Thanksgiving Day

 

Gobble, gobble! What a great Thanksgiving Day we had, just our little family. Meet two little Indians:

And their pilgrim friends.

After we slept in and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and lunch, Leah and Andrew did a few coloring & activity pages while I was cooking.

Andrew is getting much more focused with his coloring.

We already had our turkey dinner at Mom & Dad’s house so Thursday was just our little family, but I still wanted it to be good. I made two Cornish game hens (Brett did the seasonings), and then made mashed potatoes, stuffing, broccoli & cheese casserole, crescent rolls, and –a first for me—sweet potato casserole. (I normally don’t like sweet potatoes but someone gave us a bunch so I decided to try this, and it was actually really good. More like a dessert, really, with marshmallows on top.) We had a feast!

This is not from Thanksgiving Day, but I found it and wanted to include it to prove Abigail was there at Thanksgiving Dinner. This is the first time she had spaghetti. It was a little messy!

We ended our restful day reading Christmas stories with Daddy! We were truly thankful he had time off from his hard work so he could spend lots of time with us!

OBX Vacation

 

This year for our early Thanksgiving we got to spend some time as a family with my parents in the Outer Banks. Brett got a whole week off from work so we really enjoyed his company!

The first day was really warm out so we got to spend a little time on the beach. We dug in the sand, collected shells & ran from the big waves!

 

The little baby did NOT enjoy the sand and would not put her feet on it!

We have a picture like this on the beach just about every year we’ve been married!

The second day Mom & Dad watched the kids for us overnight so Brett and I could enjoy some time away! We had such a great time together! We traveled a little north to Corolla with no real plan in mind. We visited the lighthouse there and the little old-fashioned village surrounding it. We now have a picture of us in front of every lighthouse in the Outer Banks!

   

We enjoyed the almost sunset at a little boardwalk area near the Whalebone Club house before heading back to our really nice hotel for the night.

Saturday we enjoyed our Thanksgiving Dinner. The kids enjoyed playing with Grandma & Grandpa and Uncle BJ & Aunt Jenipher. They got quite spoiled, actually!

Sunday we all went to Dad’s church together and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner there with them.

Monday Mom & Dad had to go back to work but we took a little trip to a Wings Store in Duck and walked a little along the boardwalk there.

Then came back and played Wii for a long time! The kids loved it.

 

Now we’re back home but we still have a week left in our “stay-cation” to enjoy each other’s company!

Abigail’s 1st Birthday Party

 

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Abigail. She had just turned one year old. She really had no idea what a birthday was or even what streamers and balloons were (because, of course, she’d never had a birthday before).

She did know, however, that she wanted to look good.

She wasn’t so sure about all the attention she was getting, and took awhile to warm up to Grandma & Grandpa & Aunt Jenipher’s company.

She did NOT want her big brother to touch her presents. (Even though, of course, she really didn’t know what a present was—I think she had an idea by this point that the day was all about her.)

It took her a little while but she got the hang of ripping open the paper. (That is, when her big brother & sister would let her.)

 

The little girl got lots of things she could hug and hold. Things that were her very own and NOT her sister’s.

   

And she got things with wheels. Things that were NOT her brother’s. (Well, not yet at least.)

But of course the BEST thing to play with was the bags the toys came in.

Then the little girl had to get back in her high chair. At first she wasn’t too excited about that. She also wasn’t too excited about the little stick with fire that was coming between her and something that looked really yummy. And even though we’d practiced for weeks, she didn’t quite know how to blow out that stick of fire.

 

Finally, she got to taste the yummy stuff. And she didn’t have to be told how to eat it!

  

 

She didn’t smile much but neither did she complain!

 

 

The little birthday girl had a great day with her family and, even though she may not remember her 1st birthday party, she will one day look back on her pictures and know that she was a Princess for the day!

Boo! It’s Halloween!

 

This year I actually got to participate in Halloween, instead of being in the hospital with a brand new baby! We had a fireman, a Princess (Rapunzel this time), and a ballerina bear. (I refuse to spend full-price on store-bought costumes for one day, so we used what we already had. Abigail’s costume was Andrew’s 2 years ago, but I took the blue bow off & replaced it with a pink hairbow and a pink tutu I already had. Leah insisted on wearing a Rapunzel “wig” which looks really tangled and ghetto but after she shed tears when I told her it didn’t look great, I just gave in.)

     

Wednesday before Halloween we had a party at Team Kids with pizza and snacks and costumes. We managed to get all the kids together for a photo op!

Thursday I took the kids to a few houses trick or treating, then we went trunk-or-treating at both our church and another local church. Trunk-or-treating is so much easier with little ones in car seats, because all the stops are in one place! It was a beautiful night, warm & calm, so there were probably over 150 kids that stopped by our church, where Brett had set up our trunk with candy along with several other church families.

 

The kids got quite a stash from just the few places we went! They’ll have enough candy to last until Thanksgiving at least! Abigail wasn’t too excited about trick-or-treating and was pretty much done by 7:30. Andrew and Leah are already asking when they can go again!