Over the River and Through the Woods...

This Thanksgiving, we packed up the car and headed to West, By God, Virginia. We went to Nanny B.'s house in the mountains and had so much fun with Andy, Alyssa, the boys and Nanny! Dan and Carol were on a cruise with her sister and brother-in-law, Jamie and Erin were with her family, and Katie was with David and his family. We missed everyone, but it was nice having Thanksgiving back at Nanny's. I have missed having Thanksgiving there. We have outgrown her house (too many of us!!! and we are still growing....) and we have been going to a camp not too far from our house, but since last year's horrible Thanksgiving, we are hesitant to return. For the story on that click HERE. We had a great Thanksgiving morning watching the parade. One local band was in the parade! We then picked up our turkey from the grocery store (already cooked AND sliced!!!-Thanks Mimi!). That is the way to make turkey! Everything else was made by us, including homemade rolls! Yum! Everyone enjoyed supper! We had pumpkin pie for dessert, of course. On Friday, we woke up to a little dusting of snow, so the kids rushed to get dressed to play outside. We left Nanny to rest while we went to hike at a beautiful water fall. There was more snow up there and Wilson couldn't help but lick all the snow he could! He was licking it off of benches even! It was a nice hike and all the kiddos had fun! After returning and getting the littlest ones down for a nap, the girls all went "shopping" at Dollar General (the ONLY store in town). I got some Secret Santa gifts for school, so I considered the trip a success. After we returned, Daniel took Meg and Andy out to shoot his new gun. Meg said it was loud, but she actually pulled the trigger with help from her Uncle Roo. She did great. We all enjoyed a nice supper of pizza....we had already had enough turkey for the day. That evening, Meg, Lily, and Wilson performed for us. Meg sang some of her chorus songs, then Lily assisted (along with her baby, Turnip) in singing Turkey in the Straw. Then we did the Turkey Dance (which I did not photograph due to the fact that I was dancing with Wilson). It was lots of fun to watch. Andy was told by Uncle Bill to take pics, so I am sure I will have some more to post later when those are developed--taken the old fashioned way---35 mm. We headed home on Saturday morning, hoping to return home in time to watch the game. We made it back about half time, so Daniel did get to see some of it. We had a great trip and made some great memories!

Blanket of Leaves

This time of year is so fun here. In W, they have two beautiful ginkgo trees that change such a pretty yellow late in the Fall season. Once they change, the leaves fall quickly and then the college's maintenance people come and vacuum them up, so your window of opportunity is small. I took Meg to a friend's house this weekend for a sleepover and saw that the leaves had changed and layed their golden blanket on the ground. If you have never seen it, it is so pretty. The leaves are very soft and the kids had a blast playing in them. We played for a while and then had to run and take something to Daddy at drill. We called up Aunt Alyssa and Uncle Roo to see if they wanted to bring to boys out to play in the leaves with us. We met up and they had so much fun! Luke was a little scared at first (I think there were too many people....very excited people, mind you), but he warmed up after a few minutes. The girls had a blast building a pile and jumping in. Two boys that we didn't know joined in, helping them build it up. The girls also really enjoyed throwing the leaves up in the air and letting them rain down on themselves and Trey. It was so much fun....a great tradition (we had fabulous pics from last year, too-see below)

Happy Birthday, Devildogs!

Happy 232nd Birthday to our Marines, Daniel (i.e. Daddy), Uncle Jimmy, Poppy, and Uncle Uncle Bill! Semper Fi and ooorah!

Today we went downtown to the Veteran's Day parade and had lots of fun! Trey slept thru the first part of the parade and then woke up in time to see the local mounted police. We were also entertained by some veterans on motorcycle....boy, were they loud! It turned out to be a great morning for the parade...not very cold, especially if you were in the sun. We froze last year, but it is definitely worth it to show all veterans our support! So this weekend, find a veteran to say thanks to for all they do to protect us and keep us free! Go ahead...give'em a hug!

Getting older...

Trey turned 15 months old on the 27th of October and went to the doctor last week for his checkup. He weighed in at 22 pounds 13 oz. and was 32 inches tall. He has finally passed up one of the girls when they were this age, but not by much. Meg is still the clear champion at 15 months old weighing 26 pounds, 14 oz. and 32 1/2 inches tall. Lily was 22 pounds, 2 oz. and 31 3/4 inches tall. I am assuming that the boys percentile rankings are a bit different from the girls b/c Trey is in the 23rd percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. I know my girls were never below 50th percentile for anything! It just means I have a tall and skinny boy.....just like his daddy! He had to get 4 shots (yuck!), including his flu shot, but he did great and only ran a low grade fever the next day. He eats like a horse sometimes, so I will be anxious to see what he is in January for his 18 month checkup. However, if you could see him at home, you would realize he pretty much burns up every calorie he takes in! And speaking of getting older......Last night we went over to Andy and Alyssa's house for dessert to help celebrate Andy's 29th birthday. While we were there, we were treated to a drum concert courtesy of Wilson and Lily. We had peanut butter pie that Alyssa made and cupcakes because Wilson didn't think pie was for birthdays. It was yummy! Happy birthday, Roo!

Busy Busy Week!

Okay...I have been a teeny neglectful in posting, but it has been a busy week! Our week started out with the harvest party at church last Sunday evening. It was loads of fun and perfect fall weather! Then of course, we had to carve our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, so we did that on Monday night (Meg was honorary photographer for those pictures). Wednesday, of course, was trick or treating and we all had fun doing that! Lily was a kitty cat, Meg was Kirsten from American Girls and Trey was Blues Clues (or Blue dog as we called him). We could not have asked for better weather...not too hot and not too cold! Friday brought us Meg's first chorus festival held in the next county over and included about 5 other counties as well. There were two choral groups performing with about 200 in each group. Meg's group went first and sounded awesome! She was so excited (and a little nervous!). So needless to say, my slide show is a bit of a menagerie of photos from the course of the week. I hope you enjoy it and the clip of one of Meg's songs during the performance.