Thankful

We had a great Thanksgiving with all our family this year. We were very disappointed we couldn't travel to Kansas City to see the other side of our family. Tad's last trial started this past Monday so that pretty much eliminated any travel plans this holiday season. My sister's family came to visit and with my brother living here now it was the first Thanksgiving in several years all us kids have been together.

My mom with all her grandkids home (we had to bribe Connor w/ a candy cane)


We started the day with Tad and Brian running the Turkey Trot (5 miler). I was going to join them and our friends Jane and Cynthia but couldn't juggle the kids schedule w/ the dinner preparations. Maybe next year. Anyway when they got back we headed over to my mom's for a delicious meal. Her brother and some of his family came and so did our grandparents. It is always fun to have a houseful of family. We look forward to doing it again for Christmas at my grandparents house.
The cousins playing w/ my old Barbie McDonald house- the boys only did this b/c the girls were home..it is usually packed away.

We enjoyed another few days w/ my sister's family, let the kids exchange xmas presents and made gingerbread houses. Everyone had a good time...although I'm sure the chaos of 4 kids and candy, was more noise than Uncle Brian usually has around. He is so good to put up with our craziness.



Peyton's house-he had a mild obsession with sprinkles on the front of it.

Kylie

Kenzie

Uncle Brian and Connor- Funny story- the boys and I have been reading The Gingerbread Man stories so after Uncle Brian helped him put a graham cracker door on the front he was convinced we needed to open the house. He told the gingerbread man to come out. Here he is in the stare down.

Here are a few things I'm thankful for as this year comes to a close.
* Our family is healthy, we have had some doctor's appointments lately that all ended up with good news
* At 30 years old, both my grandparents are still living. My boys love their MeMaw and PaPaw and we have been blessed they know them. We get to see them often, not as often as we'd like but often. They love MeMaw's cookies too.
* We were able to spend 2 weeks on vacation this summer and time with each sides of our family.
* We are blessed my brother just bought a new condo and is living back in Columbus close to us.
* We got to see my sister and her family sooner than we expected.
* Tad is currently finishing his last fraud trial. We're hoping another one doesn't come his way for a while.
* One of my best friends from college just moved up here only an hour away from us and easy to drive to see. Leslie- we need to compare calendars
*Our boys are healthy, keep us laughing all the time, and seem to be the best of friends with each other.
*I've reconnected with a good friend from high school,Jill, and now we have playdates w/ our kids every week- sometimes twice.
*Tad has job security w/ the FBI and we don't have to worry about that in this struggling economy.
* We are raising our boys in a Christian household and my boys know about Jesus
*My parents live close and help us out soooo often w/ the boys...Thank you!!!
* My husband puts his family first over everything and would do anything for all 3 of us. Thank you Tad!

Now the birthday and Christmas madness begins. At least some of the shopping is done.

Time Goes By

It stuck me lately how quickly time seems to pass by. Another year is almost to an end. Everyone told us when we got married years go quickly and we heard it again when I was pregnant but people were right. It is an understatement that time flies. In a couple weeks the boys will turn 3. It seems like yesterday we were trying to get through colic and reflux. Now they say the funniest things and are developing quite different personalities from one another. We are entering the phase of toilet training- this is a testing of everyone's patience. It also seems to be a great stalling technique for bedtime.

My younger(only) brother is buying his first place. That doesn't seem possible. We went a couple weeks ago to check it out. It is a great condo development in Downtown. He's really excited about it. It is brand new, granite kitchen, great appliances, etc. I know he's going to love it. It will be really close to his work and we're still not going to be too far from him. We're so glad he is back in town with us. The boys love their Uncle Brian.

Sat. night Tad and I took the boys to rent movies. We came home w/ Cars and as we both sat there with a boy on our laps I was thinking how things blessed we are. I enjoyed watching their faces light up at different parts of the movie. To see how happy they were to have our attention, and excited about the movie just gave me such a blessed feeling we could all be together. Tad has worked so many long hours this year. He's worked 7 yrs w/o a trial and this year alone we've lived through 3 of them. I am hoping another case like this never comes through the bureau again...at least on his squad. We are sad we won't be able to travel to Kansas City for the holidays but we're looking forward to 2009 with no fraud trials.

We're anxious for my sister and her family to come up for Thanksgiving. Everytime we see the girls they have changed so much. The boys are excited for them to come play. I started the madness of the xmas shopping already. I've been out w/o kids and so thankful for that. I can't imagine taking them along. They pick up the store fliers that come to the house and walk around saying "mom mom mom look I can buy that?" They would be crazy in the stores right now.

We're curious what they will do w/ Santa. We're not sure if this year they will sit on Santa's lap for a picture or not. Right now when we see snow flurries outside they say "mom, its snowing, Christmas comes tomorrow". We have a long month ahead of ourselves I'm afraid. Anyway we already started reading Christmas books and they love to hear Frosty the Snowman on the radio.

That's about it for our quick update. Naptime is almost over...gotta run.

Halloween 2008

Connor- Winnie the Pooh & Peyton- Tigger





The boys went Trick or Treating for the first time this year. They were pretty funny. We had been talking about it all week. When it was finally time to go out they couldn't decide who they each were going to be...first Tigger then Pooh. It came to me deciding for them and once we got outside it seemed fine that Peyton was Tigger and Connor was Winne the Pooh. They were hilarious. I took them to the first house next door and when the door opened they both thought they were going "inside". This was the trend for the next 5 houses- they thought they were going inside to play....funny b/c these aren't houses that have kids to play with. Guess we haven't covered the whole "stranger" thing. Anyway, after each house they would insist on walking back to our house to show their candy to whoever was home passing it out (Tad & I took turns at the house and going w/ the boys). They would get even 5 houses down the street and we were still going back home after each one. This is why they were entertained on our cul-de-sac for over an hour. We finally convinced them to cross over and do the other side of the street on the way back home. That went better. Here are a few pictures. They don't eat candy- except sweet tarts and candy corn so we need to get this stuff out of the house so the parents aren't tempted. We then drove up to my mom's house and they got to trick or treat at her door too. Everyone had a fun night.

They helped Tad carve a pumpkin. They said it was too "stinky" so once the top was off they decided to watch a halloween movie instead. They named the pumpkin Henry. I guess from one of their Thomas Trains. Now every pumpkin we see is Henry.