Saturday Night

Our Saturday Night isn't exactly what the Bay City Rollers had in mind  - but it's my kind of a night.  We're watching a BBC special on Netflix about Jurrasic Seas and liopleuodon.
 Real exhilarating stuff.
We hope to get to bed early, I would love to get in a run in before Mass tomorrow morning - we'll see how that goes.

The lack of blogging recently hasn't been because there isn't anything going on.  At night, after the kids are in bed, I've somehow been more drawn to games of FreeCell than blogging.  I get aggravated when I'm not being productive, so I really don't understand the allure.  Only that sometimes it's nice to turn off my brain for a bit.

Big doings around here soon - Sammy's birthday, the Christmas Pageant (and all the rehearsals leading to it), Christmas, New Year, Caroline's birthday and parties & days off in between.  Yikes.

Since Sam likes to dance (and pretend he's Jimmy Fallon) so much, we decided we're putting him together a "Sammy's Greatest Hits" album for his birthday.  It has been fun compiling the songs - now we need to get them in one place and on the CD.  All it will take is time.  =-)   I DO think he'll enjoy it. 

The kids and I have been hiking quite a bit recently.  Just trying new trails and exploring the area.  We are surrounded by state and national parks just begging to be explored.  Some of the trails have been a bit challenging for Nate.  I end up carrying him on my shoulders while I have Benjamin in the Baby Bjorn and a small backpack on.  It can be quite the workout.  I also started some running a month or so ago.  I'm getting 14,000 steps a day consistently on my quest to return to fighting form and hope to mark something off my Bucket List in May.  Again, all it takes is time and determination.
Seems to be a common theme here. 

Benjamin is getting so big.  He is round and jolly (unless he's hungry) and has a smile that could melt the coldest heart.  He is giggling and laughing and interacting with his siblings.  His newest trick is to coo or cough when he feels he isn't being given enough attention.
The kids sing him the "Hey Mickey" song, except they change the lyrics to "Hey Ben-Ben you're so fine.  You're so fine you blow my mind.  Hey Ben-Ben!  Hey Ben-Ben!"  His siblings adore him.  He may just go down as the most loved baby ever.
Which makes me so, so happy. 

The kids and I attempted to rake the yard this week.  Since it gets dark so early now, it's hard for Daddy to help us.  This is as far as we got:

And so I gave the neighborhood kids $20 to rake and bag the rest of the leaves.
It was well worth it.

We had one of Caroline's friends for the day on Wednesday.  We were graciously invited to spend Thanksgiving with her family and had a very nice time doing so.  We also got to celebrate her birthday and do some hiking.  =-)  We made her birthday cake for her family celebration and had a lot of fun (and got really messy).

We made a Candyland cake.  All it took was 24 cupcakes, 5 tubs of frosting, food coloring and the rest of our Halloween candy.