Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!
We celebrated with family at Pops & GoGo's house. GoGo has been preparing for over two weeks on hosting over 30 people at her house for Thanksgiving. There was tons of food and it was all delicious. Christian had so much fun playing with all his cousins! They rode big wheels for hours! Andrew enjoying being passed around, and I think he thought he was just as big as all his cousins too. ;)

Julia and Andrew

The beautiful table

Pops and GoGo's Christmas tree

GoGo cooking Thanksgiving lunch!

Wayne, Sally, Randy and Grandmother

Christy and Kimberly

Andrew, Jim, Grandmother and Christy

Charlotte and Sally

Brooke, Elise and Clay

Curtis and Rob

Bobby and Wayne....I have no idea what they are doing ;)

Landon and Rodney

Sally and Christy

Andrew survived the whole day with with just one short little nap while we ate lunch (which timing worked out nicely). He even had his "turkey, rice and vegetable" baby food.

Friday, we spent most of the day at home relaxing. Though many people get up at 4am (or earlier!) for shopping, I like to avoid those crazy crowds. I just sipped my coffee and snuggled with my boys while hearing about all the crazy shoppers on Good Morning America. :)

Christian and I went and picked out our Christmas tree this afternoon! He said it was "the most perfect Christmas tree ever"! I think we did good too.

Tonight we had our very own Thanksgiving dinner at home.

Here is a picture of my dining room table decorated for Thanksgiving.

I even put up fall leaves around by light fixture

We had a Greenburg smoked turkey, with lots of sides, bread and dessert!
I have so much to be thankful for...a wonderful husband, my sweet boys, amazing friends and family! I am so blessed!

Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford!

If you are getting ready for the Christmas shopping season and all those "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" deals, watch this video below! This is such an easy concept but so many people can't do it! I wish I had this video when I taught the "Money Matters" study in Mom's Ministry.
A hilirious video that makes a good point! I love SNL!

Future CEO

Andrew's 7 month picture
Future CEO....I think so!

Is this not cute or what?! I found this outfit that said CEO Chief Executive Offspring and had to get it! So I had an idea to do a picture of him in the outfit with a computer, calculator, briefcase, etc. Jim even had a real Wal-Mart badge made with his name and picture on it. Since Jim is in transportation and logistics at ISD, I added the little WMT truck. I also added an Arvest Asset Management coffee cup and folder too! Maybe his first sentence will be "Buy Buy, no sell sell!" Ha ha!

Picture is courtesy of Legacy House Photography

New Moon!

Friday night was opening night of New Moon, the 2nd movie in the Twilight series.
The girls and I have been looking forward to seeing it since the first movie last year. We all bought our tickets online a couple weeks ago and I heard they sold out a week before the show. Crazy!
Friday afternoon, Meg and Eastin came down from Michigan for the Thanksgiving holiday. Eastin dropped off Meg at my house to stay with me while he went hunting with his buddies. We met up with the girls at Noodles in Fayetteville for dinner before the movie!

me and Meg

Dara, Meg, Julie and me

Mischelyn, Allison and Susan

We also celebrated Allison's birthday!
The crowds weren't near as crazy as last year (thank goodness) and the movie was really good!
Looking forward to next movie, Eclipse next year!

7 Months old!

Andrew turned 7 months old last week!

He has been crawling for a month now and is now standing in crib...A LOT! He would rather stand in his crib than nap sometimes. He always wants to climb EVERYTHING! Life is becoming more difficult with quick crawler and climber. Luckily, the house is babyproof. ;)

Here is a quick video of Andrew crawling around...

Busy week!

After Christian and I returned from Branson, I had to drive down to Van Buren Sunday night. I was scheduled to take my CE (continuing education) for my investment licenses. I was able to sleep in a little at Pops and GoGo's house Monday morning. Then I had brunch at Calico County with Ann.

Wednesday, my cousin Tammy came up to spend the day with me. We had lunch at MiMi's and walked around the Promenade. Then we picked up Andrew from Mother's Day Out and Christian from school and she got to play with the boys all afternoon. Then when Jim got off work, we went to have dinner together at Bonefish, one of my favorite places to eat!

Friday night, I had dinner at PF Changs with my ladies in Mom's Ministry class. We sat and visited at the Borders coffee shop after dinner until it closed! We had so much fun! I hope to be able to host a game night at my house next semester!

Saturday night, Jim and I had a date night! We saw Broadway Bound at the Rogers Little Theater. Tonight, Jim cooked steaks out on the grill and they were so good!

After all that, I have no pics to share. Oh well. We had a nice and relaxing Sunday afternoon and have a quiet week ahead. Now counting down to Meg's visit on Friday and going to see New Moon with my gal pals!

Branson vacation!

This past weekend, I took Christian on a mini vacation to Branson, just the two of us!
Since Andrew was born, I have not been able to spend any one-on-one time with Christian, so I thought this would be a great way to do so! Plus, I got to get a little break from washing bottles, laundry and cleaning house. ;) I checked him out of school after lunch recess and we hit the road!

We stopped about halfway at Roaring River.


We got to Branson around 3pm in time to check-in to our hotel then off to our first show....
Dixie Stampede!

We walked by the stables and read the names of all the horses!


Christian and I really enjoyed the show. It was the Christmas show and my favorite part was the live nativity scene! Christian liked that we ate without silverware. Ha! It was a really neat and entertaining show!


Our hotel was right next door to the Titanic! I took Christian to this exhibit this summer and he loved it!

