Advent: weeks 1-3

 All set!

Then this guy started toying with keeping his balance...

 ... and enjoying playing and hanging around!

And then we started decorating! I pulled out the Advent calendar + wrapped candies as soon as we got home from Houston and Thanksgiving because the 1st Sunday of Advent was Nov 27th already.

Then out came the stockings and Santa decorations for the feast day of St. Nicholas on December 6th. Paul and Ada were both pleasantly surprised with St. Nick's gift of new shoes! Unfortunately, that St. Nick has to up his game a smidge and keep up on how fast Paul is growing ... his purple Pumas were one size too small. 

(Exchanged. No harm done.) 

And then out came the lights for the feast day of St. Lucy, patron saint of light, on the 13th! Somewhere between the 6th and 13th we got our tree and decorated it - together for once - but the lights didn't get turned on until last night with a bit of a Christmas tree blessing. It was really sweet. 

We've also had time for some Christmas fun our neighborhood, Algiers Point, and the city of New Orleans put on:

Oh, my goodness, when Paul met Santa! I 'bout hurt my cheeks from smiling. He was so, so precious asking for this one particular something but also kinda shy because it's Paul and I loved it. Jack, well ... and Ada was a little unsure but ended up liking it. But Paul! He said it was his favorite of the whole (pretty fun!) party.

All that's left now is waiting for actual Christmas! We're all looking forward to it, and I'm sure we'll have a great time in Houston with Nana & Pappy. Sadly for us, Uncle Dr. Pete is needed in Charleston, and Gin & Ryan are making their way to Omaha.

Thanksgiving re-cap before Advent's over!

Quick! Before Christmas gets here, let's rewind to turkeys and pumpkin pie. And indeed I did intend to say turkeys. We had the roasted turkey for dinner, of course - hats off to Nana! - but we also had a "snacking turkey" around 10am that was fried - hats off to Pappy! Why that's necessary, surely it cannot be, I have no idea, but I do know that I enjoyed it immensely ... as did tiny, hollow-legged Ada. Here are some fun ones from Thanksgiving in Houston:

Mimosa cheers!

Paul @ 6mos - Jack @ 5mos

Dylan & I cleaned and packed everything up on Tuesday night, and we set the alarm for 2:30am. Yep, we did. We hit the road at 3am with 2 of 3 kids asleep, and the oldest whispering how excited he is to be going to Texas in the dark! In his pjs! Paul finally fell asleep about 30minutes away from the Brauds, and everything went so smoothly - both with traffic and children - that we'll be repeating this next week for Christmas. Papa needed a nap midday, and Mama just went to bed at Jack's bedtime. We did not go red-eye for the ride home, however, which made things much nicer for saying g'bye in Houston but much rougher for arriving early evening, but we made a stop at the state line to stretch our legs, which wasn't possible at 6am:

Overall a lovely first Thanksgiving for Jack! He even got to meet Uncle Pete, which was special. There was lots of catching up, eating, drinking, and bonfiring.

Then we had a few non-holiday-related shenanigans, too, over the few weeks surrounding Thanksgiving but before going gung-ho Advent!

Big bro and lil bro!

Big Sis loves pushing the baby in the swing ... in fact, all babies: she's a big helper at the playground!

public hands-on music display on Spanish Plaza on our way to get beignets

 One of the hazards of Advent calendar candy...

 3 Nola Knolls

November & Finally Fall

I know I already used the phrase "finally fall", but then we had some stinkin' hot days, weeks? Now it's finally getting to Fall, as in lessening and even turning off the A/C and sometimes even needing socks in the morning. In numbers, that means highs in the low 70s. Amazing.

Since the whole new-vehicles thing, we celebrated Halloween and All Saints and are gearing up for Thanksgiving. (Not to mention that 3 days after Thanksgiving is already Advent, but we'll get there when we get there.)

Filling the same onesie P & A wore at 9mos

Our Halloween was fun, of course, as it is with young children. It's a little bit like Mardi Gras in the sense of enjoying the process more than the end-product; the actual trick-or-treating is fun - it's dusk, everyone's out and about, all dressed up - but nobody needs that much stuff, candy in this instance. Especially not under-4-year-olds. But, alas, we have it, they love it, and so I resort to just rationing it out. They're allowed one piece a day of their choosing and at the time of their choosing (which generally means first thing in the morning), and then there's no more asking for it. I was planning on unloading a bunch of it next week to Ginny & Peter, ha, but Dylan just said I should use some of it for the Advent calendar treats instead of buying more for those; sorry, y'all! Anyway, Paul was a purple dragon, Ada was a purple spider-butterfly, and Jack was the same tiger Paul and Ada were for their first Halloweens.

Oh yeah, I cut my hair! It'd been since 4mos postpartum with Ada in '14.

Back to Hallowtide. We celebrated All Saints Day the day after Halloween, of course, but with too much sugar and a late night, Mass was all but unbearable, unfortunately, and somehow, I feel like we've been reeling ever since. Makes complete sense on one hand: give kids daily sugar doses who normally have next to none, add Daylight Savings Time (oh, dear Lord, why, why), throw in a bout of pinworms (I don't want to talk about it. Ever.) and expect spotless behavior? But on the other hand, come on, be flexible, right? Sigh. So we made cookies. Shaking my head. I know. I know. But they were SOUL CAKES.

Moving on. Some seriously nice weather, an ever-more-capable baby, and an election later, we're starting to smooth out again.

Algiers Point Beach

Homeschooling has been going very well! This week was letter "Ff", and with our little saint focus on St. Francis of Assisi, we attended Mass at the church of the same name here in town and followed it up with a visit to the Audubon Zoo; I think St. Francis would've approved. And all 4 of us had a turn on the carousel!

Then there's this happy guy + his first swing-session: