Thanksgiving and Football

This past weekend, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family.  We don't get to see them often enough so I always look forward to their visits.  I usually have to think twice before calling any of the kids by name because they grow so much in between holidays!  Not to mention they're all close in age to the kiddos in our family. Everyone rolled into town at different times Friday night so we had a casual dinner of chili and hot dogs.  I was so busy loving on the babies that I never got my camera out.  Thanks to the rain, we were all stuck inside to play on Saturday morning.  I managed to drag a few family members out to the shop and put them to work.  Seriously, if I'm busy and you're just standing around, I will most definitely find a job for you.  I had my aunt painting in her nice clothes and my cousin helped build a bookshelf.  Probably not what they were expecting to do on our "Thanksgiving" morning.

My mom, with the help of some others, prepared a delicious non-traditional Thanksgiving feast for us.  It was so yummy! And it smelled good while cooking, too.  It made all the little kids belly up to the bar so they could be first in line.

Seeing them lined up at the kitchen island was so cute in real life. My photography skills are lacking though, so I wasn't able to get a super cute picture.  I'll count this one as a win since I have 3-4 people looking at the camera.  I would seriously love to know how professional photographers do it.

Parker was sad that he was being left out of the pictures so we stuck him in there too.

In the picture above we've got Gracie, age 8, next to her little brother Carter, age 2.  Bren, age 2, is in the middle. On the right are Neely, age 4, and her little sister Roany, age 2.  Parker, age 2, is standing up in the back next to my cousin Paige, mom to Neely and Roany and their little brother Sevens, age 1.  Not pictured is Jett, age 5, who hadn't made it back over from basketball camp.  (Also not pictured are Wyatt, age 10, and Anna, age 9, who were are their mom's for the weekend.)   Add to that 14 adults and 2 dogs and you can imagine how wild and crazy it was!  But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Mothers to two-year-old little girls, consider yourselves warned: this little guy is going to be a ladies' man. He's a charmer and has the best manners.  And ooooh, is he cute.  He will win you and your daughters over.

Two chairs, three booties:

During lunch, Parker channeled his inner Elton John and played some tunes for us.  He had to borrow Mr. Potato Head's glasses so he could read his sheet music. 

I somehow managed to avoid taking pictures of any adults.  You're welcome?

Our company left Saturday afternoon and things returned to normal.  Doc picked up the kids so they could stay the night with us and I worked furiously in the shop.  Two and a half weeks to go!  I arrived home Saturday night just in time for some homemade pasta (delicious!) and a visit from our friends Sarah and Charlie.  Guess what they brought with them? The ingredients for cookies and cream milkshakes!  I don't know who was more excited, Anna or me.  Charlie took over in our kitchen and started throwing things in the blender.  I've never thought to add oreos to my milkshakes but man, were they good!  After dessert, Charlie and Doc wore the kids out in a game of football while I took Sarah on a shopping spree in my closet.  It was so good to see them.  And they're welcome back anytime, especially if milkshakes are involved!

By Sunday afternoon, the rain was gone and it was nice enough to play outside again.  Parker and Bren were in such funny moods, they kept making each other giggle about everything!

My dad and Doc joined the bigger kids in a game of football.  Here, Dad gave his teammates the play.

They had a tough defense to get past!

It didn't take Anna long to give up on the football and join Bren in what they do best: swing.

When I returned to the football game, Doc was calling the plays.  My favorite part of the huddle was when Jett looked up and said, "I don't know what 6 yards is!"

The offense lines up for the play.

Doc makes the throw to Jett.

And he's off!

Uh oh.  It looks like the scary defense has made it past Wyatt's block.

And he's down.

Will Wyatt be able to take it all the way this time?

The offense lines up again, this time with Jett as the quarterback.

The intimidating defense lets them know what they're up against.

The throw's been made and Wyatt's got the ball.  His teammates are set to block the defense.

He makes it past the defense and he's Go! Go! All! The! Way!

I'm not sure who won, but I guess Wyatt and Jett were winners either way.  Here are some more shots from the highlight reel.

Have you met Jett? If you have, you know he doesn't do anything, anything, without giggling. Seriously. Even when he's about to be tackled by his Poppy, he's laughing.

Bren didn't really get what all the excitement was about football.  I'm right there with her.

Unfortunately I had to leave the playing up to all of them and return to the shop to work, work, work!  Hopefully all my sweat and hardwork will pay off at the shop sale!

That was our weekend in a nutshell.  How was yours?

