Thanksgiving 2011

My insane hand washing from the week before last was not in vain...all of us stayed pink eye free! Thank goodness! I made up for staying at home everyday too; last week, I believe we ran errands every singe day. I wore the girls and myself out. :)

We are definitely in full Christmas mode around here. But before it's completely too late, I want to share a few pictures from our Thanksgiving. The week was consumed with lots of cooking and baking. I spent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at my grandmothers house learning how to make her cornbread dressing. It's the best ever and I meticulously jotted down notes as we cooked.

We started our festivities at Jeremy's grandmothers house. Jon Jon took the girls outside and they picked satsumas and had a great time on the swing.

EC ate her weight in satsumas from Nan's tree.

Nan got to love on Gracie while the big girls played outside. We celebrated Nan's 85th birthday the weekend of Thanksgiving!

Later that night we went to my parents house for another huge meal. I made homemade yeast rolls and added each one with a surprise. :) The day before Thanksgiving I asked everyone in our family to name a few things they were thankful for. I typed them all up, cut them out and placed one in each roll. As each roll was eaten we shared what was on the paper. I got the recipe and the idea from here.

The only picture I have of the finished product is this one below. You can see the rolls, rolled like crescent rolls in the top left. I didn't do a good job taking pictures that night. After all that baking and eating, I was beat!

I also made this homemade toffee. It was so easy! Hopefully I can get it together and share that recipe soon.

Moms yummy sweet potato soufflé.

Ready to pray and eat!

It was a wonderful day, spent with family. Doesn't get any better than that!

dec 2011 header

A long week, but still thankful!

Last week was a very long one around this house. It started off with a bang Monday morning, when Ella Claire woke up with a nasty cold and gooky eyes that were closed shut. Sure hope you aren't reading this and eating your breakfast. :) I knew right away it was pink eye and was hoping the doctor would just call in some drops and we wouldn't have to go into the office. But, because of her cold they wanted to see her. So, off I went with both girls in the cold weather. I decided to take Gracie along too because I had been putting off her first round of immunizations. She's had a lingering stuffy nose from the cold we all had weeks ago.  After a long visit with both girls, my speculations were right, pink eye in both eyes! So, with hoping we wouldn't spread our germs to anyone else,  I quarantined us to the house for the rest of the week. And. it. was. a. long. week. Did I already say that? :)

Thank goodness Gracie, Jeremy or myself have not gotten it! Praying it stays that way! By friday, my hands were dry and cracking because of the frequent washing. On top of EC being sick, Jeremy had a sinus infection and didn't feel his best. But, we all made it!

I didn't get around to posting all the many things I am thankful for this year, but good health is definitely one of them. Maybe I should just go down a bunny trail and mention a few things I am thankful for. This year has been one of the most trying ones I have experienced. Through many circumstances God has shown His faithfulness to us again and again. Without going into boring details, we have learned to completely trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding (Prov. 3:5). How many times will we have to learn that lesson??!!?? :) I am thankful for the trials, they have a way of drawing us nearer to Him.

Jeremy has been given an incredible opportunity to open a new business with my brother and continue to work full time for my parents company. This is, like I said a wonderful opportunity, but it has been a challenge and a rather large adjustment for us as a family, mainly because of the amount of hours Jeremy is putting in each week. We have been doing our best to, "Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let our request be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)"; and He is answering our prayers just about as quickly as we can speak them. It just reminds me of His love for us and that is another thing I am so thankful for! Exodus 14:14 has become one of my favorite scriptures, and it says, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Such a simple little verse, yet so powerful and comforting. Jeremy and I like to text that one to each other as a reminder.

Well, I started this post complaining about my rough week and after typing those verses, it's hard to go back to a grumbly mood! I guess I'll just share a few pictures from my phone from the last few weeks and call it a post. ;)

EC has had lots of birthday parties to attend recently. She got to jump in one of these. Little does she know, she is getting one for Christmas from Noni and Papa. Can't wait to see how excited she will be about that!

This was Titus' birthday party. You might remember his farm animal first birthday from last year.

Laura Katherine turned 2 and had a fun birthday party also! They matched!

I have a spider monkey in the house. EC is constantly climbing on things and her Aunt Jess and Uncle Bri have very lovingly nicknamed her spider monkey. Apparently, we can come up with some crazy nicknames around here. Brian mentioned calling her "trunk monkey." I drew the line with that one, though. It doesn't suit my sweet girl! :) Anyway, so now, when I say, "Ella Claire are you my pumpkin pie, my sweet pea, my Ella Claire bear?" She simply replies, "No, spider monkey!" Here are a few pics of her climbing just from this past week.

I promise I didn't put her up there. I actually watched her climb just as quickly as she could. Just effortless. I took this picture and immediately helped her down. I have to keep my eyes on this little spider monkey.

My gracie girl is growing, growing! About to out grow the moses basket. :(

I'll end this with a picture of the best gigi around! These girls love her so much and she loves them. No matter how bad her 80 year old legs ache, she is constantly trying to make them something in the kitchen. She spoiled me rotten as a child (still does) and is keeping on by spoiling and loving on all 7 of her great grandkids. Love you gigi!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving from my two tiny turkeys!!

peace, peace

I've mentioned before that Ella Claire loves for me to sing, "peace, peace" to her. I've been singing it to her since she was little and she has requested it since she could talk. Now that she is bigger, she can sing it with me, or by herself whenever she wants. I videoed her singing it the other day, and thought you might enjoy it too. Just incase you can't quite make out the words here they are..

"Peace, peace, wonderful peace, flowing down from the father above,
Sweep over my spirit forever I pray, with fathomless billows of love."

Gracie month to month: month 2

It's that time again for another monthly picture.

At 2 months, Gracie is smiling all the time and making all of those sweet baby coos and ahhhs. She is consistently sleeping 6 hours straight and has slept 8 hours once. Hopefully that'll become the new trend! She hates having a wet or dirty diaper and loves her paci. She has really great head control, but still isn't too much of a fan of tummy time.

Without further adieu, Gracie at two months...

and, because I can't seem to choose just one...

After about 10 minutes of posing and reposing, she said, "enough is enough." :)

Click here to see her at 1 month.

blessing street

It seems I might be catching up on October during the entire month of November! But, I definitely wanted to post about this years blessing street. You might remember from last year, that our church creates a "street" on our property for kids to walk down and fill their buckets with candy. The street is spray painted in the grass and is lined with "houses" that are decorated with different themes. It is similar to trunk or treat; just something fun and different for the kids to do as opposed to trick or treating.

Ella Claire was a kitty cat and Madelaine was a lady bug.

Best friends!

There was also a spooky hospital for the older kids. So Steph and Andrew came dressed in their scrubs to help with that.

The newly weds! How amazing is this sunset?!?!!

Our family of four.

I took a few pictures before we left left our house.

I'm not sure where she got her love of cats. But she and daddy got this stuffed cat from the gift shop at the hospital when Gracie was born. She loves it and sleeps with it every night. 

On the 31st, she dressed up again and we walked to 2 or 3 of our neighbors houses. Mommy even put on some face paint, and Ella Claire was loving that!

I think that's it from October. November is already proving to be busy and filled with fun. Love this time of year! Happy Monday everyone, hope your week is off to a great start!