TONS of Fun

WOW...there are just gonna be a lot of fun pictures since they've been piling up for awhile. Our Thanksgiving in NC was a blast and great weather. It was so fun to spend the holiday with my sister Trish and her family...and Maci was absolutely giddy with the idea of being in the same house with other kids for 4 days. Thanks for the great time Trish and Rick! We miss you and your kids already--especially since the kids played so well with Maci and now I'm being a poor substitute.

Maci and Kempton watching leaves fall in NC. Come spring, they're planning to watch grass grow.

Also in NC we went to one of my favorite beaches at Surf City. It was FREEZING, but still so pretty.

Maci was pretty ticked the whole time for unknown reasons (you can see proof in the picture below), but she found some sweet shells.

Family tradition pushed us to the movie theater on Thanksgiving Day. This year was Madagascar II. I loved it...but I most of all loved the after movie "I like to move it move it" substitutes from the kids such as:

Maci: "I like to google it, google it" ---obviously unaware of the double meaning but kept repeating it because we all just kept laughing

Averie: "I like to toot it, toot it"

Here are Maci and my adorable niece Amber after the movie. Don't they look like sisters?!

THEN we came home and got right to decorating for Christmas!!! Maci was bored after about 10 minutes...but I was wired all night from the hot cocoa. So it was awesome.

Don't you mind that in the blog pic last year Jared is wearing this same outfit. Do guys not use the word outfit? What's the macho equivalent?

Here's the end result...my little dollar store tree, all lit up! Soon we'll see what it will look like after two sweet little hands move things around.

THEN Jared and I went to his work holiday party. It was super fun except that I'm the only one under 40 that has kid(s) and everyone that's my age is not in the same life stage as me. In other words, I was pretty much the only pregnant/young/married--not in that order-- chick at the party. But we got to gamble with fake money so that made up for it. I am not so lucky, which is another great reason I don't actually gamble, besides many other great reasons. Also the creme broulle (HOW do you spell that?!) made up for it.

THEN I found this awesome idea for bored toddlers in this book: "The Preschooler's Busy Book" and wanted to share. Maci and I squirted shaving cream in each section of a muffin tin, then added a drop or two of food coloring and mixed our colors. Then I let Maci paint in the bathtub for about 45 minutes (until the muffin tin fell off the stool and made gray water) and it was great. She was talking about it all night. Just don't let your kid paint the tile surround/grout if you have it.

SO...those are our holiday highlights so far! We're having a blast and plan to go to Cheyenne for Christmas so we'll have many more holiday moments to come.

Merry Christmas!!!