Happy Thanksgiving!

Such a great weekend! We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday and with Shane's family on Friday. 

Thursday we got up late, watched a movie with the girls and then Shane went to play football with some friends. I started working on a tree skirt that I found on Pinterest and the girls played together. Just a wonderfully relaxing morning. We went to my parents house for an early dinner. It was a gorgeous day so we ate outside on the patio. She had to put 3 tables together for us all to fit! The food was amazing as usual. All of our places had questions for us to answer. The best part was Natalie reading her own question out loud. I was so proud of her! No one had heard her read before and they were very surprised! I took a bunch of pictures of the family too. This was probably the last big family meal before Luke leaves for boot camp so it was really special. 

 Colie and Gracie

 Mom and Dad

 Colie and Mom

Me and Gracie

 The guys watching football

 Me and Nan

 Mom, Luke and Daddy

 Mom with the girls

 Mom and Dad

 Mom and Natalie

That night I finished my tree skirt. It was so easy and it turned out perfect. If you want to make one...here is the link. This is how mine turned out. :)

So then Friday we had another wonderful day. Nice and lazy in the morning...I think I even took a nap. We headed over to Shane's parent's house and all the kids played in the backyard. I took some family pictures for Sabrina that turned out pretty awesome. Natalie started feeling a little punky so we put her in the back bedroom with the tv while we ate dinner. She didn't want to eat, poor thing. We had another really good dinner and then I took Natalie home. Heidi and Shane stayed and Heidi loved getting to play with Ava. 

 The table was set so nice! 

 All the kids playing on the piano together....it sounded lovely. :)

 Heidi and Ava

 Shane and Rose Marie

Colby and Sabrina

Thanksgiving Break

It has been so nice with Natalie not being in school! Mornings are slow and lazy and I've been planning something different each day for us to do. Monday we had some friends over in the morning to play and in the afternoon we went to the dentist. Surprisingly, the dentist is something my kids get excited about. We have a great dentist and they love the whole new toothbrush thing. :) This was Natalie's second time so she went first. Heidi wasn't scared at all...she just hopped right on the chair. It was so cute. :)

 The light was too bright for Natalie...she wanted to wear sunglasses.

Yesterday I took the girls to the ceramic arts place. No pictures. :( The girls made some Christmas gifts. It was really fun. Heidi was probably too young to go. She kept globbing the paint on there and then changing her mind and painting the same thing over and over again in different colors. 

Today I took the girls for a mani-pedi. It was so much fun! They had these two little kid pedicure chairs  and they got to soak their feet in water that kept changing colors. They got their feet scrubbed and rubbed and then got their toes and fingers painted. They were adorable! 

Now we are ready for all our Thanksgiving parties! I can't wait. :)

Christmas Comes Early

So I'm sure you all know that I love to decorate for Christmas before most normal people do. My mom is slightly more crazy about Christmas...she has had her house decorated for weeks. Anyway...I like to have my house decorated before Thanksgiving. For me...Thanksgiving decorations are Christmas decorations. :) This year we let the kids help out. A little bit. :) They loved it and thankfully I have a ton of unbreakable ornaments. 

 We don't do the outside of our house till after Thanksgiving...wouldn't want people to think we were weird. :)

Going to the Fair

We took the girls to the local fair for the 1 hour of free rides special. We do it every year but each year they go on more rides. This year we went with my parents, Dana, Nokie, my mom's friend Lisa, Eben, Luca and Winnie. We went on the big slide first and then let the girls pick what rides they wanted to go on. Both of the girls wanted to go on the ferris wheel this year. They had never been on it and I was a little worried that they might get too scared. When Shane got to the front of the line they said Heidi was too small and that she couldn't ride with them. Her poor little heart was broken! She cried and cried! Shane and Natalie ended up going with Eben and Luca and I stayed with both of the little girls. Thankfully we cheered Heidi up with a ride on the caterpillar "roller-coaster." After we went on all the rides we got lunch. Seriously the best corn dogs I have ever had. AMAZING! I happen to love corn dogs and we don't live near a place that sells them, so whenever the fair comes around that is my main reason for going. :) 

Natalie was big enough to go by herself this year

 Eben, Luca and Natalie on the ferris wheel

 The view...our house is just past those trees on the left.  :)

 My cute girl. She LOVED the ferris wheel! 

 The merry-go-round

 The dads chillin' on the ride

 Natalie and Luca and the motorcycle ride

 Heidi and Winnie on the bumble bee ride 

 Yay for the caterpillar ride! Heidi and Nokie grabbed the very front and Natalie and Luca were right behind them. Future dare devils. :)

The Georgia Aquarium

We had such a fun day! This morning we took the girls to go vote. Whatever happened to going in the booths and closing the curtain behind you anyway?? When did they change that? Okay, so after voting we drove out to Atlanta and took the girls the the Georgia Aquarium. It was so cool and so huge! We were there for hours. We started out with the dolphin show. It was kind of like a broadway show meets SeaWorld. The dolphins were really cool but the broadway part of it was just strange. :) We went in a tunnel through the ginormous fish tank, the girls got to pet the manta rays and sea urchins, and they even had a little playground.

While we were waiting for the dolphin show to start

They had this little tunnel through the penguin tank so the kids could feel like they were "with" the penguins. :)

They loved getting to pet the animals  

This was my favorite part of the aquarium. The girls walked into this little area and the guy asked them their names. As soon as they told him the little fish on the screen, "Deepo" said hi to them each using their names. They would ask Deepo questions and she would answer them back. Shane and I kept looking around trying to figure out how she knew what was going on. The girls loved it! Then we went to see a 3D movie about Deepo and his friends. We all wore our 3D glasses and we sat in the front. Every time the fish would swim toward us the girls would try to bat at them with their hands. The best part was when the fish would splash, they actually splashed us with water. 

This is the big tank we got to walk through. 

 This whale shark was HUGE! 

This area had sunlight coming through the water and they simulated waves. It was so beautiful!