Italy on Monday, and we have a busy week (month!) ahead.

Hope you enjoy this mini-update.  I am going to try to get caught up this week.  Wish me luck!