Playing Catch Up

So...there has been so much going on that I haven't even found the time to write about it! Here's a quick recap of what has been going on since the last post.

We celebrated our oldest child's birthday. Ian turned 6 and I am still in a bit of denial that I actually have a 'little' boy who is six years old already. How can this be?! Time really does fly. He is just so intelligent, energetic, and up to try anything. He had requested a pirate theme and a pirate theme he got. A pirate theme right before Halloween...seriously it was like throwing me an easy pitch. Ok...I am not into the baseball analogies. Anyway it was easy peasy! The hubby made a pirate ship out of a large furniture box a very wonderful family member got and dropped off for us. They did games and Ian even told me he wants another pirate birthday next year.

Ian doing his best pirate snarl. ARRGH!!!!

We also celebrated our middle child's birthday. Ava turned 3 years old right before Thanksgiving. She told me while eating her birthday breakfast that she is a real princess now. Apparently that's the threshold. Hit three years old and you can officially become a princess. Aw...Ava you were always our little princess. When I had Ava I said "Nothing pink and definitely no Disney Princesses on anything!" Yeah...she had different plans. She is pink everything and just has to have everything princess she can. Oh boy! At least it was gradual so I could warm up to the idea of so much pink and so much girlie!

Little Miss Ava

We also had Thanksgiving. What a wonderful time to be thankful to God for all the blessings in our lives that He has given us. I love getting together with family in the warmth of our home. I love having a holiday that we do here at our home so we don't even have to go out into the cold once that day. Yay! I love cooking so this is my all time favorite holiday to do here.

The hubby with our turkey. No this is not fully cooked. It came out after searing at 500 degrees for 30 minutes. He does a great job on the turkey!

I also went out Black Friday shopping. Oh my! It was only my second time out on this crazy adventure. The main reason I wanted to attempt getting up at 2:45 am to leave the house at 3:30 and make it to Target that early was to have fun with my sister-in-law and her twin sisters. You think that's crazy, right? Waking up at that hour when I woke up the day before at 4 am to start the turkey in it's fabulous brine. (Thank you by the way, Alton Brown, for making the best turkey recipe EVER! This was our third year and I don't know if I will ever make another recipe it's that good.) Well my sister-in-law and her sisters are hysterical. Not just funny mind you but hysterical. I had the best time and I even got a few things. I can't wait for Christmas! I got home exhausted that day only to have the hubby ready to start taking down Autumn decorations and put up the Christmas ones. Now I can't wait to get our Christmas tree this weekend. The kids are super excited.

Anyway...that's been our crazy couple of months. Now my brain has moved on and been on complete overload on craft projects for Christmas presents but more on that in the next post!