Mail Order Fruitcake..and other stuff

We came home this week to find a package sitting by the front door. It was Aunt Iva's yummy fruitcake...as she said, "a taste of Trues in Florida." She also sent a sweet card, toy cars for the boys, two books, and the best part: bubble wrap. Bubble wrap means endless fun around this place.

Some days are chilly around here...finally!!

We practiced drawing a snowman this week and here is Maddox's, complete with a corn cob pipe.

It's about time to break out the classic Christmas movies like Frosty the Snowman (my favorite).

On Friday night, we used our fire pit for the first time (thank you Yani and Alex for passing it on to us!) and made ooey-gooey, white chocolate yummy s'mores. Maddox ALMOST enjoyed it, except he was constantly worried about the coyotes. We saw one earlier in the day and at night you can hear them pretty loud in our woods, so to him, it was a life and death situation. 

Haha.

The boys are into "vanilla chocolate" these days, aka white chocolate.

They tried their first ever white hot chocolate in a "real Starbucks cup" this week and they are hooked. Starbucks has a way of doing that to you.

This week there was no football (phew!).

We went to Lowe's and the boys built wooden cars. It's such a neat program for kids! The boys love getting badges for each project to put on their aprons.

We had to get our tire patched that same day (a nail), and thankfully it was free since we bought our tire from the place that patched it. Free stuff is always a blessing! 

As far as school goes, we started the Turtle unit. Maddox's favorite turtles will always be the Ninja turtles (below).

He is steadily improving in counting, phonics, sight words, our little songs, and is now working on mastering his last name. His least favorite thing is handwriting, so that one might take some time. 

I started reading him his first real chapter book every night. It's called "The Impatient Turtle" by Janette Oke and so far it's kept his attention. I wish our old turtle friend would visit our backyard again...how cool would that be :)

Other random tidbits:

We are keeping up our weekly tradition of a Destin trip topped with a Panera meal eaten outside (above). I LOVE eating outside. So refreshing. And it's fun bird-watching there too (and people-watching of course. Haha).

Jude has mastered the tree swing now and it's his favorite thing to do outside lately. 

Also, Andrew thinks he might have re-injured his hernia, so prayers are appreciated. He's talking to the doctor tomorrow, so hoping for good news.