Lemonade Stand

This post is a little overdue.  I had hoped that Doc would write it but since he's been so busy, busy, busy with work and travel and running, I guess I'll just do it instead.   But, while I'll get credit for writing the post, Doc gets all the credit for building the cutest little lemonade stand ever.  He built it all by himself.

Remember the old fence pieces we got from my parents' neighbors?  After building the potting stand for my mom, we still had a good section of fence in tack.

We had a decent sized pile of scrap fence pieces, too.

Quick switch of topic: A few weeks ago at church, our preacher gave us all a dollar bill.  (Crazy, right? How often do they pass out money at church? It's usually the other way around.)  We were all instructed to grow our dollar bills for the church.  We were told we could invest them individually or as a family or a small group.  But whatever we did/do, we have to bring back our dollar plus whatever we make with it to give to the church in 6 months. 

There are 13 people in our family, which means we have $13 to grow.  We brainstormed how we could double it and have decided that we'll use the money to have a lemonade/cookie stand at our shop sale that's coming up in just a few short weeks.  We'll ask for donations only, and all the proceeds will go to the church.  The kids are soooo excited about, which is great! And hopefully we'll have more than our original $13 when it's all over.

You can probably see where this is going.  An extra section of fence + an upcoming lemonade/cookie sale = we were building a lemonade stand.  And by "we" I mean Doc.

I swear I took pictures of him during the building process, but I can't find them right now.  But maybe I can explain what he did.  In the fence picture above, you can see how there's a board running horizontally right through the middle.  He cut the whole section of fence right above that board and the bottom half became the base of the stand.  He cut three slats off each end so they could turn and be the sides.  You can see the sides in the picture below.  And you can also see that I lied - he didn't cut the whole section, he left one tall slat on each side to hold the top.

The rest is pretty easy to figure out.  He used scrap boards to make the table top.  He lined the three top boards up with the three boards on each side.  More scrap boards were used to make the bridge across the top.

The bottom horizontal piece from the section of fence made a perfect ledge to build a shelf on in the back.  It'll be a good spot to store all the goodies.

I only had one requirement for the stand - I wanted to be able to hang cute signs on it.  (I did not want a sign painted permanently on the top bridge so that we could use it for other things in the future.)  Doc hammered in these great rusty nails on the sides of the top board so that I can hang a sign between them.

He also put a couple nails down on the base for me.  I think a fabric banner would look super cute hanging between them, and I can make it festive for the event!

Super cute, right? I can't wait to see it in action!

The great news is, since it's made from recycled fence boards, it can sit outside next to the fence without getting damaged. And it blends right in!

I love it, Doc. Thanks for building it for me the kids!

Back to Reality

I guess I forgot to mention last week that we were heading to the beach!  Actually, we went to Florida.  It was too cold to spend much time at the beach.  My parents, Doc and I took a long-weekend vacation to the Rosemary/Seacrest/Seaside area.  We spent three nights there and guess how many pictures I have to show you? Zero.  I spent three nights at a farm and had enough pictures for eight blog posts.  That's not so much the case here...I took a weekend off from lugging the camera around. Well, ok, I do have one picture.  I took this one with my phone.  See?  Proof: we were near the beach.

 

We had a jam-packed weekend.  My parents had never seen this area of Florida so we tried to cram in every little part of it that we could.  We toured everywhere from Panama City Beach to Rosemary to Seacrest to the San Destin outlet malls.  And while our bank accounts may be hurting just a little bit, we did make progress on all of our Christmas shopping.  The guys managed to squeeze in rounds of golf at two different golf courses. 

And that was the extent of our vacation.  We ate and shopped and golfed.  And then we drove and drove and drove home.  Why is it the trip home always feels longer?

Now we're back to reality and I do not like it.  Because of the time change I have to turn my headlights on when driving home from work.  There should be a rule where it can't be that dark that early.  It's also getting colder and I hate the cold.  If you know me at all,  you know I'm always freezing, even if it's not cold outside.  It's safe to say we're heading into my not-so-favorite season, but I'll try to be pleasant.

Doc has started training hard for the half-marathon he's running in a few weeks.  He's been upping the length of his runs, which means he's gone for longer.  I don't really like that either.  I've been trying to spend all my spare time in the woodshop trying to get ready for the shop sale.  It's the same weekend as his half-marathon and it's quickly approaching!  I still have LOTS to do.  Otherwise we'll only have a handful of things to sell.

So that's our short and sweet update.  It's dark and cold and we're busy.  On a more positive note, I'm working on plans for another giveaway.  There will be a chance for you to win something fun (not sure what yet, but it will awesome) so check back soon!

