It's Holiday Time!

This November we went for a hike with friends at Ruffner Mountain.  It is a 1000 acre nature preserve where they used to mine for ore.  It has been reclaimed and you can visit fun places, like the old mines.  The trails resemble the mountain to sea trail in NC, but then you occasionally hear the sound of a dump truck or a train because you are surrounded by the city!  It's kind of surreal, but it gives us a place to run around in the woods.

 We also went on a field trip to the American Village.  They did a recreation of the Pilgrims coming over and meeting the Wampanoag Indian tribe.   They had a replica of the original White House, the Liberty Bell, and lots of fun American History items.  

Then for Thanksgiving we headed back to NC for our traditional family Thanksgiving with my family.  It was a sweet time with cousins.  The kids enjoyed playing with all our old toys and then some new ones that Nana and Papa have gathered (like these Kapla Blocks below!)

 

They fried the Turkey....we will never go back.

Eliza fell in love with my old My Little Ponies.  Can't escape them!

Kids table

Fun holiday craft led by Aunt Tiffany and Nana

 

 Then finished off with our traditional hot dog cook out.  

Upon returning from Thanksgiving you are thrust right into the throws of Christmas.  So we made our way with some friends to a Christmas Parade!

 This statue weighed like 5,000 pounds!  It's the Mayfield Cow.

 The kids quickly realized that each float threw candy or handed out something yummy (like bags of girlscout cookies!)

 Then I organized a gingerbread house making party, similar to the one where Steven went to school last year.  It was lots of sugary chaotic fun.  But I think everyone had a great time.  I know I did!  We even tried to sing the 12 days of Christmas as a group.  We failed miserably.  After 10 it got a little dicey, with maids of milking making an appearance at more than one number.  Oh well!

And there are many more Christmas activities to come before we head to family for the holidays-  Behold the Lamb concert, hosting a Christmas Party Potluck here for some seminary couples, visiting Great Grandmother, and even hitting a live nativity this evening.  What a fun season it is.  We love Advent.   I'm not sure our culture sets up a heart of longing during all the chaos, but I know my heart still does.  Come Lord Jesus Come. 

Merry Christmas.

Trick or Treat

Moving to a new place, you have to find entirely new traditions!  So today we started by doing school.  The motivator to finish was carving pumpkins.  

 We then got dressed up and walked walked the mile and a half with some friends to a parade close by at a local Village.

 The group was less than cooperative when it came to snapping photos.

 Drama queen here refused to be involved because we wouldn't take it where she wanted....at least the outfit matches the drama!

 The parade was crazy!  23 floats with people throwing things from the floats.  Anything from candy, to t-shirts, to mini footballs....I even saw a pillow pet and an Auburn sock monkey.  Man was it stimulating.  There were indulgences all around, even for the adults....I'll leave it at that.  We actually even caught a t-shirt, but I gave it away as it seemed to mean a lot more to the people around me than it did to me.

 People went all out!  She painted those masks on her dogs.  Pretty impressive if you want to know the truth.

 Our friends.

We then came back to our house and had dinner together, before hitting the streets to trick or treat.  We went back to the same general area as where the parade happened.  It was amazing.  People had gone all out.  Smoke machines....flying bats....and there were enough people trick or treating on that street that I think you may have to add some money to your mortgage to afford the trick or treaters!  Every kid went door to door, and every adult had a solo cup in hand.  It was quite the party!  But I will say it was incredibly kid friendly and not the least bit spooky, which I was thankful for.  Welcome to Alabama!  Here we do everything right....especially Halloween!

He's 6 Ladies and Gents

Our sweet Sam is 6!  In ways it feels like he has been six for quite some time, but in other ways I can't believe this little boy is already six years old!  I could never sum Sam up in words.  He is an amazing mixture and try as hard as I may, I am not sure I could sum him up in a blog post.  But none the less, he has been such a blessing to us and we are so glad we have him.   He is always the most generous of our children and brings such joy into our lives.

We celebrated as a family on his actual birthday.  We had great fun telling stories to Sam about himself when he was a little boy.  Man did he cry as a baby!  And he sure gave us a time when he was two.  We laughed around our dinner table reminding him of some of those times.  He is the one of our children that always kept things interesting.  But he is maturing into an amazing little boy.  In fact, few of our friends here in Alabama have even seen his crazy side.  Go figure!  I guess he has changed a lot!

Opening family gifts.

Ignore the Christmas paper....it's a birthday.

Putting together a new Playmobil castle

Our tradition is to request whatever we want for our Birthday Dinner.  Sam picked Sausage, black eyed peas, and broccoli.  Love him!  Look at our actress beside him.  A lot of personality there!

We had cupcakes that night

 Then today we had a friends party with a Knights theme.  It was quite fun for our little boy.  We made swords out of paint stirrers from Home Depot and shields out of ply wood.

We had a sword and the stone cake

This was our little pink princess whom the knights were called to defend

Each child painted their own shield.

There were lots of battles in our back yard.....

Then a picnic on the lawn

Daddy added handles to make them truly useful

Then we had a jousting practice, which involved a roll of duct tape and a string as our ring, and a dow rod as our jousting stick.

We had an unruly two wheeled horse that was a bit less tame than our three wheeled horse.

The army and the damsels in distress

We also had a dragons egg hunt which included the finding of the Holy Grail. What a great day we had.  Thanks for coming friends!  You made our little boy feel incredibly special.