Devil's Icebox with James

James was jealous that Amelie's class got to take a field trip to a cave, so Sam told him he would take him to Devil's Icebox at Rockbridge State Park. (And so Sam is the one writing this post.) James has been before, but he didn’t really remember it.

He was very impressed with all of the wooden walkways.

James also enjoys taking photos. This is near the entrance to the cave.

James is posing on a rock. We went as far as we could in the cave before the water got too high. He told me on the walk back that he would like to come back again soon!

Tummy-sleeper

Leah's been a long-term stomach sleeper. (I looked back through the blog and apparently I'd asked Dr. Swofford about it at her 4 month appointment.)

She recently fell asleep this way on the piano bench:

Just resting here on the couch:

Also a long-term thumb-sucker! She's been down to sleepy and upset times for quite a while, but she's definitely still attached to it at those times:

Ice Cream Goofiness

James is Not a Fan of heading back out the door after he gets off the bus, and he most especially resents having to do so in order to pick Amelie up or drop her off at an activity. I said that he could pick whatever he wanted for after school snack (the next day, so I'd have time to go shopping for ingredients) in order to make up for the Terrible Inconvenience of Lego Club immediately followed by Piano Lesson, and after much deliberation he picked banana split. Easy peasy.

Here's James and his banana split:

And Amelie. I had to twist her arm so that she'd include a banana with it.

They were sneaky and ate these while Leah was taking a nap.

So stylish

Sam's folks brought back stylish shirts from New Mexico (and chocolate!) and we got some use out of them right at the end of the warm weather we had (90 degrees in October!)

Here we made an unnecessary trip to the doctor's office. They were only medium cooperative for the photo opportunity. Leah's was wondering what on earth James is up to:

So here’s Amelie being so stylish as well:

Then James photobombed her:

Sporting a spiderman shirt, sweatpants, and sandals:

Snow!

I think these pictures were from the first snow of the year. School was already cancelled for a planned teacher workday, so James said it was a bit of a waste. We didn't get much, but it wasn't too cold, either. Note the abandoned gloves on the table behind Leah:

I love the expressive arm movements from James in this series of photos:

James is showing off his new winter hat. I think Leah's wearing 100% hand-me-downs.

Happy Thanksgiving

The kids and I went down to the Bootheel with Nana Jana for Thanksgiving. Sam stayed home and had a meal with his folks on Thursday. I took very few pictures (which seems like par for the course lately! I'll do better next time).

For entertainment on the way down, I checked out a book on CD from the library, then got out to the van and thought that it didn't have a CD player, then got to the bootheel and Sam informed me that yes, there was a CD player, though of course I left the book at home because I thought that it didn't have a CD player. The kids stuffed their backpacks with books. Amelie brought her piano book and math homework down, then ended up not practicing piano or working on her homework either. Here she is playing with some of her cousin's toys:

I think I've mentioned before that James is really into games right now. He played The Game some (and even let cousin Levi play). Aunt Patti and James and Amelie played a rousing game of Sorry! and then Nana Lana gave games a present of a "kind of gross" game called "What's in Ned's Head?" that Uncle Jeff played with the kids and lost every round.

The kids liked sleeping on the air mattress all together and watching movies. They watched so many movies! Mrs. Doubtfire, Transformers, Home Alone, live-action Beauty and the Beast, and Despicable Me 2 over the long weekend.

Here's Uncle Jeff and the kids. As you can see, Leah was not particularly cooperative:

So then I said we could just try for a picture of her on her own (should have done this idea first!)

A more accurate representation of their interests:

Leah had a little trouble getting along with her cousin Levi this time, but James said that it was the first time they actually played together, too. (Aunt Lana texted me all of these pics!)

They are exactly one month apart. Uncle Darrin said Levi was just a little heavier. 

Holly roped me into helping with Thanksgiving and I made my first-ever custard pie. I also made the broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole and then proceeded to eat on it for six straight meals -- since I love it but Sam does not.

James went Black Friday shopping with us at Farmhand Supply with $2 to spend. He went to buy a candy bar and the worker offered to give it to him for Christmas and he was so disappointed because he wanted to spend his money that the worker let him buy it. Ha!

Everyone also commented on James's (lack of) hair. Nana Jana said that Grandpa Leroy probably would have paid him $5 for it. He sang, with backup vocals from Leah, every song that he knew. Well, at least some of the songs that he knows plus several new ones he's learned from Aladdin. Leah told us that the throw pillows were "guitars."

We ate at a Chinese buffet on the way home and there was a 12-year-old girl there working and her 3-year-old baby sister gave us our fortune cookies and the bill at the end of the meal. Amelie said, "This is either a family-owned business or it's bring-your-daughter-to-work day."

I was going to have the kids write out their Christmas lists and I forgot! Here's Amelie with Grandma Doris:

And a three generations picture with her Great-Grandma Doris and Nana Jana:

Leah looks like she's telling her great-grandma something very important!

We got home and Spark was completely overjoyed to see us. Holly took several pictures of Leah with Sadie, and she had her inaugural dog bite from Oliver, so we did get our dose of dog time in. When we were looking back through these pictures together, Leah pointed at this one and said, "That dog nice. The brother dog bites."

Leah convinced everyone to read to her the whole trip long. I don't know why she looks so grumpy! This is a regular trend in many of these (and other!) photographs - I say sometimes that she has a mean mug.

That's a little happier:

Aunt Tara reading with kids, too. I'm pretty sure Leah's just concentrating on the book in this one, versus truly being grumpy.

And Aunt Tara reading a different time - with the same suspicious face on Leah bug. 

Uncle Kerry even got rope in: 

Sam organized the basement some and worked on building a bench for our outside table while we were gone.

He also recorded a Christmas carol on the vibraphone:

Leah's Drawings

Leah's drawing people (and monsters and babies) with many different body parts! This is such a fun milestone. However, between the three kids, we're going through many, many pages of paper.

Here's an earlier attempt:

And this was even earlier -- it one of her first recognizable people-type shapes. As you can see, she likes to do little doodles all over the page:

I may have mentioned this before, but she narrates while she's drawing -- maybe to tell a story or maybe just to let you  know that this shape is a little pig and that shape is a big bad wolf. 

Scroll to the end of this post to see what kind of pictures Amelie was drawing at almost 4 years old.

And I was so excited when James first drew a person-shape that I made a whole post about it.

I did a couple of minutes of googling and found this blog that says she's in stage 4 of drawing, which typically emerges at age 4 or 5, and also this about the Draw-A-Person-Test, which basically says that she's a genius (but we knew that).