Family Picture Day

We've been experiencing a drought in our neck of the woods. So much so that there was a ban against farmers burning their fields.  Honestly, the lack of rain wasn't bothering me.  I don't like rainy days and I had already said goodbye to my summer flowers. Two weeks ago, I sent an email to everyone in my family announcing family picture day.  Mom and Dad's backyard, fall clothes, immediately following church on Sunday.  Everyone honored my request and was there on time.  Mom even prepared a big lunch for us.

And that's when the rain came.  It poured and poured and poured all day long.  Ugh.  I started having visions of last year's picture day - it was cancelled three times before it ever actually happened.

I mentally flipped through our calendar and remembered we were scheduled to have the kids again this past weekend.  Rain date - this past Saturday.  Same plan: Mom and Dad's backyard, fall clothes, 11:00 sharp.  Be there or be square.

This time the rain clouds stayed away and we were able to have our photo shoot.  Last year, we had a real photographer.  This year, we had me and a tripod.  This is what I learned:

1 - I am not a real photographer. 2 - The sun is very bright. 3 - Two-year-olds do not pose and smile for the camera. 4 - It doesn't take much to break a tripod.

Me trying to play photographer was a bit of a joke.  I really think I'm getting worse at it.  At any rate, we were able to get a semi-decent shot of the whole group so I'm happy to report that Mom and Dad will be able to send out a Christmas card this year. Phew.  And since some of you might be recipients of said Christmas card, I'm not going to share those pictures here.  Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, now would we?

But don't you worry, I do have some non-Christmas-card-quality pictures from the photo shoot to share.

Anna is so great.  She let me take tons of pictures of her while I tried to get my camera settings right.

These two munchkins are not the best at modeling, but when they're this cute, how can you not look at them and say aaaawww?

It doesn't matter how hard I try, I cannot get Bren to smile at me when I have my camera.

Doc and his mini-me.

Mimi and Poppy.

These two are the best of friends these days.  I love seeing them play together.

Our first attempt at a picture with just the five grandkids was on the slide.  And it was hysterical watching the two little ones.  Oh to be Parker, the youngest of the five, who, while all his cousins were squinting, smiling, and holding him up, just laid back and basked in the sun.  What a life!

You gotta love this one too, when Bren just decided she'd had enough of that pose.

This little boy would slide all day long if you'd let him.

And Wyatt is the big climber of the group.

Best buds, I tell ya.

This picture cracks me up because, as you can see, right as I was taking the picture, Jett reached up and slapped his dad in the face.

And then in the next picture, I can just hear his dad saying, "Son, what were you thinking?"  And Jett just giggled uncontrollably.

(I laughed too.  I thought it was hilarious when it happened and seeing it in the pictures makes it even better.)

Parker's parents helped him walk up the slide. Excuse the very overexposed background.

I'm not going to spoil the surprise of our family's Christmas card picture either, but I will show you our shoes!

I tried to get one of just the two girls.  Bren's actually smiling at her mom but it almost looks like she's smiling for me.

That's about all I can share for now since some have to be kept secret.  Want a hint about our Christmas card pictures? We'll be wearing the clothes we're wearing in all of these pictures. :)

Trunk or Treat

Doc left me for Buffalo, NY on Halloween, so I decided to join my parents and the rest of the family at church for Trunk or Treat.

My oldest brother and his wife actually parked their car in line with the other trunks, so we helped man their station and hand out candy.

Special delivery! Did someone order something? Oh wait, that's just Jett the UPS man.

That box there is full of candy!

His sister was the cutest little lady bug, but she doesn't like for me to take her picture.  She stayed close to her mama and helped hand out candy.

Is someone in trouble? Quick, call for help! No wait, Superman's already here!

Parker needed a few minutes to take it all in.  So many trunks! So many people! So much candy!

It didn't take him long to get the hang of it.

Poppy took Jett and Bren around to trick-or-treat and play games.

Parker hung back with his parents.

Bren and Parker took a break from trick-or-treating. Here she is making sure he knows that's her "prite" and not his.

I tried to add the pumpkin in for festive pictures.  They had to take a look inside.

Finally, the UPS man came back around and I tried so, so hard to get a picture of all three of them together. But, you know how it goes.  Kids + candy = yea right, no time for pictures.

This is pretty much how they look in every picture...

Superman had a blue mustache for most of the night.  It's from the blue gatorade he brought with him.

"Is that it? Surely there's more candy in there."

We didn't get to see Anna and Wyatt in their costumes in person, but we did get a picture.

Wyatt = Roman Emperor; Anna = Minnie Mouse

Here's Anna with the cute pumpkin she carved.

And here's Wyatt's Notre Dame pumpkin.  Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

That's a wrap for Halloween.  Now it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving!