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Friday, November 28, 2014

Thanksgiving 2014

This holiday season seemed SO busy. It felt like we had a million things to do! I think Tommy being in school this year is part of it.

He had a Grandparent's Day/Thanksgiving program at school one day in November. I was super bummed because it was his first program and parents weren't really invited to watch it! It was on a Tuesday morning, so I didn't take the day off work, but all of Tommy's grandparents got to go. I was really nervous to hear about how he did because he is SO shy. I asked them to tape part of it and send it to me so I could see it.

I got a 5 second video of him standing on the stage and the whole time, he was picking his nose. Lovely. Oh well. At least he got ON the stage! I'm going to call that a win!

This year, we hosted Thanksgiving for Nick's side of the family for lunch. We crammed all 12 of us into our kitchen and had to bring in two long buffet tables to get everyone seated. It was a tight fit, but we made it work! I love having all of our family together and am so grateful we all live close to one another. We (of course) had too much food, but it was all SOOOOO good. I tried sweet potatoes for the first time and liked them!

After we ate, we sat around feeling fat :) And I think there was some football watching going on. We went out to the barn for awhile and let the kids get some fresh air.

Then for Thanksgiving dinner, we went to my mom's house. I took some cream-cheese filled jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon, hoping it would induce labor for my sister in law (and it did!!). My mom cooked a huge, random assortment of food (as is our usual holiday tradition!). We ate dinner and then played a SERIOUS game of Taboo!

After we left my mom's, we went home and rolled ourselves into our fat pants and slept soundly through the night!

It was the perfect Thanksgiving day and I was and am SO thankful for all of my blessings in life!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Halloween 2014

Yes, I'm just now writing about Halloween. Procrastination.......it's what I do. Tomorrow.

Anyways, this year, my kids had both known what they wanted to be for quite awhile. Tommy wanted to dress up as a hockey player and Tessa wanted to be a kitty cat. Luckily, I already had a Thunder hockey jersey, a hockey stick and a hockey helmet we'd gotten at a thrift store a few months before. Cheap is the name of my game when it comes to Halloween! And Tessa, I dressed in all black and one of my friends had a tutu with a tail and some cat ears that they let us borrow. DONE! So simple, so fast, so cheap. Loved it.






















These are the only two pictures I got all night--I brought my good camera, but of course the battery was dead!

We went to my mom's first and had chili. It was delicious and warm, which is good because that night was COOOOOOLD. We met my brother and sister in law there and after eating, went trick-or-treating with their cousins (a witch and a puppy). We only did a couple blocks because it was freezing, but they had a blast and got a TON of candy. I had considered bringing our double stroller for the kids, but thought for sure they'd want to walk and get candy. I was so wrong. JJ brought her double stroller and most of the time, their kiddos walked, so my lazy bum kids hitched a ride in her stroller! I felt so bad because they were being so whiny about walking and being cold, but my brother pushed them around the whole time. Tommy refused to get out at some of the houses because he was enjoying that stroller so much. Those two kill me sometimes (and drive me INSANE)!

After trick-or-treating my mom's neighborhood, we headed over to Nick's parent's house. We met up with his sister and my nieces. They looked so pretty in their dresses! We took all of them to a few more houses and then called it quits because of the temperature. Me and Tommy could have gone all night (because I don't mind the cold and I love the atmosphere of Halloween), but everyone else was ready to get warm again, so we went back. Luckily, it was on a Friday night, so we were able to stay out a little later without worrying about getting to bed.

It was a fun night and I'm already looking forward to the next Halloween (and hoping it's  little warmer!).