Our Holiday Week

We had a great Thanksgiving week, both with the "extended" family, and with our little family of four. Since we had most of our celebrations last weekend and this weekend, the days in between were pretty open for us to use as we wanted. So, Mark and I made a "work around the house" list, and tackled quite a bit of the to-do list that we've been wanting to get done before baby number three comes along! So, we did everything from hanging pictures to cleaning out closets, then found time to repack the attic, organize his office, clean out my sewing (bye bye bag business!), do lots of laundry, and start the process of combining the girls into one room. Somewhere in there, we found time to play with our girls, and do a couple of fun things with them while we were out for the holidays.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day, we took them shopping, then to the mall for dinner at Rainforest Cafe, a carousel ride, and some dessert too. Kendyll got to get her favorite Starbucks hot chocolate, and Mommy got her Cinnabon cinnamon roll that I'd been smelling since we got there! We had a great night hanging out as a family. Carlie was amazed by the animals in the restaurant and spent most of the time with her mouth open in awe as the gorillas beat their chest and the lions roared. Thanksgiving Day was awesome----we never got out of our PJ's and play clothes, and spent the whole day together at home. We started with a big breakfast made my Mommy and Daddy, then spent the whole morning watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. The girls LOVED it! We had lunch and dinner at home, made chocolate peanut butter bars, and none of our food came close to resembling a Thanksgiving dinner in any way! My favorite part of the day was our Thanksgiving "devo" together that night (although it was short and sweet). We read "Thankful Together", which talked about different things we are thankful for, along with Bible verses about being thankful. Then, we made a list out loud of what we thank God for, and each of us prayed. It was a special day for us, and a day that I was definitely thankful for!!

Friday, was our traditional trip downtown to the "spectacular" Parade of Lights (I'm being a little sarcastic! It's one of those "homemade" kind of parades where people put lights on their trucks as a "float".) But, the girls loved the parade and thought every "float" was the coolest. My favorite part was watching Kendyll dance to a "soul-filled" high school band drum line, with her friend we met at the parade, Jeremiah. Let's just say he was born with a little more natural soul than Kendyll. I wish I had a video of her shaking her hips to the beat. Pretty cute. Here are the girls singing while they tried to pose for a sister picture for me:To get to the parade, we rode the train from Grandad's house, which was so fun and convenient...and free! The only downside was when we missed the train to go back home and had to take a cab. Oops!! We were too busy chowing down our dinner and enjoying the downtown craziness to notice that we were late for the last train out!

Our last Thanksgiving celebration was yesterday with my dad's side of the family and we had another fabulous lunch where we were all too stuffed to move. So, it was a wonderful week, with two great celebrations on each end of Thanksgiving week. I am so thankful for my big family with multiple celebrations!