Thanksgiving

We went down to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Thursday we drove out to Marble Falls to my aunt's house. We had a great time with the family - watching football, playing with cousins and catching up, and who could forget the delicious food.

Here's the whole family! Yep, that's Kinley's new smile and Kendall was too tired to bother.

This is my Granny with all her great-granddarlings

Lee, Addison, Kendall, Kinley, Leah

Holly, Emma

Kinley was playing hard with her cousins. Her cheeks are pink because she was hot, her nose is red because they put chalk for the pool cues on their noses pretending to be reindeer (Leah told us she was Blixen) and that's worm cake all over her shir. Obviously she had a great day.

Thanksgiving Feast

Today was Kinley's preschool's Thanksgiving Feast. I knew we were going to have stone soup for lunch, but there was a whole program that went with everything. The program was cute, the decorations that the kids made were priceless, and the desserts were yummy!

The classes marched in wearing some great costumes. Kinley was the cute kid that saw me, pointed and yelled, "Mama!" Her performance was fairly good, but I'm most proud of the way she acted while the other classes were doing their thing - standing still being a big girl!

This is when she was saying "Mama" and pointing and looking super cute.

Here is part of her class as they were lined up getting ready to sing for us.

After they sang, they held hands while the other classes performed. Of course it was only calm and still for a couple minutes.

This video is the first of three songs they did. Kinley cracks me up with her checking out the crowd. She obviously knows the words, but she's looking at her adoring fans.

Sisters

One of the things I was most excited for was seeing Kinley's face when she got to meet her new sister. Here is the video of them meeting for the first time. We pulled into the drive way and she was waiting for us on the front porch. Her face just lit up and was so great to see.

We told her to go into the house, sanitize and then wait on the couch to hold her sister.

Kinley holding Kendall for the first time.

They have on matching shirts, but Kendall's cheeks are hiding the "little" part on her shirt.

So precious!

Kendall Everlyse Pappas

Well, she's finally here! I went in for my c-section yesterday at 11 and Kendall arrived at 11:32am. She was definitely ready to come out. Our precious "little" girl weighed in at 9 pounds and 9 ounces. She's 21 1/4 inches long and has huge hands and feet. Even our pediatrician joked that she took her first step in the nursery last night.
Kendall has been doing great. She is super sleepy - everyone knows how hard it is to be cute all the time. Kinley gets the most amazing look on her face when she sees her little sister. We've showed her Kendall through the window in my room since we can't have any visitors. She smiles, laughs, reaches for her sister and then wants to know how many poopy diapers she's had.

Here is Kendall just minutes after she popped out. I can't remember what its called, but her feet and her arms were purple for a couple hours after birth - nothing to do with breathing, although, she did have the cord around her neck loosely one time.


Here we are with our new daughter. Kendall was crying a little bit until her daddy held her and started talking to her. Can you believe how dark her hair is - I'm still amazed she has hair at all.



This is the cute night-night outfit that Kinley picked out for her little sister to wear in the hospital. You can't see, but she has matching socks, too.

Here we are with our new bundle of joy!

Kendall does have blue eyes, but mostly she's too tired to show them or her cheeks push them closed; I'm still debating:)

Here is Kendall on top and Kinley on the bottom. Just for those of you wondering.

Halloween Fun

Kinley is one lucky girl! The Saturday before Halloween the Manhattan zoo has a Spooktacular even where the kids can trick or treat and get to see the animals. Kinley chose to dress as a nurse for this day. Her "real" costume is a white witch, but at school they could only dress up as community helpers, so she decided on a nurse.

The family picture at the zoo.



Here is our precious nurse! She barely glanced at the animals, but she was on a sharp look-out for the next candy opportunity.

We had a great time walking around with our friends and looking at all the animals. We got to pet an opossum the size of a cat, a turtle, a goat and a snake (Tom and Kinley avoided this one).

Halloween was so much fun this year. We got together with friends and had a blast! Kinley was so much more into the trick-or-treating this year. She was so cute going up to the house and knocking on the door and waiting. A few times she would forget to say thank you until she started walking away, so she would just YELL it over her shoulder as she was running back to us.
I just thought the decorations were cute at this house. Too bad it was already dark.


And finally, here is the beautiful white witch!

Fall Happenings

We've had a pretty busy fall so far.

Last weekend we went over to Wamego to the Oztoberfest. That's right...like the wizard of Oz. We walked around for a while and Kinley decided to take her picture with the Wicked Witch of the West. She was completely fine until the witch said hi to her. Luckily Daddy was there to protect her.



We met up with some friends for dinner one night at at local wing place we like. The had expanded next door to make a game room, so of course, we had to go in.
Jimbo, Kinley's hunny, was working with her on her hunting skills. She also played air hock with Andy and skee ball with me. That one was a little tough.


