Farmor and Farfar are here, and so is the chilli weather (and Alex is on TV!!!)

It has been a very good last week, with lots of social activities and friends and family time. We have had Kathie and her daughter Lexi (Alexis) over and we had Alex's friend Betchy from Brazil visiting. Farmor and farfar are here now, as well as Uncle Mike (Kathy's brother) and his wife (Tingting) and daughter (Nancy/Butter) from California. We have had a lot of nice dinners and social time together and the children are having so much fun! Tomorrow is the big Thanksgiving dinner at farmor's and farfar's house, which we are all looking forward to! We had a Thanksgiving feast at the preschool last Friday. The boys were dressed up as Pilgrims. Marlee had a lot of fun but Noah seemed like he would rather be home playing than dressing up and celebrating with a lot of people. It is so interesting to see how different they are and to learn more and more about their personalities and interests.

 

I have not learned much about Gabriel's personality yet but he has started to make noises other crying now. More like "talking". And his face smiles a lot, when he is not dissatisfied. I would say that he is mostly dissatisfied when he is awake and he wants to be carried almost all the time (I'm certainly not complaining about him wanting to be carried, and near his mother, it is just a little difficult sometimes to fulfil his need to be carried while taking care of Marlee and Noah as well as the house work at the same time). Tingting has been very good with him and really comforted him and given me good help :-) However, today has been different. Gabriel has been happy almost all day, even in the babysitter/bouncy chair and the baby gym. Wow, that made things so much easier! I got a lot of things done :-) Felicia, Cory and Eli gave us a baby swing and that has greatly improved Gabriel's sleep. It is such a relief!! He still sleeps in his bed at night but it feels good to know that the swing is there when I need it (like this morning :-).

 

Farmor and farfar have taken Marlee and Noah a lot, too, and help us out while they are here and I have spend some time on preparing some advent calendars for Marlee and Noah. Just like I had when I was a kid. I will tell you more later, when they are done. I have also been handy, doing small things around the house, like puttings things on the wall and fixed the door knob on the front door that did not want to work before. It makes me happy to do things like that!

In case anyone has missed it, Alex was in a TV show today, at Russian Today (rt.com) and we all thought that he was going to show up on TV today. I was so disappointed when I did not see him but apparently it will be on TV on Friday, several times. The show is called Crosstalk so if you are interested in watching it go to http://rt.com/on-air/ whenever the Crosstalk is on. I think they show it 8:30am, 2:30pm, 8:30pm and 11:30pm (GMT) on the RT News channel.

We have had some cold weather again and Marlee thought it was too cold in the house. "Only" 68F/20C...

Gabriel in his fabulous swing!

Noah doing draw and glue "homework". He rather ate the pumpkin seeds than glued them on the paper...

Marlee doing a very nice tree to his teacher. With a woman with a beard on it!

My angels!!! Still take up most of the space in our bed...

Smile!

My Pilgrims :-)

Sleeping in the swing

This is what we get to do when pappa comes shopping...

Nice and warm, and rainy. Nothing to complain about!!

Hiding?

Gabriel

Dancing Noah