Thankful For {An Always} Busy Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend is always a busy weekend for us.  This year did not disappoint!  We had lot of festivities planned and family in town.

My only Thanksgiving decorations...glittered letters.

The first event was $1 Night at Carmella's Pizza.  To celebrate The Browns and The Bagwells getting here we went to only the fanciest of restaurants.  Nora took some pictures of her cousins at dinner.

Elle

Emma

Wednesday was Millie's 2nd birthday party day! The Johnsons made it into town before that party.  Millie's actual birthday is November 24th but we all know that there were TOO many big events on that day!  The birthday party theme was 'Sweet As Pie'.  It went along with the  abundance of pie at Thanksgiving.  I didn't take many pictures of the decorations or during the party, but here's a few:

Pies, pies, & more pies.  A whole table of pies.

Tissue paper pom poms above the pie table

Fabric pennants as decoration inside & out

The birthday girl in her pie dress!

The girls enjoying one of the kids tables with  a matching tablecloth for the party.

My Dad & Vivian came for the party.  They came a little early to spend some time with the girls before all the craziness.  It was nice because we were all busy putting the last minute things together for the party.  I think Nora really enjoyed the trip to McDonald's with them too!

Nora & Grandpa 

Nora & Vivian

Nora really like Millie's bow on her present.

With Grandpa & her colorful hair

Next thing we knew it was party time!  First up was 'Pie in the Face'.

The girls watching the pie throwing...well sort of.

Elle geting Xan with a pie

Ruby getting Elle with a pie

Riley helped Nora 'clean up' by playing in the water.  She loved it.

After the game, we all came in to eat soup, salad, & of course pie.  Millie had a candle in a slice of choice of pie.  Nora enjoyed her pie and a few other peoples.  Eventually a pie eating contest was won and presents were opened. 

Millie's baby doll stroller was a hit

This thanksgiving was hosted by my Mom & Steve.  The kids had a great time exploring the area.  We refer to it as the Ponderosa.  I didn't know the stuff they found was even back there!  Nora LOVES having famiy in town.  Especially all the cousins.

Elle & Beau

Beau? & Emma

Elle & Riley

Nora joining the big kids

She loves Uncle Xan!  She even woke him up extra early every morning!

Thanksgiving started off right.  Let me first say, I have some fabulous aunts.  One of them is having a baby in January so we decided to have a little family shower.  This is her 4th kid and 3rd boy so we wanted something small but cute.  A new trend is to have a 'sprinkling' instead of a 'shower' for moms that have already had a baby...so that's just what we did.  A Sprinkled With Love sprinkling.  It was breakfast at our house at 8:30 Thanksgiving morning.  It was a surprise shower for the whole family.  We had a pancake bar that you could 'sprinkle' your toppings on and lots of sprinkled doughnuts.  We played a couple of games and sprinkled them with gifts.

Brown girls enjoying the food

A hungry Beau

 We played smell-the-melted-candy-bar-in-the-diapers.

Aaron doing all but tasting it!

Riley & Elle wouldn't be smiling if it was real!

Thanks to the Browns for this DARLING outfit!

We played who-can-drink-the-bottle-first.  It wasn't as easy as it sounds.

Drink, drink, drink Riley, Elle, & Emma!

Go Lily, Beau, & Ruby!

Then, Thanksgiving had to move on.  We enjoyed a full meal complete with 2 fried turkeys.

Lily & the Men

Everyone cracked open their crackers and put on their party hats!

We even had a toy to keep us entertained while we each told what we were thankful for  & waited our turn to get food.

That evening it was on to other events.  Lily's baptism!  She waited for us to all be together and was baptized at the Hilliard building where her Dad was!  It was a small gathering (of just us 20+) and soo special.  We LOVE Lily!  She is such a sweet, easy girl!

Family

Nora & Lily

Now November 24th is a BUSY holiday in our family.  We were grateful to celebrate with all our family.  We have so much to be thankful for and lucky to have (at least some of it) all in one day:  Food (Thanksgiving), Family (Shower, Millie's Birthday), Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ (Baptism), & Each Other.  Aaron & I celebrated our 5th anniversary on Thanksgiving as well!  I'm so blessed to be married to him.  While we could not possibly fit another celebration in that weekend we did celebrate later.  We had a nice   date of Chick-fil-a and...BREAKING DAWN.  I'm not saying who's choice that was. =) Love him!

Wishful Thinking

We often get questioned (mostly by grandparents) about what we (especially Nora) want for Christmas.  We have wish lists that we update periodically to give those family members ideas.  They are the same ones from last year...but just in case you lost it, here are the links:

Our family one:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=gno_listpop_wi

Nora only:  http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/1QFPRZYIL78VW/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go_o

Welcoming Fall

Saturday, October 29th was a busy day for us!  We went to the fall festival at The Greenway in Fort Mill.  It was fun!  We went through the walked around, went through the corn maze, went to the petting zoo, & let Nora play in the toddler's maze made out of bales of hay.  Nora loved the animals (of course!) anFd the maze ended up being quite bigger than we were expecting.  We kept talking about how we wished there was something like it when we were growing up in Fort Mill!  We're definitely going again next year!

In the corn maze

Found a 'chair' to take a break in the toddler's maze.

The toddler's maze

Crawling through the maze.

There were chickens.

 And a pony.

The pony was definitely her favorite.

Very interested in seeing the pony eat.

There was a llama!  There were also other animals we didn't take pictures of.

That evening we went to our Trunk or Treat at church.  Nora & I went as sushi.  Aaron begrudgingly agreed to be the soy sauce.  I made it them (yay for bettering my sewing skills!) except Aaron sewed his own lid hat.  I only cut the pieces out.  Impressive, huh?That was our 2nd halloween party this year.  I have to say I am surprised with the lack of creativity in people's costumes.  It's not difficult!  Even more I am annoyed with people's inability to use their imagination and thinking skills to figure out what someone's costume is.  Is it really that people are just that lazy that they don't want to 'try' to figure it out?  Or is it that no one wants to be wrong, so they don't even try to guess?  Either way it definitely was discouraging after all the hours I put into our costumes.  I mean Nora & I even had wasabi & ginger in our hair with the fake grass underneath them!  At one party people told me numerous times what a cute jack-o-lantern Nora was.  You can't tell from the pictures, but the orange on her outfit definitely is a headless fish...with a tail...if you take the time to look.  Oh well.

Happy Halloween from our family!

Jack & his 'frenemy' Nora
Frenemy=friend & enemy all at once...Jack's Dad coined it.  She loves Jack, but also loves to hit & push him. 

Sushi girls

Couldn't you just eat her??

This year was Nora's first year trick or treating.  She was a trooper and caught on quickly.  It was quite cold outside here.  Nora loved walking with the other kids in the neighborhood, but never got the 'trick or treat' part.

Off to trick or treat!

This crazy girl was so excited going up to people's houses that she tried to go inside on multiple occasions.  When they came to the door and opened it, she'd take off.  Forget candy, she wanted to see if there was anything better inside...like toys!  Don't worry, we always managed to get her before she got past the entry.  Nora made it down 2 streets (being carried most of the way) before she was over it.  Oh, and she definitely wanted the candy once we got home.

Waiting to get inside a neighbor's house.

Finally home to Grandma (LaLa) passing out candy!