I was working on Kendall's stocking and Kinley, being the big help that she is, decided to "help" me hold the jingle bells. Goofball! (Look close and you can see them in her ears too)



Kyle's parents were in town from Texas so we all went out to have s'mores and good times. Again, Kinley was such a great helper the marshmallows were only completely burned on the outside:)

Today Kinley finally go to go on her class field trip to the pumpkin patch. It got canceled last week because it was rainy. Luckily, today it was only cold and windy.

There was a petting zoo where she got to pet a calf and 2 baby piggies. She just barely tapped the pigs and pulled her had away. I'm not sure why since they were sleeping and not even moving.

She also pet a few goats, but by the time we were leaving, they were a little skittish and that really frustrated her. She just wanted to touch them and they would only get close to the adults.

We took a hay ride out to the beginning of a corn maze. Kinley didn't want to sit by me, but finally during the ride she came over, probably because I had a blanket.

The worker told them a little story about how the pumpkins grow. Kinely got to be the sunshine!

The kids led the way through the corn maze that ended at a little pumpkin patch. Kinley is on the far left with the bright pink coat and hood.

See the pumpkin she picked out by herself!

Besides the cold, this was really fun for me. The last field trip they went to a fire station and Kinley told me I couldn't go. She was just going with her teachers. This time, she asked me to go with her and even wanted Daddy to go too. It really is feeling like fall around here, and we can't wait for more fun things to happen!

Bordeaux, Talence and Paris

Our trip to France was pretty good. I'm just going to give a brief overview and then explain some pictures. When we got to Bordeaux, the weather was great, and it was amazing the day we were in Paris, but in between was pretty chilly and rainy. Tom ended up third at the DecaStar meet. The scores were nothing to brag about, but Tom finished 2 decathlons this year healthy. I'm pretty excited for next year since he will finally be able to start training on time without setbacks from health issues. Hopefully things will come together for him this next year.


I rented a mini van in Bordeaux for us to get around in, and this was very helpful for all of us. Unfortunately, the first day we tried to make a U turn (not using a round about) we (Tom) hit the curb a little too hard and popped the tire. Here's the proof - Tom and Kinley were big helps changing the tire:)


Dr. Draeger and Kinley doing treatment on their "patients".

This is a picture of the track when Tom was doing his pre-meet the day before the meet. You can tell it was a bit damp and cool.

This is the award ceremony after the meet. To get to the podium, they were shoved in little bitty cars and driven around the track. I've never see so many big guys in tiny cars! Oh, Tom's the one in the bright orange shirt.

Here is the family picture at the dinner after the competition. We had some amazing duck and some sort of strawberry cake-like dessert.

The day after the meet, the meet director had arranged for people to go surfing, but that didn't interest us, so we went to the beach by ourselves. It took us about 45 minutes to drive over there, and the weather was pretty nice for a bit while we were playing in the sand. It got a little cooler and overcast when we walked around the little town, had lunch and of course ice cream.

We made Kinley into a mermaid. I have never seen one so beautiful!

The guys made "Kinley" a sand castle, but I think she only put a couple shells on it for decoration. There was much strategizing and planning involved for a castle that a little girl supposedly wanted.

We went back to the hotel and picked up Cliff to go on a tour of a nearby winery. It was pretty amazing! We got to see the whole process and taste 4 different wines. I'm pretty amazed at the effort that goes into a single bottle of wine and the knowledge that people have about wines and wine-making.

Our last night in Bordeaux we went into the city center for a great dinner that a girl we met at the winery suggested. It was a tiny place with a huge underground cellar for the wine. If you wanted any, you went down and picked out the bottle yourself!

This was a huge fountain in the city center. Obviously you can't tell, but it was beautiful with statues and water all the way around.

We flew to Paris on Tuesday and spent about 8 hours trying to see as much as we could. Our first stop right out of the taxi was at the round-about around the Arc de Triomph. We decided we didn't need to go up in it, but looking at it was good enough for us.

Here we are across the river from the Eiffel tower. We both really enjoyed going up in it and seeing the city. I wish Tom could have gone with us.

After the Eiffel tower, I promised Kinley she could ride the carousel that was right across the street. I think might have been the highlight for her.

You probably can't tell, but Kinley is running through a garden that leads up to the Louvre.

Kinley and I in front of the little arc that sits outside the Louvre.

We made it over to the Notre Dame cathedral. Didn't get to go inside, but still got to see the beautiful outside.

As we were boarding our flight, Kinley got to go into the cockpit and talk to the pilot. Unfortunately, this is not the plane we flew home on. After 3 hours of sitting on the plane waiting for the air conditioning to get fixed, we were transferred to an other plane and eventually made it home 3.5 hours late.