Turkey Day

It was so nice to have N home this year for Thanksgiving!!!  Last year he was in Iraq and missed everything, while we partied it up with family out of state.  We had a simple dinner with great friends.  It was absolutely perfect!  Our friends A & M had us over and we brought sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole.  I also brought cupcakes and fruit.  I had seen a friend of mine make this fruit turkey and knew the kids would love it!  In fact that is about all my kids ate :)  Oh, and a turkey cupcake of course!  I love thanksgiving food!!!!  So nice to be able to share an evening with friends and spilt up the meal.  Our kids are similar ages so it works out just about perfect :)  Thanks so much for having us over!  After thanksgiving we still had three days to ourselves!  So...we decorated for Christmas :)  C loves to put the star on top and asked the entire time where it was.  She also insisted that we add candy canes.  I remember last year she was so insistent on these two things that we made a trip to Walmart after dark to get them.  We were worried that our tree was going to be nasty because of the flood, but good old plastic branches dried great and we put that baby up!  We had such a wonderful weekend and really enjoyed spending time together without the stress of traveling.  We missed everyone back home and are a little jealous that everyone got to see each other, but there will be other thanksgivings when our kids are a little older and easier to travel with :)  

The official backyard thanksgiving picture

Isn't he adorable

the feathers were supposed to be candy corn, but i couldn't find them anywhere!  Do stores sell candy corn after Halloween?

kids table

all the kids watching it's a great thanksgiving charlie brown.  i think this was right before j decided to take his pullup off, go to the bathroom and then wipe his rear on our friends couch.  lovely, yes lovely little man

edible right?

we love christmas time :)

the guys sleeping before dinner, so adorable

Grandparents and Turkey-C

We had a great visit with N's folks this past week. We did a little sightseeing and school skipping! It was a great visit and we were sad to see them go. I tried to take some pictures of them with the kids. I think it took me 30 pictures to just one with all three of them looking at the camera. All of them smiling wasn't going to happen so I just gave up!

C had a lil thanksgiving celebration at school last week.  All the kids in her class were little turkeys!  Sooo stinkin cute.  She didn't get stage fright this year and sang really well.  Look at her hilarious teacher.  He is just like a kid!!  N even got to come for a little bit and go into work late.  Then we had a little feast that was yummmmmy!  Can't wait to eat on Thanksgiving day.

Giving Thanks

N and I are trying to create new traditions for our family as well as continue on traditions that we had as kids.  Thanksgiving is a big deal in my house.  Everyone always comes over to my moms house and we have a wonderful time.  We have tried to "give thanks" in a group setting and it always becomes emotional!  Great idea, but everyone always ends up in happy tears :)  It ended up being something that we all dreaded because we didn't want to cry!  But I always enjoyed the "giving thanks" part.  I saw this tutorial on Moda Bake Shop and knew I really wanted to try and incorporate this into our traditions.  I lassoed in "Martha" and this is what we ended up with.  I really like how it turned out and the kids are already looking forward to it at night.  I started the tradition with reading a Thanksgiving book about what it is all about.  I mean, how do you describe why we have Thanksgiving to little kids!  That is why I love books!  This book was just okay.  If you have any other great books about why we give thanks, please share!  We are writing down what we are thankful for every day for the 12 days leading up to thanksgiving.  We do it out loud right now, but eventually I would like for them to write them down and it would be a surprise when we read them all out loud at thanksgiving dinner.  I can't wait to see how this tradition turns out throughout the years!  We even decided against putting our family name at the bottom just in case it turns into an heirloom and our daughters want to use it with their families :)  I didn't even know that these things existed!  In the midst of making mine, my super crafty friend posted one on her blog and referenced this one! How crazy...$69 seriously.

All About C

This post is dedicated to my beautiful red-headed little girl.  There is really something special about a mother/daughter bond and I am so blessed that God chose us to raise this sweet thing.  Here are some things about her that I would like to remember.  
-Age 4.75 Height 44.5 Weight 41
-Loves her brothers!  She really enjoys playing with J and watching/holding G.  She likes to boss J around when I leave her in charge (i.e. shower, feeding G) Loves to teach him things and always gets in on the action when I am trying.  Always points out when G is doing something new.  She likes to decipher his language!
-Loves her Dogs!  She will often put them on a leash and drag them to wherever she is playing so they can hang out with her.  She likes helping me give them haircuts, feed them, walk them, pet them, and is learning to wrestle with them!
-Loves her Daddy! C and Dad have started enjoying Star Wars together and she is sooo into it.  He bought a PS3 game called Lego Star Wars.  She begs him to play it every day.  The other day, her and J were playing outside and she ran in and said, "I'm Obi one Knobi and I need a wipe to clean my binoculars!"  Hilarious!!  N has let her watch some of the movies with him and she understands and seems to enjoy them.  She saw the pottery barn kids star wars bedding and fell in love.  She is just not so into girl type things...  
-Loves her friends and school-every morning she says she doesn't want to go to school, but every day when I pick her up she says she had the best time.  One day, I just let her stay home and then when she realized what she missed, she was sad.  Always wants friends to come over and play, arranges play dates without me knowing.  Usually forgets the next day.
-Not so much of a morning person, loves cuddles first thing in the morning.  C and J have started arguing over my lap.  My Spot, no My Spot...  Sometimes I feel like a human jungle gym
-Isn't too picky about her clothes but doesn't like dresses or rough things (jeans) She said when she wears them they don't let her stomach eat it's snack at school
-When she grows up she wants to be a cook and a dish washer
-Has problems counting to 20...gets to 13 then skips to 20, every time!!!!  We practice constantly
-Loves popcorn
-Has her Daddy wrapped around her finger.  The other day she asked me for a new movie.  I told her no, we have enough.  SHe said, "Oh you just wait, Daddy will get it for me." Ha!
-Loves to make crafts.  I picked up a few things for this thanksgiving craft the other day at Michaels and i think she almost had a heart attack when she saw the supplies!  She wanted to make it right then!  I have had to remind her that we need to get closer to thanksgiving a million times already.
-Misses her friends from our last house.  I miss them too.
-Loves waffles for breakfast and PB&J for lunch
-wants to be Darth Vadar next Halloween

