Henry's birthday- November 30 to December 2.

After our big Thanksgiving party, we sat back and relaxed a little bit.

  Until, just like every Thanksgiving, I realized I hadn't made the yearly photo books for our Christmas presents.  And there is always a big coupon that expires that weekend.  

To complete the book, I needed a picture of the kids in front of the tree.  (See?  Justification for putting my tree up so early.)

And a picture of the kids outside in the leaves.  They were less than cooperative.

Seriously, how hard is this?

I guess this will have to do, even if Henry and Georgie are fuzzy.

On December 2, Henry turned 9.  9!  How did that happen so quickly.

So far 9 is proving to be a good year.  Henry is an agreeable kid.

 Except when you try to take his picture and he acts like this and makes goofy noises.

And drives his father crazy when he just wants one photo together.

 But when he's not trying to drive us crazy, Henry is a fun guy.  He is doing great in 4th grade.  And his teacher lets him read his book when he's done with his class work, so he's happy.  He's read the Harry Potter series at least twice.  And is working his way through the Ranger's Apprentice Series now.  He's on the swim team, Lego Robotics team and Odyssey of the Mind.  All of those along with piano lessons keeps him very busy.  When he does get a few free minutes, he's usually out running around the neighborhood with his friends or baking cookies (because he loves to eat the batter).

Henry has been saving up two years worth of birthday money and working like crazy to earn money through chores.  He finally earned enough to buy a Lego Mindstorm, an awesome lego robot that you build than program on a computer to move.  It's pretty cool. And Henry is stoked.  (Look, a genuine smile for once.)

For Henry's birthday supper, we went out to eat at Peppino's for pizza.  It worked out well, because the Clemson Christmas parade went right out front.

And the parade featured Georgie too!  She rode on a trailer with her preschool class.  You could hear her coming slowly down the street yelling "Merry Christmas!  I know you!" 

Poor Bea wasn't feeling great, but still got dragged out for pizza and a parade.  Poor feverish, snotty baby.

In other news, Beatrice is becoming a very strong sitter.

And makes the cutest little sounds when she talks.

Juliet sent over this picture of Georgie and Christopher, who have become friends this year,  They are in the same class at the dayschool.  And they will play together outside, though usually Christopher just follows John around like a puppy.

This is from back in November, but PawPaw came down for the school's Veteran's Day celebration.  The kids got to eat a special lunch with him at tables set up on the stage.

It (kind of) got cold enough for Bea to have her turn in the frog suit.

Originally Evie's, each of our kids have worn it as well.  

Here's Henry, sitting with the pumpkins at the Madison Farmer's Market.

June crawled through the leaves at our condo in Winston Salem.

And Georgie and I dressed up as the Princess and the Frog.