Kenton and I got crafty this afternoon while Emy napped and put together this "gingerbread" house from a kit we bought at Michael's. He was surprisingly helpful, but struggled with some of the smaller pieces. I should have known better than to open the glitter, though. It's all over our dining room.

New pictures! After a couple weeks of everyone being sick, I think we're finally getting back on track here. We packed the camera last weekend when we went to Granny Cardin's for Thanksgiving but didn't remember to take it out of the suitcase and use it. We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday and hope you did, too. Edward got up before the crack of dawn and did a little shopping today, and brought home donuts and bagels for those of us who stayed home and slept until a more reasonable hour. Kenton thinks there are few things in the world more awesome than an frosted, sprinkle-topped donut.

Emery with her mouth crammed full of donut, looking around for more. The girl does love to eat.

Kenton finally got to see snow today! We were finishing up lunch when I glanced out the window and noticed that the rain had turned to snow. Kenton ran to the front door to watch it and Edward told him if he got his shoes and coat they could go outside. Kenton went flying down the hall yelling that he was going to get his snow boots. He was terribly excited to finally get to wear them. I know it's not a great picture but it's the only one we took where you can tell at all that it's snowing.

We had a rough week here--everyone in the house had a stomach virus and Edward also had a go-round with kidney stones at the same time he was sick with the stomach thing. Thankfully Papaw came up to help us out for a couple of days. Aunt Bobbie also came up a couple of times to give us a hand. We're so grateful for all the help! I think we're finally getting back to normal, and I hope we can all stay healthy for a while now!

I bought some fingerpaints for Kenton a couple of weeks ago, planning to keep them for a Christmas gift. However, I had a change of heart today and decided to let him give it a try. We were afraid he might not like it because sometimes he doesn't like the way things feel or gets upset where there is something sticky on his hands. He absolutely loved fingerpainting, though. He painted for nearly an hour, filling up five big sheets of paper, and we made to make him stop so we could clear the table off for supper. Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out too great--I think my camera doesn't like the light from the overhead fixtures in our kitchen. Maybe if I take it off the auto-everything setting and figure out how to really use it, I can get some better pictures in the house.

Edward helped Kenton paint his name, and he thought that was very cool. Notice the paint in his eyebrow. It was also all over his eyelid on the other eye, but it washed off pretty easily.

The weather was so nice yesterday, we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood before supper. Along the way Kenton picked up this piece of twine off the sidewalk. He's been losing and finding this same piece of string for about a week now. For a couple of days it stayed on our front porch and he would pick it up every time we went outside. He dropped it a couple of blocks from the house on Saturday when he stopped to pick up a stick, so we thought we'd seen the last of the twine. Clearly, we were wrong. Notice his footwear in the picture--he has on his snow boots. He begged to wear them when it was 70 degrees, but I bet we'll have to fight to get them on him when it's actually cold outside.

We went to the Dayton Model Train Show today, and Nana & Papaw and Aunt Bobbie & Uncle John met us there. We had brunch at Cracker Barrel first, where Emy showed everyone just how much food she can put away and how demanding she can be. There were lots of really elaborate, detailed layouts at the train show but Kenton was most interested in the larger-sized ones that were on the floor. I guess being close to the action is a lot more appealing at his age. Em kept trying to grab them and was quite frustrated that we weren't letting her do so. We all had a good time and really enjoyed getting to visit with family, but the kids were exhausted by the time we left. Em was asleep no more than a mile down the road and Kenton didn't last too much longer.