Pre-Thanksgiving Festivities

We haven't travelled to Georgia for a holiday in 2 years, so we've been excited for Thanksgiving this year. We started our journey on Friday afternoon, and drove until 3:30am (eastern time). It was a rough trip, but the kids did great. Saturday morning I got up with the kids, got them fed/dressed/situated while Dave slept a little. By 9:30, I got him up and Molly and I headed out for a day of shopping. We got a sitter for the kids that night, and we had a nice kid-free dinner at an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, no pics were taken. :-( But plenty of memories were made...

On Sunday morning we headed up to Braselton and spent 2 days with the Batusics and their clan. It's been awhile since the kids spent time together, and they had a blast! Their backyard is every kid's dream.

Dinner with 6 kids, 6 and under gets pretty crazy.

I absolutely love this lady!!!!

How do you get 4 of the 6 to sit still for a minute so the adults can eat their dinner? Turn on the TV. Works every time!

Of course, the little people need assistance with their dessert...

THIS is why she's one of my best friends

before we gave them their dessert, I made them do the "chocolate cake dance." Jake's was the best....

Crew was a BIG fan of the digger

these 4 boys spent HOURS building a fort/house (with William's supervision, of course)

William was very excited to take Reggie and Macy for a walk

Paci/Straw buddies

Allie LOVED having her back scratched!

We had the best time with the Batusic clan. Now, maybe they can come visit us in Texas?

On to our next adventure...Lookout Mountain, Georgia!

Feast

Last Friday, William had a big Thanksgiving Feast at school. One of the things we love about William's school is that they really integrate all the grades at the school. He has 2 Seniors that have adopted his class-- a boy and a girl. They occasionally come play with them at recess. And each first grader has a 6th grade reading buddy. I'm not exactly sure how it works, as William isn't the greatest at relaying that sort of information!!  But, the Thanksgiving feast was for the 1st and 6th graders, and they each got to eat lunch with their reading buddy. It was very fun, and William thought it was pretty awesome to eat with his buddy, Tristan.

Family Day

A few weeks ago Bell had an event for the whole family. The kids were super excited to get to go where daddy works...see the helicopter Daddy has been working so hard on, watch a helicopter demonstration, eat yummy food, and of course, play on the bounce houses!  It did not disappoint. 

 We got to see the mockup of the big helicopter (Relentless) Dave has been working on, and we even got to get inside of it, which the kids thought was a blast.

It was a fun day!!

What a privilege!!!

One of the most important duties I have as an American citizen is to vote, and I LOVE it. I love being part of the process. I love sharing with the boys how important it is. Granted, in Texas, it really doesn't matter when it comes to Presidential elections, as Texas always has and always will, go to the Republican. But, when the votes are in, and I see the little "ticker" at the bottom of the screen with the number of popular votes, I like to see that my vote it in there. 

The elections don't always go "my" way, but my Hope is not in the governing authorities of our country!

I was very excited to take William with me to vote. He really enjoyed seeing how it works, and I even let him color in one of the boxes!

Hudson watching the returns...

Lizzie and Kelly-- and sweet baby Leif

This was a "re-enacted" pic from 4 years ago.

here's the pose from the 2008 election. Pretty close, don't you think?

I got to feed sweet baby Leif his very first bottle! And he took it like a champ. Love that baby!

There are SO many things wrong with this pic. We were attempting a "re-enactment" of a similar pic from 4 years ago, but wow.
1. PHOTO BOMB by our friend Philip
2. Is Cindy chocking?
3. Does my mom's head look like it's been pasted on? Freaky.
4. We all just generally have disturbing looks on our faces.

Maybe a little bit better:

This is the pic from 2008:

Philip was still feeling a bit optimistic:

Regardless of the results, we had a good time with friends and family watching the returns come in. The thing that freaked us all out is that the next Presidential election William will be 10, Hudson will be 8, and Crew will be 5. YIKES!

Halloween

Trick or Treating with a big group of our friends has become quite the tradition, and we love it! I think this was our 4th year all together, and we grew it a bit this year. It's so fun roaming the neighborhood with a big clan of friends.

William and Hudson both picked Obi-Wan-Kenobi from Star Wars (pretty sure because they wanted light sabers. They've been begging for them for quite sometime). I thought for sure they'd pick an Avengers character or a Transformer since that's what their into these days. But, alas, I let them pick what they wanted to be, not what I wanted them to be.

Crew has yet to form an opinion, and I found these skeleton jammies the other day, and I thought they were super cute. (He's mad because William took away his light saber)

Our neighbor gave these to the boys. How funny?

The gaggle of kids we went trick-or-treating with--minus 2. The Statue of Liberty and the Sparkle Witch came a bit later.

House numbero uno:

Parents "manning" the streets:

Can someone please tell me who the kid in the middle is dressed up as? We were very perplexed (and disturbed):

FINALLY! Crew got out of the stroller. Mommy was mean and kept him strapped in for the majority of the evening. He hasn't learned about holding hands or following us, so we just had to!

Crew got to trick-or-treat!

He was so excited for the little candy bar!

When we got home, the kids unloaded their candy and gorged themselves. It's the one day of the year that they're allowed to eat themselves sick.

It was such a fun evening, and we're already looking forward to next year!

32 and counting...

Yesterday marked another year down the hatch. It was a fun day, filled with friends and family! Crew and I spent the morning together at home while I worked (and he did some napping). 

After I finished work, we met some friends and my mom/dad and Tasha (and nieces) for some sushi. YUMMY!!!

For dinner, Dave and I went to The Mansion at Turtle Creek for dinner. I've been wanting to go here ever since we got married, but it's so expensive (and an hour away), so we've never splurged for it. Dave's mom happened to give us a gift card there for Christmas last year, and just the craziness that is our life, we hadn't used it yet. My birthday was the perfect occasion!

William picked a rose from our rose bush for Dave's shirt. He thought he needed
a boutonniere!

removing the flower...

I intended on taking pics of my food, the place, us, etc...but Dave wouldn't let me. He said "it's not that kind of place." We were in the midst of Bentley and Jaguar owners, so he didn't want me to stick out like a sore thumb (especially since I had to send my cocktail back 2 times before they got it right!). Anyway, it was a fabulous evening, amazing food, and fun to spend the evening out all fancied-up with my hubby!

I'm looking forward to Saturday evening when we get to celebrate with my family (well, the ones who live here...)