Thanksgiving (again)

I noticed when going through my pictures today that I had forgotten to add a few from Thanksgiving and the next morning. The morning after Thanksgiving, Christmas (our Elf on the Shelf) returned with a fun surprise for Lily :)

Christmas Tree Time!

This year, we decided to get our tree from a nursery I visited last year when picking up a gift card for Richard for our anniversary. They're a smaller nursery, family run, and not only do they have great plants, trees, etc. but they have really excellent customer service. If you're in the need for anything garden related in the Raleigh area, check out Homewood Nursery - they really are great.

So, we picked out our tree with minimal fuss and then decided to pick up a floor poinsettia while we were there. The nursery was having a black Friday sale, so everything was 30% off (including the trees), but the poinsettias were almost half off - a great deal! (more on the poinsettia later). We (the nursery guys) loaded the tree onto the jeep and we drove it home and got it inside (Richard did most of that). It actually had fallen quite a bit, so we were pretty comfortable getting the lights on and decorating it later that night. Which we did with yummy leftover Thanksgiving snacks and mulled wine - yum!

Did you know that poinsettias do not do well in the cold? We did not. So, the first night after we got it, we left it outside and it froze. It is now dead. End of poinsettia. We enjoyed it for exactly 8 hours? Oh well, now we know for next year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2013 was so much fun! My parents came up the night before to stay with us, so that mom could help me cook the next day. They stayed through Thanksgiving night and it was so nice to have them here! I think that's the longest we've had someone stay with us at this house and I bet they'd do it again - right mom and dad?? We would!

We had representatives from both sides of the family this Thanksgiving, so we had a pretty big group. I just love big, fun, loud family holidays. We had Richard's mom and dad, his sister and her husband and my parents with us. Mom helped me cook (lifesaver!!) and we had a ton of great food - turkey and stuffing (my dad actually stuffs the bird with mom's stuffing and it is OH. MY. GOODNESS. good), green bean casserole, squash casserole, homemade rolls, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce - the works! And for dessert: apple pie, chocolate cream pie and pecan pie. It was a feast!

That night, after we'd stuffed ourselves to the gills, mom, dad, Richard and I had a spades tournament while watching The Avengers and having Irish coffee. It was a lot of fun and we're currently tied in the tournament - final match is 2 weeks away! We took some family pics with/for mom and dad before Thanksgiving - you can check them out below. Make sure you don't miss the Oz outtakes in the middle :)

Operation Christmas Child

For some reason, we haven't done this as a family before. We used to do it every year when I was younger and I don't really know why we haven't started this tradition in our family before now. Lily and I were at Chickfila a few weeks ago and saw an Operation Christmas Child table setup near the order line. Lily was checking it out and after I explained to her what it was, she was eager to do it. We went shopping for our gifts over the weekend and packed up our box tonight. It turns out that we got a little too much, but we were able to finally stuff it all in the box after a few tries.

I'm looking forward to continuing this tradition every year and following our box online to find out where it ends up. If you're interested in doing this yourself, you can go to the Samaritan's Purse website to get all the details. In addition to filling up shoeboxes, Samaritan's Purse says the best thing you can do for them is prayer - prayer for their organization and the Operation Christmas Child project and prayer for the recipients of the shoeboxes, who are all children.

Lily's Thanksgiving Pageant

Tonight was Lily's Thanksgiving pageant and feast at her school! She has been practicing for weeks for this and we were so excited to see her perform her songs and Bible verses. Lily's Nana, Paca, Mimi, Grandad and Aunt Margaret came up to see her perform also.

She had a little trouble at first with some stage fright I think - she cried through the first couple of songs, but she still did all of the gestures! She calmed down towards the end though and the last song they did was just fantastic. After the pageant, we had the Thanksgiving feast which was yummy - lots of good old comfort food and some really good turkey. Below is a montage of a couple of the videos I took at the pageant - they're the two last songs. I taped pretty much every song and bible verse they did, but I just feel so bad for her when I see the ones of her crying - so I can't post them! She's the one in the middle on the second row, between the little girl and boy (hint: she's wiping her nose in the first song and very into the second one). These are awesome, enjoy!

 

Fall at the Farm

Is absolutely beautiful! The leaves are changing, the fields are cut, there's tons of space for the puppies and Lily to run - it's just awesome. We headed up there the first weekend in November to celebrate Grandad Rick's birthday. We spent pretty much all day Saturday outside before having a yummy birthday dinner with him, finished off with a key lime pie for dessert. We love being able to get up there and spend time with the family - I wish we could do it every weekend! Why have we not established 3 day weekends as the norm yet?!?

Lily the explorer

He's really not pooping - just in the middle of an excited wiggle!

The Crew

Riding in the wagon

Doodle seriously loves riding in the golf cart

Playing with Mimi

Helping Grandad open his birthday presents