November 2016

Owen gave us a new bumper sticker for Big Blue when we went up North!

Five of the seven hanging out for "2:30 time" one afternoon.

Owen had candy corn to share, which is always a hit. Even Krassimir likes it a little bit!

Evania's into helping me in the kitchen.

Oldest and youngest out on a beautiful day. Crazy to have a November when you can play in the grass with no warm gear on!

We went to a Hope Kids event at a place that involved bowling. One of their photographers caught this shot of Daddy helping Krassi. We laugh - our "Hope Kid" is Reuben (you have to have a life-threatening medical condition to qualify to be a Hope Kid), but when we're all out at one of these events, people default to thinking it's Krassi, since his disability is so much more visible than Reuben's is.

Leah, as always, is such a mother's helper. Here she is coaching Rinnah on her push.

And Gloria and I helping Reuben.

Leah caught this shot of me and Gloria - love how we're both watching the ball go down the lane.

The kids liked how the bollards were big bowling balls!

Lots of help with dishes.

Hi, little girls!

Gloria came out and helped me compost leaves...by eating them...while I planted a few late perennials.

"Evania, what are you doing?" "I reading!" [A few moments later...] "Pillow, come back! Come back, Pillow!!!"

This sweet cat doesn't get a moment's rest. ;) And Gloria has fully transitioned from sweet, placid, smiley all the time baby to Cheery Sprite Baby.

The picture doesn't show it well, but both girls have similar style sleeves on their shirts, so were crawling together for a photo.

Daddy and a sweet bundle of baby.

Gloria has taken on stairs like nobody's business!

She's not afraid at all.

It kind of threw Krassi the first few days he watched her climb the stairs. It's almost like he was thinking, "Wait a minute, she can do that, too? Why can't I get it to work??" But he's good with it now, and he's still faster than she is at going down!

Matching purple girls.

Gloria's taken a liking to string toys. One day she found a ball of yarn and dragged it around behind her (unraveling all the way until we picked it up and gave her a different one). One day she even tried to pull the block cart up the stairs because it has a string on it!!

Evania gets to go outside in the snow more than Rinnah did at her age because Evania has a big sister Leah who's big enough to help her get dressed and navigate the snow, while Rinnah had to wait until Mom had time to do it!

Evania. (What more do I need to say?)

Gloria has decided she likes people again. She sat with Uncle Steve for the entire evening while we ate Thanksgiving dinner.

Krassi, after he got down from his chair, delighted himself with taking out every hot pad, and dropping each one onto his back. He thought he was pretty silly (and he was right!)

Day after T-day is "put up the tree day." So we did. This year we're using Barb's old artificial tree again. It's a good size for our room, and we weren't up to cutting a real one.

Reuben loves the camera.

Lots of helpers. We had to even things out a bit after they were done!

Climbing on the jungle gym Krassi's stander.

The curly sticks in the dining room have a ball ornament for each of our children - seven burgundy ones for the ones that are here and two gold one for the two that are not...yet.

Smarty Pants here was doing her own thing while Rinnah and I were using pattern blocks for math one day. Not too bad for a 2.5 year old working independently, huh?

And Rinnah, after we finished our work, made just a simple square tiled floor. She's got "smile" down better than Evania!