Flower Shop

Maya is absolutely loving preschool. This session's theme is grocery store. Each center is some aspect of the grocery store (florist, deli, bakery, checkout), and the kids take turns being the customers, cashiers, and florists/bakers/etc. Here is Maya in action... the blond woman is her teacher, Ms. Amling, and the other woman is her principal, Dr. Docal.

Maya's Concert

Powell had an assembly today, and Maya was part of 5 (!) numbers. The cafeteria was hotter than heck, the kids were yelling more than singing, and Ben was screaming once Santa made his appearance - yet Larkin and I loved every minute of it!

Maya is sitting on the stage on the right of the video, next to Leydi and Jose (in a red plaid sweatshirt.)

Sorry, Santa.

Apparently Ben wasn't as big of fan of Santa as he was last year!

Thanksgiving

November was a LONG month for the Tacketts. Through all the challenges, time with family was the silver lining. Time with our children, including our nieces, nephews, and cousins gave us perspective, hope, and lots of laughs.

Katie and I, Maya and Ben split up for Thanksgiving. We did it for good reason, but hopefully for the first and last time. Here are a few pictures from our trips.

Lola and Maya skipping through the LA Arboretum. Susan Reep and Jen Constantine played with the girls so Benji and I could spend time with mom (who is doing much better by the way).


The Chernow cousins--Samuel, Sarah, and Justus Chernow hung out at Balboa Park with the Tackett girls.




Maya and Lola dancing to Miley Cyrus in the car. Note the attempted lip sync and Maya's desire to only dance to the chorus.



Meanwhile in Florida, Ben hung out with his other cousins--Meagan Klingler, Frankie Muller, Ali and Jackson Barnard, and Jeff Klingler.


And Katie and Ben on Thanksgiving Day.

We do have so much to be thankful for.

Boo at the Zoo

The weekend before Halloween, the National Zoo has a fundraiser called Boo at the Zoo. We took the kids this year, and they (and Larkin and I) loved it. It was a nice cool Fall evening, so the costumes provided the perfect amount of warmth. There were tons of kids there. I think Maya's highlight was when two little girls stopped her and said, "Look, it's Snow White." Ben's highlight was the Small Mammal House (see video below.)



A Cow visits the Small Mammal House

Party pics

I know that we are quite behind in updating the blog, but the thought of going back to find the July and August pictures seems quite overwhelming to me at the this moment. We've had a great summer with trips to both California and Florida and lots of time with friends here in DC. The past couple of weekends we've gone to parties with my friends from college (some of whom have much better cameras than we do - hence, the better pictures.)




4 of the 12 Powerhouse from my third year at UVA.
Powerhouse 2.0

We are pretty funny....