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel then went swimming in the hotel's indoor heated pool. Christian thought it was crazy swimming indoors but loved it!

After swimming, we got ready to see the Holiday Parade down Hwy 76. We carried our lawn chairs to the end of the parking lot of the hotel and got to see the whole parade right in front of us! We saw all the Branson stars-Andy Williams, The Osmonds, Lennon Sisters, etc.

Andy Williams

Christian waved his Dixie Stampede flag during the parade
He loved the marching band best of all!

We had lunch at Montana Mike's then took a nap. We then went to see Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan at The Mansion. It was sooo good! Christian really enjoyed the songs! I was so impressed with Cathy Rigby's performance. She truly took on the persona of Peter Pan and at age 57 moved around like a kid! VERY impressive! If you plan to go to Branson in the next few weeks, I would definitely recommend seeing it!


After the show, we stayed around to meet Peter Pan!

After Peter Pan, we went to Silver Dollar City!


The weather was absolutely beautiful that night,
we did not even need a jacket while we were outside.
We got to Silver Dollar City in time to grab some sandwiches for dinner and grab a spot to watch the parade right up front. We REALLY lucked out on that because there were SO many people there. We heard some people saying there were over 20,000 that had passed through the gates so far that day. Needless to say, it was crowded. But we did enjoy seeing the lights and the parade.




I have only been to Silver Dollar City only once before during their Christmas celebration.
It was when Jim and I were dating 13 years ago, he took me to Branson to see all the Christmas lights! It was fun seeing them again with Christian!

On Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel then checked out and went shopping!
We went to the Grand Village shops, I like to look at all the Christmas trees at the Kris Kringle Christmas store and Christian got a sailboat from the toy store. Then we went to the Tangier Outlet Mall. I got the boys some cute matching jammies and Christmas bibs for Andrew!

On the way home, we stopped at Roaring River again and fed the fish.

While shopping at the outlet mall, we saw a few babies and Christian said, "Aahhh, a baby. Mom, I miss our baby." I replied, "Me too, little buddy". It melted my heart! :)

So what did Jim and Andrew do while we were gone you ask???

Jim was excited to spend some time with Andrew, just the two of them. They did go to Pops and GoGo's house on Saturday to visit. Jim got to play golf while Pops and GoGo bonded with Andrew too.

GoGo really enjoyed feeding Andrew!

I truly had a WONDERFUL time with Christian this weekend! He is such a delight and feel so blessed to have such a sweet boy!

When we got home Sunday, I was able to kiss and love on Andrew for awhile and give him his bottle before going to bed. Christian really missed his baby brother too...

Report cards already?!

A couple weeks ago, Jim and I had our first parent/teacher conference with Christian's kindergarten teacher. She had nothing but wonderful things to say about him!
She said he is doing so well--follows directions, gets along with all the kiddos, and is very polite.
She says she feels like she is talking to a "little man" when she talks with him because he talks with such "maturity". I hope that continues! She said our conference was one of the shortest ones she had because there were no problems or issues to discuss! Yeah!

They have done a couple sets of testing already on the kids this year, the STAR Early Literacy Assessment, he was an "emerging reader" meaning he has already developed reading skills (sight word recognition, etc). On the Qualls Early Learning test he got "developed" on each area, which means he has mastered all behaviors that are important for success in school. These are general knowledge, oral communication, written language, math concepts, work habits and attentive behavior. Can you tell we are new parents to a kid in public school?! Ha!
We are so proud of Christian!

Halloween activities!

Friday after school, we headed to do trick or treating at Jim's office. GoGo even came up to join the fun! All of the families of WMT ISD employees get to come to the office and go trick or treating---cubicle by cubicle! It is always fun seeing all the costumes and the cubicles decorated for Halloween!

Though Andrew was not in his costume, he was wearing a bib that had a pirate on it that said "trick or treat". He really enjoyed strolling around the building watching all the kiddos too!

Fall Festival

Friday night was Christian's fall festival at his school. Pops came up to watch Andrew so Jim and I could take Christian. Thanks Pops!

The school had hot dogs, pizza, caramel apples and a chili contest! We enjoyed all of it!

Christian played lots of games...

football throw--he got 2 out of 3! future quarterback???

pumkin toss

and even a toilet bowl throw! Christian thought this one was the funniest!


Christian even got to play with some of his friends from class!

Brianna's Halloween Party!

On Saturday, Christian and I went to Brianna's Halloween party! Brianna is one of Christian's good friends from church (her mommy is one of my good friends from Mom's Ministry too!)

Brianna and Christian

The kids had crafts, games and there was tons of yummy Halloween food like fingers (carrots with almonds as fingernails) and brains (spaghetti)!

After the Halloween party, I took the boys to get their picture made at Legacy House which was doing a Halloween special--take the kiddos to get their picture made and no sitting fee!
I posted the picture in the blog entry below, but here it is again...

So cute!

On Halloween night, I took Christian trick or treating in our neighborhood (as always) but this year decided to go to Rogers to Highland Knolls subdivision. Lots of my friends from church live there and they say they always get lots of trick or treaters, so we decided to join the fun!
It was great! There were lots of people and one house even had a haunted graveyard!
Christian filled his pumpkin bucket with candy! I am sure we will be eating on his candy for awhile! Last year, I had to throw it out at Easter! Ha!

After Christian went to bed (all hyped up on candy), Jim and I relaxed and watched the 1968 version "Night of the Living Dead" on AMC. I have a rule of always watching a scary movie on Halloween night! Boo!