playing catch-up

since my weekend away at the rachel's retreat (about 2 wks ago) i have seriously been slacking on my blog reports. my apologies to those of you who look forward to them! i will try to be better.

in the mean time, here is a quick summary of what's been going on.

last weekend it was natalie's turn to take home her class pet "rudy". he had quite an adventure with us! natalie and him spent the night at titi celena's house, after our friday night dinner at brooklyn's pizza.

the next day, we went to the ballpark to watch ryan play his last game. the kids and rudy had a blast playing with their cousins.

on sunday, we got together with good friends of ours for a cookout and of course, rudy came along too! we were all sad when rudy had to be returned to class that monday morning but i was very proud of natalie for being such a good dog sitter!

one bit of BIG news to report -- NATALIE IS READING! well, she is starting :) all thanks to the classic Dick & Jane story book that a friend of mine gave me. Ever since school started she has been really good about sounding out words, add that to her incredible word memory and she can just about read that book from front to back! (and it is a very large book).

This weekend we spent relaxing and enjoying the start of the holidays! i spent a long friday cleaning out, purging and ORGANIZING the kids' toys and clothes. it inspired me to finally get their room re-painted since it has been something russ and i have been talking about for a while now. russ painted all day today and i'm so happy with the color! i'll be posting pics soon.

on friday i was also able to put out all of my christmas decorations. the kids and i had a lot of fun working together and listening to christmas music! their favorite song is jingle bells by the barenaked ladies. which reminds me, i need to update my music player below with some of my favorite christmas songs for you all to enjoy :)

my christmas shopping is almost done, so now i can try to relax and enjoy the season for what it's meant to be! we have lots of events coming up and we can't wait!

we're going to be working on putting up the tree tonight and tomorrow. pics to come!

hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving!