The Ricci's in Arizona

We are so very thankful...

So many blessings in our life and often times we don't take the time to even think about them, much less appreciate them. I want to take a moment to be thankful for the most basic thing this year.

family.

Near and far.

This year, we were invited to the Andresen's family Thanksgiving. We are now officially part of them family (thanks Uncle Buddy!). As usual they spoiled us. It was nice to be able to spend the holiday with some family.

The boys played football.

And frisbee was a hit, too!

Eli throwing to Britt. This one actually is going in the right direction... most of them went backwards!

Court prepared a craft for the boys. They made little pilgrim hats. Too cute. Thanks, Court, for keeping the kids occupied! (And thank Graham too (Court's friend)... I hope his arms have recovered from the endless turns of throwing all the boys in the air!)

Crafting.

How cute is the kid's table and place settings.

Turkey is stuffed with popcorn... another hit!

sammy.

JT and Britt.

The best picture I could get of everyone...

It is really hard to keep these little men still for even one pic!

And onto the parade of pilgrims.

Thank you Aunt Linds and Uncle Buddy for the invite... it was so great to be with family. We all had a wonderful time!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, a new tradition blew in this AM all the way from the North Pole!

The boys woke up this morning to a surprise breakfast from the the Christmas Elf on the Shelf, Buddy. Yes, that is what we named him, Buddy the Elf. What else?

Buddy the Elf brought lots of breakfast treats.

Needless to say it was a huge hit! Love this pic of my little Christmas Elf, JT

Yummy!

Yes, he shoved the whole cookie in his mouth. Of course!

Lots of smiles

And goofing around.... just the way I like it!

So far, Buddy's Christmas magic is working. The kids listened intently as I read the book explaining that he travels back to the North Pole each night to report back to the big guy. Just having his presence in the house for the morning already has my little wise guys on their very best behavior! I'll take it! :)

And the holidays are officially here! YAY!! 20 more days until we are in Rochester!

October came and went, but not without a lot of fun things that happened here in AZ!

First, ELI IS TWO!!!

My baby is 2. 2.. 2!! WOW! Where did the time go? This is the table he woke up to that morning.

football cupcakes.

His brothers were eager to help him celebrate!

Here he is saying "2!"

Opening presents. Love that excitement!

Cookie Monster Cookie Counter...

Here he is saying "Yo HO HO!" (In case you didn't know that is the pirate password... if you ask him what the pirate password is, he says, yo ho ho!)

When he opened YaYa and Poppy's gift he said, "I got 10 dollars!" Sam was quick to correct him on the correct dollar amount, to which he said to Sam, "You want some?"

Birthday Dinner at Red Robin.

Root Beer Floats... a tradition at Red Robin that Poppy started.

Looks pretty happy, right?

On the weekend we took him to the small airport that is right by us. They have a breakfast place with windows that you can look right at the planes. Since Eli is obsessed with planes, we thought he would like it. We were right! He loved it!

What a face!

"Plane!"

Trying to get a pic of all of them together....key word, trying.

He couldn't get enough.

He keeps asking to go back there.

That night we had a birthday party with the Lee's.

They made their own pizzas.

Eli is a good little helper. He LOVES to help. He actually gets quite upset if he can't help. He made his pizza all by himself. :)

And of course, no birthday party would be complete without cake! Cookie Monster Cupcakes. They came out cute and he loved them! yay!

Eli LOVES singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles. He is still asking me to sing and blow out candles and it has been 2 weeks! I told him, Daddy's birthday is next and he said, "NO! Eli!!!" We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

The Lee's got him a bike. He is working on mastering it. He will have it down by next week!

I am not sure how that happened so fast? But, he is 2... we love you ELI!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We started out our day at JT's class for his halloween party. Here they are parading through the school.

With the principal... she gave them all treats.

With his friend, Allison.

Sammy's party. They weren't allowed to dress up, but they had fun too!

Made these cupcakes for JT's class. They actually glow in the dark. These are the leftovers, so we had them at the house for our halloween party with the Lee's.

Mummy Dogs.

Excited Kids.

Pirate Eli.

Ninja JT and his buddy, Luigi (aka Jordan)

Power Ranger Sam stealing the show.

My little goblins.

The crew.... I think we might be in trouble in a few years when they go out on their own. :)

TRICK OR TREAT!

Eli absolutely LOVED this. He keeps asking to go trick or treating again. He was such a trooper. He made it through 3 cul-de-sacs walking on his own, then refused to go home and would only be carried to the houses where he proceeded to get down and go up to the door himself. He made out like a bandit!

Sammy and JT insisted on using pillow cases. They came home with quite a bit of loot themselves! Now I have to control myself with all this chocolate in the house! Great!

Pumpkin Patch!

We went a little late picking out pumpkins because they rot so quickly in this heat, so the "patch" is lacking in pumpkins but it still got the job done.

And carving with daddy is always a tradition.

Next year we will be sure to get pumpkins earlier... live and learn. We still loved them!

JT's Kinder-Prep Class

Not sure how this happened, but I am the room-mom for JT's class. We are super lucky having Mrs. Gleason as a teacher. She is amazing and the kids are learning and loving it! She just received Teacher of the Year! Anyway, I have been lucky enough to get into his class at least once a month. I am working on a project to get into Sam's class too, but that hasn't started yet.

Here are some pics from the time I have spent there...