Thanksgiving Weekend!

We had a great Thanksgiving Weekend!! The early part of the day was spent at our house. Mom, Dad Adam and his family came over as well as my Aunt and Uncle (Loreita & Randy) from Nashville. It was so nice to spend some time with them. They brought the kids their Christmas presents early....and they just loved them. Spencer received a talking parrot which he called a talking woodpecker...and named him Paul Simon... Olive fell in love with her Pooh Bear that shakes. She hugs it and bites it (her way of showing affection). So much is going on with her. She wants to learn to walk soooo bad!! She's like her brother, very OCD when she gets set on something. She can stand up all by herself, but is unable to take steps. She wants you to hold her hands and help her walk all the time (as seen below)..which is great, but it takes its toll on your back and shoulders. The second half of our Thanksgiving was spent at the Raible's. It was so nice to see Larry's Grandma Sarah, who was able to attend. We missed Sarah, Tom and Adrienne....but will see them soon.

On Saturday, Isabelle and Jenna came over to join Spencer for our First Annual Gingerbread House Making Party!! Mom and Dad came too and helped construct the houses. I think the adults had more fun than the kids. Adam and I had some good laughs over the whole thing. They all turned out great and it's a tradition I hope to continue. We also put up Christmas decorations this weekend. We have no luck with lights. Last year, we had to buy a new set of lights for the tree, and this year, we only had 1 working set. So, I refused to buy another set and decorated the tree with only one set (yes, it is dimly lit...adds ambiance). But, it came back to bite me b/c at some point yesterday, half of the lights on the tree went out. So the bottom half of the tree is light-less. I will have to go buy 2 new sets this week. In addition to this issue, Larry strung lights around one of our tall evergreens out front, only to be disappointed when he plugged it in (don't know why he didn't check them out first). One of our reindeer won't light up and the giant wreath that hangs over the garage only lights up half-way. We are a disgrace to the neighborhood. I turned all of the outside lights off until we can remedy this situation.

Spence and Olive had fun decorating the tree. We let Spence hang most of the decorations b/c he was biting at the chomp or wait...chomping at the bit to hang ornaments. Here's how it always goes.....kids get all hyped up for decorating the tree, then you pull the thing out of the box and have at least an hour of work, putting in the branches and then straightening them out to look decent, then stringing lights.....it's a long and drawn out process that should be fun, but ultimately results in frustration, then anger and then usually someone breaks something.

I'm looking forward for things to get "back to normal" and school to resume (Spence was out for the week of Thanksgiving) at least until the next holiday break.