Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2013 (only 2 weeks late!)

Let's start with the Friday after Thanksgiving Day.

We celebrate Thanksgiving with Mark's family on Friday to avoid conflicts with in-law's.  Will was crazy about Mamaw Carol's pumpkin pie.  I lost count of how many pieces he ate.

My mother-in-law has beautiful blue and white dishes.  We eat buffet style.  There are too many people to sit down at the table and pass the food around.  I grew up with a large extended family and that's how we had family meals.  My grandmother would leave the food on the stove and card tables set up by the stove and we'd line up and fill our plates.  There's something nice about big family gatherings.  Good food and good memories!

Here's Mamaw and the boys.

Here we are on Thanksgiving Day.  Once my grandparents were no longer at their old farmhouse, this holiday has never felt the same.  Our non-traditional Thanksgiving now consist of visiting the nursing home and eating lunch at McDonald's.  Here we are at Starbuck's before we headed home.

My grandmother was not having a good day and we were not able to visit her.  We were lucky to have a good visit with my great-aunt Oma.  She is 98.  Oma loves to watch the Dallas Cowboys.  Mark is a huge Cowboys fan so she and Mark discussed the upcoming game that evening.

To start the break we took the boys to the movies.

We also watched Christmas movies and decorated the house for Christmas over Thanksgiving break.

The boys have their own tree with multi-colored lights in their playroom.  The ornaments on this tree are ones that they have handmade or picked out each Christmas.

This is my first and last attempt at Black Friday shopping.  We tried to buy something at Walmart on Thursday at 7:30p.m. (Thanksgiving Day).  It was total chaos!  You can tell by the look on my face that Black Friday shopping is not for me.

Snuggled under a blanket with a warm cup of coffee and a good book on the iPad is for me. 

November Misc.

Wow, it's December!  This is the last month of the year!!!  Yikes!

It's time to share photos of Christmassy things, but these photos have nothing to do with Christmas.  It's scenes from our everyday life in November.  Once again, I was blog slacker in November.  Although I managed to blog about Will's birthday party and his birthday.  I couldn't skip those important events, but as for anything else, I skipped over it completely.  

These leaves were in my in-law's yard.  They have a pretty Sweet Gum tree.

I was involved in a Ladies Bible study at our church.  We studied 1, 2, 3 John.  It was very insightful and I always learn so much from our class discussions.  We plan to start our study of Ruth in January.

This is the country road that goes right by our land.  Isn't it perfect in the Fall?

The time change was kicking my booty.  Will and Ben were up and at 'em bright and early.

They love playing Cars instead of trains on this table.

Poor Will!  He came down with strep throat at the beginning of the month.  Same time of year that he got it last year.  Boo!

Entertaining Ben with the fishing puzzle.

Painting Fall leaves 

 Now that the weather is colder we have two boys who love to snuggle up in our bed.

Our church hosted a Family Fun Day at the home of some of our church members.  My boys had a blast jumping on the bounce house, making Fall crafts, and playing with friends. 

Will received the movie Planes for his birthday from his aunt and uncle.  They live in Virginia but always mail his gift to him.  So thoughtful.  He was super excited! 

Just because...he's a cutie! 

There's a long story behind these pajamas.  Ben loves superheroes and loves footed pajamas.  We bought Will and Ben new footed pajamas and we thought long and hard about which ones to buy for each boy.  We brought these home to Ben and he didn't like them.  We thought for sure he'd love the Spiderman webs under the arms, but he didn't because they didn't have a cape.  He wanted Will's Batman pajamas because they had a cape.  After a very long discussion on being grateful for what we are given, he's decided that he likes them--not as much as he likes Superman or Batman ones because they have a cape, but he will be thankful for them and wear them.

Last photo of the month...

Ben avoided strep throat the first time Will got it, but Will got it again just a few days after finishing his antibiotics and Ben got it too.

I've had a few extra days home from work due to Icemageddon 2013 and I've used this time to catch up on some blogging.  I even scheduled some posts for later this week.  More photos to come about Thanksgiving (only two weeks late)!

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

The Weather Outside Is Frightful!!!

It's being called Icemageddon 2013, which seems appropriate.  We had temperatures in the 80s earlier in the week and then a cold front moves in and we get this.  LOVE Texas weather.  

We missed school on Friday.  I took these photos yesterday when the boys begged to go outside.  They are true Texans because they lasted all of 5 minutes and they were ready to go inside. 

Just look at Ben's face.

Everything is covered in ice.

No rides today. 

Will was really proud of this giant icicle. 

We're hoping this tree limb doesn't snap off.  It's pretty low to the ground right now because of the weight of the ice.  This is common with most tree limbs that haven't broken off already.  

I'm not sure if you can see it, but there's a huge branch on the ground that snapped off. 

The crape myrtle trees in our front yard sustained a lot of damage.  You can see where they snapped from the weight of the ice.  I hate to see those go.  I hope we can salvage them. 

Will found this icicle in the front yard. 

Ben was happier once I put some gloves on his hands.

