Thankful

We had a nice Thanksgiving this year.  Ryan and I wanted to host our first holiday this year in our new house.  Our plan was that we could celebrate Thanksgiving with both families and it would motivate us to get house projects in motion. 

 

 

Layla and Shea on Thanksgiving.  They love spending time together. 

(Thank you to Cass for most of the pictures in this post!)

 

House projects...

 

I have a really hard time picking out paint colors.  At our first house, our office/playroom/Layla's room was five different colors while we lived there for seven years.  It was four different colors in the first week :)  So this time Ryan and I decided to do paint samples to avoid painting a whole room the wrong color.  A LOT of paint samples later, we finally decided on a color.  The color we picked is not even below! 

 

 

 

The color and our new chalkboard (peg board without the holes and trim)!  Thank you, Meg, for the chalkboard paint.  I love that we were able to do a big project with the paint you gave me when you moved!  Howie is pretty cute in this picture too!

 

 

Anyway, after a week and half of house projects and painting after the kids would go to bed....Thanksgiving was here!

Layla was PUMPED.

The turkey shuffle with an over juiced turkey!

My little helper!

 

Cooking my first turkey dinner was a bit chaotic but ended up fine thanks to help from Cathy, my mom and sister.  Thank you to Frank and family and Danny and family for bringing food too!  Anyway, I had a whole schedule ready to keep me organized for the day.  Well, the last two hours were a blur and we ate an hour late...but all tasted fine (minus the chunky potatoes...more milk next time!).



 

 

 

Loving the high heels from the dress up bin!

Playing ball

Layla and Shea and the wishbone

 

 

A few pictures from the day.  It was so nice to have Ryan's parents, Corrine, Kelsey, my family, my Uncle Dan's family and Uncle Frank's family with us for Thanksgiving!   As Layla said a couple days after Thanksgiving, "Wasn't Thanksgiving a hit this year?" :) 

 

And then after a bunch of Black Friday shopping and A LOT of sleep, we rolled right into Christmas.  I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend! 

 

 

 



Have a very...

 

 

Grady @ 17 months

Grady is 17 months.   If you see him, he would remind you of a ping pong ball :)
 

Climbing

He bounces from activity to activity. person to person. book display to book display at stores and libraries (gulp). and climbing opportunity to climbing opportunity.

Grady loves:
pointing out birds in the sky.
finding bugs and proudly bringing them to you (lots of box elder bugs!).
tomatoes.
brushing his teeth.
multiple baths a day.
pointing out planes.
fresh mozzarella cheese.
saying "hi."
climbing chairs. couches, etc.
dipping food.
running free.
coloring (unfortunately, not limited to paper!).
music & playing instruments.
suckers.
having his shoes on.
being chased.
touch and feel books.
anything Layla is interested in.
drinking out of a straw.


He could do without:

sitting backwards in the car seat still (It is the somewhat new recommendation to stay backwards until 2.  We may be switching before that!).
grocery shopping (He would like to try all of the food going into the cart).
being left inside when anyone is outside.

My birdwatchers

Layla making Grady laugh during lunch

They like to brush their own teeth after we get done giving their teeth a good scrub!

 Happy 17 months, Grady! 

Doctors, Dragons and Princesses...Oh My!

Dressing up for our neighborhood block party

Layla as Doc McStuffins and Grady as the dragon

Doc McStuffins is a cute little show on Disney Jr.  I like to watch it with Layla and I have to catch myself as I find myself laughing at Stuffy (the dragon) in the episodes :)  Yikes!

Carving pumpkins with friends

Preschool Halloween

Layla during the Halloween Sing at preschool

Trick-or-treating

Layla decided at the last minute that she wanted to be a princess from the dress up bin for trick-or-treating.  This was fine with me as the Doc outfit was already used three times and the individual pieces will be used again and again, but the princess look wasn't quite as pulled together as I would like.   But in the end, Layla was happy as Belle and I was able to stuff lots of layers under the dress!

Grady loves this costume.  My dad gave it to Layla when she about 18 months old and she was always scared of the costume.  But Grady wore it all night long and never hinted that he wanted it off.  It was perfect for the cold night!

Layla and Grady loved greeting trick-or-treaters at our door.

Our first part of trick-or-treating consists of driving and seeing family and friends that live nearby.  I was able to get a couple pictures before it got dark.  My flash on my camera is broken.

Here is Layla with Ryan's Aunt Nancy.

And the kids with Cindy.  She works at Ryan's school and the kids love her. 

Layla loved getting candy all night and Grady really enjoyed seeing all of the dogs. 

Trick-or-treating was a success.

We hope everyone had a happy Halloween!!!