Thanksgiving plus more

Did you forget about us? I’ve been really slacking on this blogging thing. I usually have about 80 blog posts in a year. I don’t know how that happens, but it does. 78, 79, 80….. and this year, 51. Don’t be so glum about it. I plan on posting 30 times in the next month to catch up.
Kidding.
But seriously, the thought did cross my mind.

Anyhoo, here I am.
And we had a great Thanksgiving break that I want to share…

My Dad usually spends Thanksgiving with us, and we had high hopes that he could visit again. But it didn’t work out. We sure missed him though. (yes, I question what we are doing living over here… daily). But, we have some amazing friends who invited us over. We spent Thanksgiving day in the company of so many great people! And my kids were surrounded by friends to play with.  
 

The Burkhart’s hosted all of us. The adult table (where no one is sitting by their spouses)…

The kid’s table…

And the babies…

The food was delicious! I ate my first FRIED turkey and it was to die for. My favorite part of the turkey is the skin (I know, gross huh… I don’t expect to live too long). I was in Heaven just looking at all the fried skin. The big question is… why haven’t I had a fried turkey before this year?

After eating MUCH more food than I could possibly hold, we all headed to the park to eat some pie and visit more, while the kids ran their energy out.

My pie eaters… still in turkey coma’s.

Our family

The next day we headed out to get ourselves a Christmas tree. We searched hi and low for a tree farm that had decent looking fir trees. Nothing. Evidently, those type trees don’t grow in the soil here. So, we were looking at a 4 hour drive. We opted to buy a pre-cut tree down the street. I spent the rest of the day with a frown, until I realized that the kids didn’t care…. they just wanted to decorate!

Since this is Kennedy’s first Christmas, she got to put up the tree topper. She had no idea what to do, so she did was she does best… and ate it.
So close…
   

Then the kids got busy decorating. Oh, you noticed that huge light fixture? Yes, this is our dining room. No, we don’t have a dining table. Just a tree.

Shawn took a bunch of pictures of the kids and I hanging ornaments. This blurry one was the most flattering.

I love how I have to spent twice as long to re-distribute all of the ornaments after they’ve been hung. My kids are big on ‘bunching’, and hanging in strange places. For instance, this poor soldier who made it onto the tree, but never left the ground…
 

All finished and ready for Christmas!

Election Day

Tomorrow is the big day, November 6…. Election Day. There has been months of speeches, debates, commercials, tv specials, and more…. all building up to this final day. Tomorrow will determine which man will take lead as our President. Before you head to the polls, I want to ask you to consider one more candidate.

Jefferson L. Skinner

I know, you can hardly vote for someone you don’t know. Especially if you haven’t heard his speech, and “plan.”
That’s why I’m here to share his speech with you……

Jefferson wrote this speech himself. He read it to his class last week. The kids voted. The top 3 runners were picked to perform their speeches again, for another vote, on election day.
This is a tight race, folks, and he needs all the votes he can get.
I know a lot of you have already made your decisions for President.
But if you’re one of those ‘undecided’ voters, perhaps you might find this runner to be more suitable.

BOO!!

It’s Halloween time again. Its not my favorite holiday, but I try to be a good sport. Making costumes is what makes it exciting for me… oh, and eating my kids candy.
The kids had the day off of school. I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, by definition it is a Holiday. But I don’t think it ranks up there with Easter, or Thanksgiving, or certainly not Christmas! I would place it in the Valentines day and Grandparents Day category. But that’s just me.

This year the boys wanted to dress as “Where’s Waldo” characters. They are mildly obsessed with the books. Grant was Waldo and Jefferson was Odlaw   

We had someone say they loved Grant’s “Harry Potter costume,” and another said Jefferson made a “cute bumblebee.” WHAT?
What do you think?
Do their costumes resemble these….

Or these?….
 
Okay, maybe it’s a close call with the bumblebee.

Luckily, it was unmistakable that Kennedy was an elephant…. the cute squeezable kind.
 

Don’t confuse her with the other flying elephant.

And Reagan was Little Red Riding Hood. After the costume was made she insisted on being Cinderella. I think she inherited my indecisiveness.
  

On Saturday we had trunk-or-treat at church. I grabbed a shirt from our costume box…. and Shawn was even more creative by wearing his white coat. We’re awesome!

Monday night we spent at our friends, the Burkhardt’s, carving pumpkins. The kids had fun gutting the pumpkins, but lost interest when it came to carving.
 

This was the first year we attempted to carve an actual design in our pumpkin. It was super hard, and I respect all those detailed pumpkins now. Ours is the witch.

Halloween night we went out with our neighborhood friends…
You would think trick-or-treating was torturing Grant.

Me, perhaps a little too excited.

The kids got really excited when the fire truck came through the neighborhood and stopped to give away candy.

We came home with an ABSURD amount of candy… and bags full of cotton candy!

Kennedy didn’t want to be left out…

The boys took out a few favorites, and left the rest for the Switch Witch. At the last minute, Reagan decided to leave out her candy too.
So, all of our Halloween candy is gone, and the boys have a new Lego set. I love the Switch Witch!

I just realized something. This post is really long… as long as an Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas post. Maybe Halloween is a bigger holiday than I originally thought. and maybe having the day off school was fitting.

We hope you had a fun Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Kennedy dressed up as a little pumpkin. 
She would make the most delicious pumpkin pie…. we might just have to bake her and gobble her up!

Raven Rock

It’s always fun moving to a new area and exploring nearby sites. Last weekend we discovered a State Park just 30 minutes from us.
Raven Rock State Park is a beautiful area that borders the Cape Fear River. The park is named for a rock formation that juts out along the mountainside. According to the information center, the rocks span 1 mile along the length of the river and are 150 ft high. It’s a landmark of the “fall zone”, an area where the hard rocks of the foothills meet the soft rocks of the coastal plain. (No, I did not copy that. Those facts came right out of my head).

I know how much everyone loves hearing all the details of this park… so I’ll continue…

It’s scattered with trails. We chose the 2.6 mile trail. The narrow trail was just beautiful. My mother-in-law just sent me a new field guide… which of course we brought along (oh, you didn’t know we were field guide junkies?), we were able to identify some deadly poisonous mushrooms…. like the Fly Amanita and Destroying Angel. We couldn’t figure out the last one, but decided it was best not to eat it, just in case.
 

View from the outlook. I was excited to see a few fall colors from up here. We have mostly pine trees and I’ve  been really missing the yellow, orange, and red tones of Fall.

When we got to the river we had to trek down 100 steps….

and we found ourselves at the end of the trail. Thank you Shawn, for pointing it out to us. And just about breaking Kennedy’s neck.

We had a ton of fun climbing and exploring the rock formation.

Seriously, I had to zoom in this picture so you could see the joy on their faces.
  

Check out the roots of this tree!

Shawn and I with our red-head baby….

What fun… the kids ran around for a while, then it was time to hike back.  We’re definitely going back… we’ve got more trails to hike.