-Has no fear, will go down any slide, jump off the side of any pool, ride any ride/roller coaster, watch any movie.  

-Loves to take pictures and to have her picture taken in front of things.  Zoo's are really fun where they have all those metal animals to pose with!  She wants to take a picture with all of them!!! 

-Hasn't quite figured out fashion yet.  Scroll down to see what she wore to get a movie with dad the other night.  those are tights...

-is pretty good at kicking a soccer ball

-likes to dance on the coffee table

-loves the movie "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" and has the theme song memorized as well as "The Aggie War Hymn"

-Thinks all football games are Aggie Games

-gets really mad when I eat all the cookies :)  Smart girl. 

-loves to play Nickjr.com games

-always wants to know who is coming to visit next!

Pumpkins and Halloween

What a whirlwind weekend this was!  We tried to fit it all in and took a deep breath on Sunday when it was all over!  We managed to get our pumpkins carved on Friday night.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute...C had her last soccer "practice" on Saturday and they got to dress up and play soccer in their costumes.  Then we went trick or treating with some neighbors.  We did nothing today and it was greatness!  We still haven't found a church and are rather exhausted with the whole church shopping experience.  We are continuing to trust God that it will happen, but today we took a break.  With all the flu stuff going around, I actually didn't mind staying home.  

G was well on his way to sweet dreams while the pumpkin festivities were going on.  C got a card from her Nana that day and wanted her pumpkin to have scary eyes like the mask that Nana sent her.  So N just traced it on her pumpkin and she was thrilled.  J just got the generic, "Mommy is way to exhausted to make this pumpkin a masterpiece" pumpkin face.  He loved it!  I thought it would be really cool to save all the seeds and roast them like my mom used to do for us.  I have great memories about eating those yummy salty seeds.  But when I looked at all the seeds and all the guts and started trying to sort them out, I threw in the towel.  So much work!!  Does anyone have a good method for this?

It was fun to watch all the kids play in their costumes.  She has been in the coolest soccer program this year.  It was called Mini Kickers... they didn't play actual games, but did some "drills" that used things that the kids would recognize to help them learn the game of soccer!  C loved it!!!!  For example, this week they used the game Hungry Hungry Hippo and had a few of the players wear pennies (they were the hippos) and they had to chase after the other players (who were dribbling the ball around) and try to eat them.  The coach was amazing!!  He was from the UK and had a cool accent, awesome with the kids.  He had so much energy and enthusiasm.  Made it even fun for us to watch!

You will notice that C is wearing a James costume...yes she was very indecisive this year about her costume.  When we were back to school shopping she saw these wings at Gymboree that she had to have.  We had just met a new friend who wore wings everywhere and C thought she needed some.  Me being the practical mom, knew that she would not wear them...ever.  She doesn't like to play dress up and has three dress-up dresses that she never wears.  Well, she wouldn't stop asking me for it in the store.  She just kept on and kept on.  "But, whyyyyyyy can't I have the wings."  "Because, you will never weaaaaaarrrrrr them."  Yes I will, I promise!" "Okay, you can get them if you wear them for Halloween." (I Secretly thought she would say okay, no I don't want them) but she said, "Okay, i will wear them for Halloween. "  Great, now I have to buy the stinkin wings...So I buy the wings and the tierra headband thing.  Some time goes by,  we don't see the new winged friend very often, we buy J a thomas costume (which she loves) and she decides that she wants to be Thomas for Halloween.  No, that is J's costume...(But I secretly think it would cute if they matched) So I offer a compromise...She can be James!  So I find a James costume on ebay, order it, it comes, she loves it!  They play in those costumes all week.  Then she goes back to the butterfly, so I make her a skirt.  Then Halloween day comes and she says she wants to be James.  Nope, I slaved over this silly skirt, you will be a butterly fairy!!!  She complains, but eventually is happy.  She looked adorable and had a great night!  We trick or treated with some neighbors before it started raining and had a wonderful Halloween.  J LOVED being thomas and thought it was the coolest thing ever!  G man was a little monkey and looked super cute napping in the stroller while the older kids collected the goods.