Happy Turkey Day!!

I can't believe I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Turkey Day!!! I am extremely thankful this year for family, friends, health, and happiness. I hope each of you have a wonderful day!!

Blog Slacker!!

Yeah, Yeah, I know I've been a blog slacker. Things will get better. (surely) We haven't been doing too much exciting stuff--just busy. We are getting geared up for Christmas. Izzy saw a house with lights on last week and has been bugging us to get ours up. Aaron did take advantage of the good weather on Sunday and started putting up the lights, hopefully he'll get a chance to finish this weekend. I plan on decorating the house this weekend. I've been iching to get it started. I think Izzy will really enjoy this Christmas--she's already talking about writing to Santa. (if anyone is interested you can send your letters to be published in the Journal deadline Dec. 5) So watch for that!!

Otherwise, nothing exciting.

Game Night

Aaron has been working late into the night (helping a local farmer) so it's just me and Iz at home. Tonight since we had all our chores finished and bath complete we decided to play some games.
This is her favorite. It's a princess memory game (TAKES FOREVER!!!) But it's good for her!

Iz got Candyland LAST Christmas. So I finally decided to open it and give it a try. She didn't do to bad She understood the concept she jsut wnated to keep searching for the "good" cards instead of taking the top card. So obviously we will work on that.


Can u guess who won???



This another good educational game. She has to match the letter of the alphabet to the picture that starts with the same letter. We've worked several times on this one. She gets most of them--but some are a little tricky for her. Preschool has really helped with her alphabet (it's amazing the progress she is making this year --Thanks Ms. Ann!!)

Okay that's enough posts for one night. Basically killing time to see who won the election (at least who they project to win)--HOPE YOU ALL VOTED TODAY!!

Family Portraits

The entire Miederhoff clan finally got photos done this past Sunday. We hired a photographer from O'Fallon (when we get all the info back I'll post her links) She did an awesome job. Here are just some random ones I took with my camera. We all meet at the St. Peter's park. It's a great backdrop for photos. We chose a popular color scheme (we saw several other large families in black shirts and bluejeans!!
This is Izzy all dressed up and climbing a tree (need I say more about my daughter???) Seriously!

Stac and I haven't had pics taken together in a long time!! We still don't look like twins (but with age we are starting to look like sisters!)

My brother's family took some cute family shots.

THis is the redneck baby swing. Jayna was mortified!! But hey it worked!! Seriously, you just can't take country people into town!!

Hopeing the professional pics look better than this one that I took (it looked cuter in my head???)

More Halloween Pics

Our last stop was Aunt Nancy's house. We just had to see Lydia's costume! Here is G'ma Janet giving Izzy a Halloween gift (new jammies that Izzy adores!)

Snapped a pic of G'pa talking to Izzy about her Princess crown.

Isn't Lydia the cutest Minnie Mouse?? I think both girls look adorable!



Wow what a busy night! We met up with my parents at Aunt Jayna's house. We gave mom her birthday present (her actual birthday is Halloween)Poor mom was miserably sick but she stuck it out to see all her grandkids! Way to smile G'pa!!

Trunk or Treat????

trunk or treating. Izzy's preschool (which is a church run school) had their first ever trunk or treat. Basically the members of the church decorated their trunks (some really cool themes) and some even dressed up themselves and handed out candy. It was the coolest thing!! First off it was great to see some of the other school kiddos and actually take the time to talk to their parents, second it was just really cool!! This will be a regular stop each year!
Here is what the parking lot looked like

One family had a golf theme going and depending on how many hits it took to get in the hole determined how many pieces of candy you got (limit three hits!!)

Here is one of the decorated trunks.

Here is a pic of Izzy at her first trick or treat spot. We stopped by the John Deere dealership to visit Uncle Shawn. He was not impressed with our costume (he had to ask what she was--just gotta know my brother!!)

Pumpkin Festival

I'm just getting around to posting some pics. These are from the Downtown Pumpkin Festival held on Main Street in Troy. My sister Stacey went with me and Izzy. I put Izzy in the costume contest each year. (the year she was Raggedy Ann she won!!) But this year just wasn't her year for contests!!! Unfortunately this year the festival was held the same day as Boo at the Zoo. And since we were having company over that evening we opted to just go to the festival. If any of you ever have the opportunity to go to Boo at the Zoo it's a great time!! The kiddos get to wear their costumes thru the St. Louis Zoo and trick or treat at several places. Plus there are still some animals outside to see! This year would have been perfect weather for it!! Oh well, maybe next year!

Here are some cutie patootie pics from Jayna's house Halloween night. Halloween happens to be mom's birthday so Jayna invited mom and dad for dinner. So all the family meets there to see each other. We unfortunately were 10 minutes late so we did not get to see all the cousins dressed up. I stole these pics off Jayna's camera!! Here's a cute one of Matti dressed up in her pumpkin outfit!! So cute!

This is Aunt Diane and cousin Tommy. I was hoping Tommy and Iz would see each other to get a picture. Oh well. Tommy is dressed as a cowboy. (Although from the look of the hat and shirt he could possibly be Omish/Minneit!!!! :)



Here's the Nelson gang. Sami-Jo is a cheerleader. Matti a pumpkin, Jayna a witch (just kidding)!! Jordyn is a pretty, pretty, princess, Jared is a character from the cars movie, Sara is an angel, and Shana is the girl from the movie The Grudge (haven't seen the movie--but apparently she looks alot like her??)

Breez Salon

OMG!!! Jayna's salon was hysterical Friday!! Jayna got this costume a couple years back and it still makes me laugh!! Seriously you have to see this in person to get the full effect!! Brenda is a clown--wish you could see how cute her pigtails were she put wires in them so they would stick out like Pippy Longstocking. Bridget was a nerd/dork she was pretty comical she had the walk and talk to go with the costume!!