We Survived

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

It's officially over. We'll not the day yet. But, family has left. The house is cleaned up. Leftovers are in the fridge and the dishwasher is running. We had a great day and we are thoroughly exhausted. I took a few minutes tonight to switch my blog theme to Christmas.

I love this time of year.

I don't want Thanksgiving to take a back seat to Christmas, so here are some highlights from our day.

Emily got dressed up.

We watched the parade.


We ate pumpkin pie.


God even graced us with a beautiful rainbow.


Then, we got out some more of the Christmas decorations and Emily tried on the tree skirt as a cape.


I think she's ready to spin her way onto the next holiday...

Pre-Thanksgiving

We had a big family gathering at my Dad's this past Saturday. They usually host Thanksgiving, but since Suzy's Mom passed away this year, they are spending the holiday with Suzy's side of the family. Instead, they decided to have us all over for a pre-Thanksgiving feast.

We packed up the car, the kids and the dog and headed to Phoenix. We also picked up David's Mom (Gwynne) on the way. We had an awesome time.

Ben pretended to be a monster.

Emily colored with Rocco (my sister's son).

Emily cuddled with Grammie Gwynne.


My Dad took the kids on a mile long wheelbarrow ride.


Rocco played some pool...


with my brother Joe.


The girls watched. Tiffany (my sister's daughter)on the left and Auna (Joe's daughter)on the right. And you know the beauty in the middle!


Emily stripped off her dress and went in the 57 degree pool.


Ben had to join her. You know a day is not complete without a picture of my kids in their underwear.


Then came the ride home which was the best ever (see post on My Sweetest Ride below). We all had a great time.

Now, we are hosting Thanksgiving for this crazy bunch at our house in a few days. Wish us luck!

Slumber Party

Getting Emily to sleep in her room all night is a challenge. She always comes out at some point. She wants David to sleep with her every night. It's kind of cute and kind of annoying especially at 2 AM.

We've tried everything positive and negative. Nothing works. I decided to give her what she wants. If she sleeps in her room all week and does not come out, we will have a slumber party in the living room on Friday night. This is actually working! Last Friday night was our first slumber party. We blew up the air mattress which we found out later has a hole in it. We all got cozy and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

David was asleep in 3 minutes.

I took Ben to my bed as the air mattress was hitting the floor.

Emily didn't care. She still thought it was a blast. We have continued promising her a slumber party. If all goes well, we will just have to sleep on the sofa. In the spring, I want to get a tent and we can all sleep outside. We don't have any street lights on our block and the stars are amazing at night. Hopefully, I can bribe her for that long!

My Sweetest Ride

We went to my Dad's on Saturday in Phoenix for an early Thanksgiving celebration. David's Mom came into town, so we picked her up at the airport and headed to my Dad's. This was our first trip down since we got the mini-van. Previous trips were in my Pathfinder. Gwynne (David's Mom) would sit in the front with David. I'd get sandwiched between the 2 carseats in the backseat while the dog in the trunk area panted on my head. It was never a pleasant ride. For the first time, I knew what it meant to have my knees and back hurt after sitting for 2 hours.

We go to my Dad's for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. The ride home has always been listening to the over tired kids scream louder than the movie that is playing. David and I can't talk or listen to music. I actually brought pajamas one time thinking they would fall asleep and I could just scoop up their sleeping angel bodies from the car and lay them peacefully in bed. What was I smoking? Their screaming, I'm screaming. The only thing I bring now is a bottle of Excedrin.

We all load up for our trek home. The kids want to watch a movie. Fine, maybe they will zone out and be quiet. Emily wants anything with a princess and Ben wants anything with an action hero. This is always the problem with one boy and one girl. We watched The Incredibles on the way to Phoenix and the trip home they agreed upon Monsters Inc. David and Gwynne are in the front. Emily and Ben are in the next row. I'm in the third row of seats way in the back with the dog. Roxie does not settle down in the car and pants the entire way. She probably fears she is headed back to the pound. In any case, David asked if I wanted the Ipod and headphones as listening to panting for 2 hours makes me anxious.

We left my Dad's. I'm prepared for the worst. It never came. The kids didn't make a peep. Emily was asleep in 10 minutes and Ben shortly after that. David unplugged the movie. I reclined my seat, put my feet up on the igloo, listened to music and played vortex and solitaire on my Ipod. We have finally gotten to that happy place with our kids. It was the best 2 hours of my life.

But next time, I'm bringing their pajamas...and mine!

Prayers

This is what I get to listen to before bed:

I love that he starts the video with 2 fingers up one nostril. Classic.

Here's our girl.
She always says, "May me, lay me" instead of "Now I lay me".
It cracks me up.


I'm blessed.

P.S. This is my 100th post!

The Candy Man Can

I love him because after a long day of work, he still has time to play Candyland.

And he doesn't LET her win!

Jesus Gets A New Crib

This is Jesus' new sweet crib.

We were shopping at Walmart last weekend and looking at all the Christmas stuff. Emily came across the nativity scenes. She HAD to have one.

She didn't like the cheap looking wisemen in one set. Baby Jesus was rather odd looking in another set. She liked this set in particular that resembled the figurines from Precious Moments. Fine. But, it didn't come with a manager. We decided to make one.

We got a box at Sams Club (we have one now) and we covered it with with paper shopping bags. The kids went to town painting it. I doubt the original manger where Jesus was born had glitter glue all over the roof, but it certainly adds some flare! Then we got a separate piece of cardboard from the lid of a shoebox. We put glue all over it and went outside to find grass, leaves and sticks.





Emily loves it and sets the people up 100 different ways. She'll even put Jesus on the roof. Somehow, I don't think Jesus would mind.