Will just had to try the frozen slide.  I wish I had a video of him landing on his bottom.  It was pretty funny! 

Ben couldn't be left out. Mark helped them both up the slippery steps.

One last photo of our nandina shrub in the front yard.  

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is so much to be thankful for.

October, I didn't forget about you!

I seem to drop off the radar during the month of October.  

October was full of fun.

We celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday.

We went to the State Fair of Texas.

We played games at the Fall Festival.

Pumpkin carving

Visited the Dallas Arboretum pumpkin patch 

Mark and I went on a field trip to AT&T Stadium (Cowboys Stadium) with our students at school. 

Halloween! 

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I intend to write a special post for each of the events above.  Maybe over Thanksgiving break I'll find the time.  If not, then I hope to get it done over Christmas break.  That's the funny thing about blogging.  I love it because I enjoy looking back at all of the memories we've made together as a family, but sometimes when we're busy making those memories I don't have time to blog about them.  I'll choose living in the moment and enjoying every second that I can over stressing about blogging about it any day.  When someone finds the secret to getting it all done, please be sure to let me know!  I still haven't gotten that one figured out just yet. 

Also, there's a lot of fun we've had in November that I want to blog about.  We had a great weekend and saw The Head and The Heart in concert.  We've also spent some time at our land and I have tons of photos of the beautiful fall leaves.   

We're gearing up for the holidays and looking forward to decorating the house.  

I just ordered my Christmas cards.

Yay!  

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Will is Seven!

Will is seven!

Every year I try to write a special blog post about the boys on their birthday.  This year I'm a few days late, but it's still important to me so I'm going to write about Will's 7th birthday.

The photos were taken on his birthday when we celebrated with pizza and cheesecake.  The day before we celebrated at his bowling alley birthday party with friends and family.

Will is a kindhearted and sweet boy.  His intelligence, good nature and ability to go with the flow will get him far in life.  Will is smart, funny, and such a cutie.  I love his positive attitude.

He is definitely our child.  Will loves to travel and take trips.  He likes maps and hotels.

Will has fun spending time with his family.  He loves going to his Mamaw and Papaw's house.  Will likes playing with his brother Ben.  They are best buddies.  He and Ben  like collecting the die cast cars from Disney Pixar Cars and Cars 2 and reenacting scenes from the movies when they play.

He's in the first grade and he loves school.  He adores his teacher  and likes his classmates.

I interviewed Will for his answers on the following topics.

Will's favorite food is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

His favorite places to eat are McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, Taco Cabana, and Subway.

Will's favorite treat is ice cream and candy.

His favorite color is blue.

His favorite movies are Cars 2 and Despicable Me.

Will's favorite TV shows are Curious George, Ninjago, Arthur.

One of his favorite things to do is play iPad games.

Will enjoys spending time at school.

Will's friends at school are George and Keaton.

Will's favorite books are Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type; anything by Mo Willems; anything Laura Numeroff (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Pig a Party)

His favorite Bible story is Jonah and the big fish.

The best part of his birthday was bowling with friends and family.

Being 7 is special because he gets to take AR tests at school now.

Will thinks that since he is 7 his legs are longer because I told him that his size 7 jeans are fitting better now.

We love you, Will!

Will's 7th Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Will's 7th birthday party with friends and family at Splitsville.  Will has been crazy about bowling since he learned how to bowl on Wii Sports this summer.  We've taken him to Splitsville a couple of times, and he really wanted to have his birthday party there.  This is the first time we've ever done a birthday party that hasn't been at our house.  There are some definite advantages to having it somewhere else.  At the top of the list is not stressing out about cleaning the house before the party.  A close second would be that I didn't have to clean up the house after the party was over.

The number one reason that the bowling alley was great is that Will was on cloud nine getting to bowl with all of his friends and cousins.  Will bowled a couple of spares and had the second highest scores.  The party was perfect except for an almost mishap with a finger stuck in a bowling ball.  Luckily that was quickly fixed with a little hand sanitizer to help the kiddo wiggle his finger loose.

The bowling alley did a good job keeping a big group of 7- year-olds happy.  One of the coolest things about the party was the personalized marquee with Will's name on it.  The bowling alley is cool with a retro-theme (not the dingy, smokey bowling alleys that you might think of).  I gave my out of town parents fair warning that it was very nice and clean so they wouldn't get weirded out by a bowling alley party.

Here's Will standing in front of the two lanes we had reserved for his party.  The big marquee had his age and birthday on it.

So cool!

Happy!  Happy!  Happy! 

Ready to bowl!

The Birthday Boy making a wish!

Will requested blue cupcakes so that's what he got.  He even helped me decorate them.

Family photo {LOVE} 

What a fun day!

I'm thankful for all of our family and friends who made Will's party special.  They were all so sweet to make the effort to come to his party  They were also very generous with Will's presents.  He received superhero and Chima Legos, Ninjago movies, a neat book, Disney Cars and Planes toys, art supplies, special handmade cards, a cool space puzzle, and birthday money!