The Daintys

We have so much to be thankful for this time of year, and always. We are so blessed by our kiddos, and blessed to have another one joining the pack in a few short months! We are blessed by all our family members both near and far. We are blessed to be teachers, and to walk into our classrooms each day with a chance to teach young people and to learn from them. We are blessed with wonderful friends as well. Happy thanksgiving! A few pictures from our thanksgiving weekend:

This past weekend Miss Leah turned FIVE years old.  Five seems so grown up - it is hard to believe!  Leah got to pick the restaurant where we went out to Brunch for her birthday.  Then, we did a little shopping and she traded in some of her birthday money for a new book, a purse, and a bow and arrow set at the Disney store.  Yep.  That's Leah in a nutshell right there, hah!  She is delightful, and says the funniest things sometimes.  And then at other times, she says such insightful things.  The other morning in the car on the way to school she said to me out of the blue, "Mom, do you want to know what I think about this whole big wide world?" (I said yes, obviously!)  Then she told me, "Well I think that the whole time we're in this whole world we're actually really in heaven already.  And it's like we're dreaming the whole time we're on the Earth.  And then when we wake up, we're in heaven!  We don't even have to go anywhere!...

Actually, it was a whole WEEKEND out!  Grammy B. came to watch Leah and Wyatt the other weekend while Ryan and I went to Chicago for a mini getaway.  (Thanks Mom!)  We took the train downtown, and were able to walk right to our hotel, and pretty much everywhere else we had planned to go.  On Friday night we saw Million Dollar Quartet, and on Saturday night, we went to the Lyric Opera House and saw Parsifal.  (It has been a loooong time since I've had two late-night out and about events!)  We had so much fun - missed the kiddos of course, but it was nice to be able to sleep in, eat a meal without getting up a million times, and have actual adult conversations!  Sometimes the afternoons and evenings are so hectic, it feels like we haven't talked in days! We also went to Garrett's popcorn 3 times.  At least.  (And I admit I was wrong about the whole cheese popcorn mixed with caramel corn thing - it IS delicious!)  And we went shopping downt...

It stormed last night, and rained all day, and then the rain let up for just long enough to let us trick-or-treat tonight!  It was wet, but at least it wasn't freezing this year!  Leah went as Super Girl, and Wyatt was a fox.  Wyatt was so funny - he walked by himself carrying his giant pumpkin almost the entire time we were trick-or-treating, making growling noises and pausing every several houses or so to examine the contents of his bucket.  They both had a great time hanging out with their friends and we are very glad that the storms held off until late!   

We have had TWO farm visits this week.  On Thursday, I got to accompany Leah on her very first school field trip.  Her preschool class visited a local farm where we ate lunch, had a hay ride out to a corn maze, found the pumpkin patch, picked pumpkins, and then played on a park and visited animals at the petting zoo.  It was very fun, and we had a beautiful day for it.  Today I took the kids to another farm nearby that has a lot of fun things for kids to do in the fall.  There were tons of activities to do in addition to picking pumpkins for our family carving night.  Wyatt fell in LOVE with the pony there ("woof-woof," he kept saying!), and also really enjoyed playing in a big play area filled with corn!  Leah had a blast jumping on this giant bouncer, going down big slides, and hanging out with her friends.  Now, they are both sleeping soundly by 7:30pm.  Woo-hoo! Pre-K Field Trip    Weekend Fun with Friends ...

This past weekend we had the chance to visit Emily and Greg, and of course their dog, Darla. Ryan and Greg went to the President's Cup, which was rainy, but we hear it was enjoyable nonetheless. Leah amd Wyatt were troopers in the car! A few pics from the weekend...

Many exciting things happen in our household on a daily basis...from learning how to write new words (Leah), to learning how to climb to ever higher heights on the bookcase (Wyatt), to making marker murals on various items of furniture (mostly Wyatt), and inventing new games that involve dressing up the dog (mostly Leah)...  One of the most exciting things is that every day we get a little closer to meeting the next member of our family!  "Baby TT" is due to arrive on February 11th, 2014.  (-ish.)  Almost exactly half-way there!  We cannot wait to meet him or her, and we are so blessed to have another little bundle of love. 

It's not January, but I have a new resolution to be better at updating the blog! I have the app on my phone now, so theoretically that ahould make it easier! For now, here are some recent pics of my favorite little buggers. :-)

Been meaning to update for a long time now - you'd think that being home for the summer would give us more time to do so, but somehow it just doesn't work out that way!  One of our big summer highlights thus far has been our trip to Disney World with Grammy and Papa Dainty, & Auntie Jessica and Uncle Greg.  Here are some pictures from our vacation!