Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my most favorite Holiday....has been for quite some time. I just really love the sentiment of giving thanks for what you have been blessed with in life....the good, the bad, & the ugly, because without it all, you wouldn't be the person you are! I so love getting our family together and just enjoying spending time with one another, AND the food is an added bonus!! This year we went to Moe & Jason's house again, and once again, there was enough food to feed a small country! My contributions were coleslaw, deviled eggs(both are my typical staples!), sweet potatoes, and a pear stuffing(decided to try out a new recipe...it was a success!) Addison kept telling us that she wanted to say the blessing and practiced over and over again, but when it came time and all eyes were on her, she had performance anxiety :) Oh well....there's always next year, right?!? It was just such a nice day and the best part had to be....NO DRAMA!! I can only hope that this will be a tradition for years to come....family means everything!!

Mom made place settings for everyone

It's hard work eating all of that food!

Kindergarten Feast

Much like last year, the Kindergarten Village had their very own Thanksgiving feast for all of the families. The 3 classes went on field trips at the beginning of the month to Publix to purchase the food, and prepared it throughout the month. They began the celebration with a performance. It was so cute to see all of the kids dressed as Turkeys and sing their little hearts out. The only bad thing, was Austin's position amongst the class versus where we were sitting. One of the tallest girls in the class was positioned in the front row, directly in front of Austin, so this made picture taking a little difficult :( Brooke happened to be outside with her class when we arrived so she saw us and got to sneak away and join us for the festivities.
After the performance we all loaded our plates up with the delicious food the kids prepared and sat down to a nice meal. Austin was so proud and excited when we asked him about which food he had a hand in preparing. We shared our table with the Gleichowski family. It really is great having Ryan's(Jeff's former teammate) daughter, Brooke, in Austin's grade.






/>

Owls and Pigs and Green Lantern....oh my!

Happy Halloween!! We were very busy this year celebrating the Holiday! On Friday the 28th, we took the kids to Trunk n Treat at TUMC...it was the largest the event has ever been. We were able to spend the 1st hour together as a family enjoying everything the event had to offer and then I worked at the face painting table for 1 1/2 hours while Jeff took the kids home and got them ready for bed. For the 1st time in a long time, the night turned very cold, which was unexpected since we are so used to sweating our booties off on Halloween. On Saturday, we met Granni and Payton, who she had for the night, at the Alachua Pumpkin Patch for some fun and pictures. On Halloween itself, Addison had a parade at her school, followed by a party in her classroom, and then we went to a MOPS play date party. When Brooke and Austin got home from school, we carved our pumpkin....giving the messy job to Daddy & the girls, and then I tackled the actual carving of the face. You wouldn't think carving a pumpkin would be so challenging, but man....it kicked my booty! We joined Heidi & Jeff and their kids and walked around our neighborhood and Blues Creek....the kids got more than enough candy! It was the 1st time in the 4 years that we've lived at our house that we've really gone trick-or-treating. We had a blast and it is so nice to have such great neighbors to share the holidays with.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OWL...

Addi's Owl costume, complete with tail feathers was a labor of love created by scratch by Granni & I. I couldn't have asked for a better final product!!


I made Owl cookies for Addi's class party :)



Alachua Pumpkin Patch


Olivia the Pig, Owl, & Green Lantern


Addi at her class party eating the Owl cookies I made


Such a messy endeavor, but they loved it! Addi got the baby pumpkin free :)


Getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating


Home at last with our carved pumpkin