Thanksgiving, Y'all

This Thanksgiving we loaded 'er up and headed South.  Like, way south, ya'll.   

And after 137 hours on the road with two toddlers, there's nothing better than seeing that the halls are decked and that the family is there ready to start the party.

 We had lots of amazing food, of course.

These were just the appetizers.  We haven't even hit the main course yet. 

Here we go with the big dishes...aren't they pretty?

My sister-in-law shared the story of the first Thanksgiving with the kids.  Then we ate.

I cleaned my plate.  I even ate the sweet potatoes with pineapple chunks.  And I'd do it again.

The cousins all had a blast together. Cousins are great, aren't they? 

They've always got your back.

And they'll carry you through the rough times.

But they will throw you down in a wrestling match. 

Men.

I would have gotten a better picture if I hadn't been scared for my life. 

We all had a blast.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all our hosts and hostesses. :-) 

You Are What You Eat

I love Google. 

You can type in a phrase like "turkey cookies" and before you know it, you've spent your whole day getting all Thanksgivingy.  (What?  Spell check doesn't recognize that word??)

Anyway, we made turkey cookies today.

Any serious baker needs her own apron.

Brooke is getting really good at baking!  She cracks eggs like a pro.  No shells or anything.

Here they are...

Happy turkey day, from my little turkeys to yours.

Inspiration

I've been a little short on things to blog about lately.  Which got me thinking about inspiration...

You can find inspiration in all sorts of places, you know.  Like right under your nose.

For example, this inspires me to get ready for Thanksgiving and be thankful...

 (How stinkin' cute is that?!?)

This inspires me to get in the Christmas spirit...

They inspire me to try to be a better person...

This inspires me to be still and listen...

And this inspires me to be thankful.
And to get in the Christmas spirit.
And to try to be a better person.
And to be still and listen...

Have an inspired kind of day. 

Remember When...

Remember when I used to have a blog?  I wrote stuff and took pictures? 

Remember??

Scot has been out of town for a couple of weeks, so blogging has gone from a fun hobby to another chore on the list.  Who needs that?

But I'm back now.  

Not much has been going on over the last couple of weeks.  I'm not sure what I would have said if I'd have had the time to say it. 

We did get to do something fun last Wednesday.  I loaded us up and drove down to Grandma and Papa's house.  The weather was incredible! And with two grandparents there to help chase my kiddos around, I finally got to pick up the camera again.  And, you know, sit for a second or two.

We hog-tied Grandma and dragged her kicking and screaming to the DQ. ;-) Because there can't be many play-at-the-park-and-go-get-ice-cream days left, you know.  That's reason enough for us.

Nathan is looking like a kid.  How is that possible?  Last year at this time he was 4-month-old baby and now he's a kid.  Next year he'll be taller than me and asking to borrow the car.

Papa's back must be stronger than mine.

The trees were so bright and colorful, even the kids noticed. By the way, this could be my last leaf picture of the season.  A moment of silence, please.





More to come soon.  Promise.

Ramblings

When I taught sixth grade English, I forced encouraged my students to keep a journal.  A few times every week we'd pull out the journals and have a free-write time.  My students were responsible to write about something.  It didn't matter what the topic as long as it was appropriate (you'd think that would be a no-brainer). They just had to write.

On free-write days, I had this exact conversation about 50 times with various students:
Me:  Little Johnny, why aren't you writing? Why are you instead talking/ defacing school property/driving me crazy?
L.J.: I can't think of anything to write about.
Me:  Just write about something.
L.J.: I can't think of anything to write about.
Me: Just start writing. Something will come to you.
L.J.:  (Rolls eyes. Writes something, or at least pretends to write something to appease annoying teacher.)

So here I am with my little blog and over a week with nothing to write about. And I remember what I used to tell my students.

It makes me want to roll my eyes, too.  That advice is annoying.  But I'll try it.

Nothing much has been going on around here.  Scot was out of town last week, so I was busy, busy running after my two. 

I remember back when I was expecting Nate and I was scared half to death about having two.  I had no idea how I was going to take care of a two-year-old and a newborn.  A friend encouraged me.  "They never go through tough stages at the same time," she told me.  "It's so funny how when one is tough, the others are easy, like they know you can't handle any more stress."

She lied.

Oh, you know I love my two.  I hope it's obvious.  But, God bless their little hearts, it's been rough around here. (That's Southern for "I'm losing my mind!!")

Sweet Nate is quite the drama king nowadays. He's perfected the art of throwing a fit at the tender age of 15 months. He's also decided to adopt a strict diet of raisins, Goldfish and blueberries.  Put anything other than that in front of him and you'll hear about it.  And homeboy has some lungs.  So that's fun.

Oh, and Brooke.  The three-year-old fussy/whiny/pouties have hit and they've hit hard.  Girlfriend knows what she wants and when she wants it.
 

The other morning she threw a fit about each of these things within 10 minutes of waking up:

1. getting out of her pjs
2. putting on a long-sleeved shirt instead of her Snow White costume
3. putting on jeans instead of her Snow White costume
4. putting on socks
5. eating cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal

And I don't think she's supposed to throw me this look until she's at least twelve.

But you know I love my little guys. And I figure that if they both go through a rough phase at the same time, they'll both be easy at the same time, too, right? 

Right?? 

I'm going to go call my encouraging friend and tell her to tell me I'm right.

So, there's my free-write for the day. 

And I thought I didn't have anything to write about.

Halloweenies

You know I took lots of pictures of my little guys this Halloween!  It was our first "real" Halloween with trick-or-treating and the whole shebang.

Brooke was Snow White. 

And Nate was a little pumpkin...

We walked around our neighborhood and trick-or-treated for the first time.

Brooke was pumped and loved running up to the houses and saying "trick-or-treat."  She kept saying "I just want to go to one more house!"  Nathan chilled in our little red wagon, literally.  It was cool, but we brought a big blanket for him. After an hour of that we went to our church's Fall Festival.  The kids had a ball. 

So now there's more candy in our house than any small child can eat and a mama with a major sweet tooth. 

I can't win this one.

And I have all kinds of great ways to justify eating their candy.  I mean, can you imagine the dental bills?  And childhood obesity is on the rise, you know.  "Fun size?"  That's, like, 1/8 an actual candy bar. I can definitely eat at least 7 more without feeling like a total loser.

Please don't judge me.