Oh how I loathe taking a family portrait. They always seem to end up with someone crying, someone screaming or someone stomping off to their room. And that person is often me.
But this year I must have caught all 4 kids on a good day, at the perfect moment. Because, by golly, we got the best picture EVER! And that is no small feat with this bunch!
I think I took a total of 6 shots and all of them were decent, but this was my favorite.
Merry Christmas!!
We had a great Thanksgiving! We started out at Jeremy’s parents’ for our first dinner. We had smoked turkey and fried turkey…both were EXCELLENT!
This apple pie was my contribution. I’m pretty sure I’ve [attempted] to make an apple pie before. But it’s been a looooong time. Probably pre-Nate. And it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.
Then we headed to my parents’ for our second dinner of the day. There we had turkey and yummy ham. My Uncle Craig had won a pig at some raffle awhile back. A whole pig. It was a prize winner. And we enjoyed him (or her?) thoroughly!
Oh, and we had LOTS of pie! Craig is the pie man. He brought the lattice top cherry, chocolate cream and dutch apple pies. I ate pretty much all of the cherry pie.
Hope you had a lovely holiday and ate all the pie (and turkey) your heart desired!
**To clarify, we didn’t eat the whole pig. I’m sure you’re envisioning a hog roasting over a spit in my parents’ backyard. What a sight! He had it butchered and just brought a spiral cut ham.
I know I shared this picture last year. But it has got to be one of my all-time favorites! Jeremy was such a cute kid!
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
We get together with Jason, Molly and Hayden about once each month. And each time, Delaney and Hayden play their own thing. They don’t really want much to do with each other. He plays with cars and action figures and she does puzzles. Or sometimes they want what the other has, but not bad enough to actually share and play together.
A few days ago, Delaney started asking about “Haydee” (Hayden) and I told her he would be at Gaga’s in two days. And for the next two days, she continually asked about Haydee. So when the time finally came for her to actually go see Haydee, I was curious about how it would go.
As you can see, they played together pretty much all night. They even took turns (with only a little bit of crying) playing with a ball. For the first time, these cousins who are only 5 months apart in age, played together. And had a great time. I’m looking forward to the next time they get together so we can watch as this friendship grows.
Put up Christmas decorations BEFORE Thanksgiving, that is. It’s bad enough that I can’t go into a store without being inundated with lights and flocking and ornaments. And it’s been like that since the school supplies went on clearance! Trust me, I love decorating for Christmas. I have two trees (much to my hubby’s chagrin). We hang lights on the house. And when I say we, I mean hubby does it while I offer my approval.
I’m very anxious for Thanksgiving to get here, though, so I CAN drag out all the ornaments and decorations and both trees and get to work. I’ve already been out on a couple of shopping expeditions and have purchased some new things. But I just can’t bring myself to actually decorate just yet. But a week from today, I plan to be fully decorated, inside and out! Pictures to come.
Nate had a music program at school last week. His music teacher does a phenomenal job of including Nate. She set up his own little music station and he played his instruments throughout the show, not necessarily on cue. :)
This is Rachael. She is one of Nate’s caregivers and she takes care of him on Sunday mornings while we go to church. She is also a para in the early childhood classroom at our school and she agreed to help out during the music program. You can see that Nate is more interested in watching her, than in anything else going on in the gym.
We are very lucky to have so many fabulous people who help us take care of Nate. When people tell me they don’t know “how we do it” I usually respond with, “You just do what you have to do.” But what I really need to say is, “We couldn’t do it if we didn’t have such a great support system!”
My mom, Bri and I traveled to North High School in Wichita to watch Allison’s dance team perform in a Dance Show. Teams came from all over the state (high schools and community colleges!) and showed off their moves.
Here they are “warming up.” Looks to me like they’re warming up their jaws more than anything. :)
Waiting for their turn to perform.
They were one of the smallest teams there. But they did a great job!
It was fun to watch all the teams (two of which were teams I once danced with). Oh how the dance moves have changed in 20 years!!!
On Saturday, the Women’s Ministry at our church hosted a Tablescapes Luncheon. Each table was decorated by a different hostess. Check out the gorgeous tables!
I was the hostess for this table. And when I say “I”, I really mean my mom helped me out tremendously, but I got all the credit!
We had so much fun planning the decorations for the table. I wanted to do a fall theme, but with white dishes, I wasn’t sure how it would work out. But the white pumpkins and spider mum, brought a bit of fall to the black and white and green. I borrowed my grandma’s silver, which was actually her mother’s. So cool! And the green vase is my mom’s, but used to belong to my grandma. See? We like to share!!
A little chocolate truffle was the favor at each place. Who doesn’t like a little chocolate?
And this was my serving table. The two-tiered stand was for my desserts. And do I have a good story about getting that stand!
A couple of weeks ago, my mom called me at the last minute and asked if I wanted to go along with her and my grandma to a shop in Wichita. I said ok, but had limited time because I needed to get Allison to the church for a youth activity. So we get about halfway to Wichita and realize, my mom’s tire is flat. (Remember, this is the second flat tire I’ve been involved with in the past few months!) She pulled into a gas station and called AAA. The operator told her it could be up to an hour wait. In the meantime, she called her brother, who is constantly rescuing damsels in distress. He happened to be nearby, so he headed over to see what he could do for these three damsels. He got to work right away, but ran into a problem. One of the lug nuts was stripped, so he couldn’t get the tire off. The AAA guy showed up and couldn’t do anything either. But not to worry, because Uncle Craig always has a Plan B. He plugged the hold with a screw (who even knew you could do that?) and we headed off to shop. Craig got some tire repair stuff…very technical, I know…and met us at the store where we were. He repaired the tire, filled it with air and we were good to go and even made it back in time to get Allison where she needed to go. And while we were shopping at that little store, I found this dessert stand. So that’s my story.
Hope you enjoyed the tour of our Tablescapes (and the dessert stand story). Maybe next year you’ll even want to join us! For the women’s luncheon, that is!
Last week was a bit of a rough week. On Tuesday, Nate’s nurse called in sick so my mom stayed at the house with Nate and Delaney. And I think my mom got much more than she bargained for!
Delaney was quite a pill. She wouldn’t nap. Instead, she demolished her bedroom. She unloaded all her clean clothes from the closet. She played with all of her hairbows and headbands. And she got into her sister’s make-up.
Make-up and a snotty nose is NOT a good look for you, Delaney. Remember that next time you think about getting into your sister’s things!
As it turns out, Delaney came down with a fever on Friday. So maybe her bad behavior was related to an illness coming on. It’s either that or a really bad case of the terrible two’s. I’m praying it’s the former!
