An early Merry Christmas!

Jeff and I have started the tradition of alternating which family we spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with each year. This year, it was my family's turn for Thanksgiving and we will be in Tampa for Christmas. Since this was our only chance to have all the family together, we decided to go ahead and celebrate Christmas at Thanksgiving. We decorated my grandmother's tree the day before Thanksgiving and then got up Thursday and opened gifts. The girls even wore their Christmas clothes (and then changed into more Thanksgiving appropriate attire before lunch, haha). We had lots of fun and got some wonderful gifts. I wish I could post what we got my family, but we're giving Jeff's family the same thing, so I can't give away the secret just yet! I'll post it after Christmas - stay tuned!
Kaylin and Annlee decorate the tree!
Maryella was hamming it up for the camera. She loved sitting on the gifts!

Kaylin and Annlee sit by their piles of gifts - ready to dig in!

Happy Turkey Day!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family up in Alabama! We stayed with my grandmother in Montgomery for the first hald of our trip and it was so good to have all of our family together! That doesn't happen a whole lot these days. In this picture, Annlee and Kaylin are in front with my grandmother. Standing behind them are Jeff, my mom, me, Maryella, Trista (Max's wife), Max, my dad, Lindsey and her husband, Chris.
We ate all the yummy traditional Thanksgiving food and really enjoyed one another.
We usually have some sort of fruit salad or congealed salad, but this year, we made this cute fruit turkey! Gobble, gobble!
You can't see them very well, but Annlee and I made some really cute napkin rings. We took everyone's picture and cut them out and made them into pilgrims!
My pretty Kaylin playing in my grandmother's backyard. I have pictures of me playing in this same tree when I was younger.


My mom, my grandmother and I are making a quilt together. It's called a yo-yo quilt because it's made of lots of little circles. We layed all the pieces out on the floor to decide how it should go together. Now I'm working on sewing it together. My mom and grandmother are working on helping my sister make one. What wonderful family heirlooms these will be!

Annlee's Thanksgiving Feast

Annlee had her Thanksgiving Feast at school last Monday and she had lots of fun. She looked so pretty in her Thanksgiving sweater and then she took it off for the actual feast. What a little stinker!
She had colored her own placemat and done some art work that was hanging on the walls. The kids sang a cute little song and ate muffins and butter that they had made in class.



These are some "turkey" sandwiches that Annlee and I made for her to take to school for a class snack before Thanksgiving.

Kaylin's haircut!

Kaylin has been asking for a while now to get her hair cut. I told her last week that she could, so we went today to have it done. She was so excited and I was so nervous! But it looks absolutely adorable! It really turned out very cute! Kaylin kept looking at herself in the mirror and she said that she felt new.
She was in a Variety Show at her school tonight and couldn't wait to get there to show it off to her friends. Her teacher kept on saying how much she liked it. That made Kaylin's day! The last picture is of her and her friend Carson after the show. The kindergardeners did a dance to a song called Cowboy Dance. It was precious, although we learned that we need to get there much earlier next year. We were so far in the back that we couldn't see too well and Kaylin was not on the front row, so she was kind of hidden. Still, the show was really cute and she was so proud of herself.

Kaylin's Princess Castle

This is a picture Kaylin drew today at school. She loves to draw and we frequently see pictures of castles, ballerinas, and herself as a bride or a princess. This is one of the first ones that she attempted to spell out what she had drawn! I thought she did such a good job!

Playing outside

All three girls have been battling various colds, sinus intections, ear infections and coughs. Therefore, we haven't been up to much lately other than recouperating. We finally got outside to play a couple days ago and I took these pictures. I'm so thankful for these beautiful little girls who make our lives so fun and special.

My Halloween Fairies

I hope everyone had as wonderful a night on Halloween as we did! We had so much fun! The girls all loved dressing up (with only a slight protest in the beginning from Maryella!). Sadly, my only picture of all of the girls together shows Maryella screaming, but she got over that soon enough! We went to a Halloween party at a friend's house. The hostess was so creative! The kids drank Witch's Brew (punch), ate chips and spider dip, mummy toes (pigs in a blanket), black cats (Little Debbie cakes - see picture), and made Haunted tacos. They had so much fun. Then we came home and went trick-or-treating with Jeff. We did have a little wardrobe malfunction, (notice Kaylin's outfit change), but quickly recovered. Maryella really got into the trick-or-treating part, but didn't understand why she couldn't go inside the houses when the person opened the door. She ended up having to spend most of her night in the buggy, but she was happy to just watch everything and play with her Halloween bag. It was a great night.

Kaylin, the "Moon Fairy" (she named each of them as particular fairies for the evening!)

Annlee, the "Ballerina Fairy"

Maryella, the "Butterfly Fairy"

Making Black Cats out of Little Debbie cakes

Annlee shows off her black cat (can you see the example one beside her? It was such a neat thing to make!)

Kaylin made a cute black cat also!

Maryella enjoys eating her chips and spider dip (they buried little plastic spiders in the dip!)

Kaylin and Annlee paint the dough for their Haunted Tacos with egg yoke paint.

"Trick-or-Treat!"

Kaylin enjoys eating her one piece allotment of candy for the evening!

Annlee decides which piece she wants to eat tonight.

Maryella checks out her loot