I almost forgot!

In my effort to get caught up on my Thanksgiving posts, prior to starting on my Christmas posts - I almost forgot to post about a wonderful little weekend getaway we had in November.  Abby, Janine and I had discussed during our pregnancies, our desire to get our little boys together ASAP before they got too big. Once all of our little bundles of joy arrived I really wasn't sure if we were going to be able to make it happen or not because if you've been reading our blogs at all  -what you know is that they are all opinionated little boogers and it didn't seem like a weekend with all three in the same house would be super fun. As the boys grew and days flew by each one got less fussy and began to sleep a bit more (praise the good Lord) so after discussing potential get together dates, Tim & I began searching for a place that would house our crew. Luckily we found the perfect place and an even more perfect price for our growing families' budgets. I'm so very thankful we could all get away. Here are the pictures Janine took over the weekend:

Jonathan, Cayden, Abby & Adalyn

Josh, Finley, Janine & Keagan

I'm so thankful these girls and I have experienced this season in life together. Hard to believe how it all began...this time last year we were sharing the news with one another and each of our families. Once the news was shared, we made a point to capture the journey as often as we could:

I hope to goodness there will be lots more pictures just like this in our future:

 These little boys will be like brothers from another mother :)

Outfits from Abby

Boxers from yours truly (Greyson was over the photo op at this point)

 

The cabin was so perfect and the schedule (no agenda) was wonderful with little ones. We ate, drank and I myself was a bit too merry but all in all it was an awesome time with great friends. We hope to make this a regular thing in the future...oh the memories we'll make. Love you girls!

Thanksgiving 2012

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Charlotte. It was amazing experiencing it, but it's also amazing typing it and just realizing again how good it is that God provided for us to be here - near family. Rather than the crazy long trip down from KY and short time together, followed by another crazy long trip to get back to KY, we just zipped up the road and spent lots of time together and it was nothing shy of awesome. I love that situations like this keep me being thankful of how God has provided and allowed me to be near my sisters and my children to be near and close to their cousins. When Avery woke up on Thanksgiving morning and I told her we needed to get ready to go see Catherine and Maggie, she squealed with delight and there's just nothing that compares to their delight in just being around each other. My kids love their cousins and I adore that the "big girls" still love to play with the "little ones"....they don't just do it to oblige them...they engage in it and it's precious to me and to my kids.

This picture is kind of random and out of place, but I love it. Kevin has been in our family for a LONG time, but I love that he and my sister Catina still act like a young couple - always wanting to be near each other. You can just tell when you're around them that they enjoy being together. Why pull up a chair when they can share a cooler? =) Here they are reading the black Friday ads and keeping an eye on the kiddos playing outside.

Here's my handsome little devil keeping an eye on the goings on in the kitchen..supervising the meal prep if you will.

The girls love babies and they do really well  holding and entertaining them too (bonus for Melissa and I).

Steve and an "I just woke up Declan".

The day before Thanksgiving Kennedy lost her very first tooth. When she came and told me she made sure to go into elaborate detail. Apparently she had a candy corn stuck in her tooth and she decided biting on plastic play peas would be the best way to get that candy corn out. Well...needless to say, biting into those plastic peas did get the candy corn out and her loose tooth came along with it. We decided that the going rate for the Taylor tooth fairy would be a silver dollar...she was most excited. She spent the night with Aunt Melissa the night prior to Turkey Day and our big fun run, so thankfully my sister Catina has a personal relationship with the fairy of teeth and could instruct h.er on where to leave her coin ;).

Sweet boy overseeing the happenings in the kitchen and eating as he did so. 

cousins!

While Aunt Melissa slaved over a hot stove ALL DAY...the kiddos made good use of all of the fallen leaves in her front yard.

going

going

 Whew! She had so much fun she did this over, and over, and over and over...well, you get the point.

Avery wasn't as into the leaves as big sister but she did toss some around and into the air for a little while.

 Take two...operation leave dive:

now that's a dive...I couldn't even see her: 

oh...there she is!

Melissa and Steve did an amazing job hosting - the food was delicious and the set up was perfect (we've got a large crew!). I couldn't finish up this post without a picture of the beautiful turkey she prepared. Yum!

Steve had a hurt back but he mustered up the strength to carve up our holiday bird for us.

Maybe Tim and I will be settled enough in our new house by this time next year to host Thanksgiving ourselves...I'm not going to hold my breath though...there's still LOTS of cardboard around us. Oh well....

Southpark Turkey Trot

In order to negate some of turkey calories to be consumed this year, our family signed up for a local run on Thanksgiving morning. There were 5K and 8K options for adults and some fun run options for kiddos. I figured since Kennedy's cousins were going to be participating in the fun run, she would probably love to do it with them and she did! Here are some pictures:

 One of hopefully many mother/daughter race pictures to come!

These two crack me up...there are too many similarities to count. They held hands the ENTIRE time, as if it was the most natural way to run a race with your cousin. Precious.

 

The Kennedy & Catherine cheering section.

 

Pretty good time for a 5 year olds' first mile if you ask me...I'm a tad biased though ;)

 Finishers! They even got a medal!

One of the joys of a themed race of any sort - people who really get in to the spirit of things (if you will):

Crack.Me.Up. More power to you super enthusiastic and creative folks...I'll stick with my good ole' exercise attire thankyouverymuch.

 

More pics of our holiday festivities to come.

 

 

Turkey for me and turkey for you.....

.....so let's eat the turkey in a big brown shoe. Do y'all remember that song? Every time Thanksgiving rolls around and I hear the word turkey I immediately think of this song and then I smile. If you've not heard it recently, do yourself a favor and refresh your memory by clicking here. You're welcome!

Last year I saw this recipe somewhere and I'm not sure where because it was before The Pinterest. So...instead of pinning it, I actually printed it....on real computer paper (gasp, shock and awe...I know). Anyhow, when I got ready to make it prior to Thanksgiving last year there were no candy corns to be found - ANYWHERE in Lexington!! Fast forward to this year when we moved and my printed copy of the recipe came falling out of my horribly disorganized stack of recipes and I decided I would definitely make them this year. I made sure to nab a discounted bag of candy corn a few days after Halloween. I mean, honestly - how cute are these:

picture from Pillsbury.com

 

I figured the more the merrier for the turkey cookie making, so we invited some friends. Fun it was and the cookies were not only cute, but yummy too!

 

 We had 6 kids participating and Greyson just hanging out in the kitchen in his swing. It was crazy, but a super fun kind of crazy. The key was being uber prepared - cookies cooked and cooled ahead of time, icing in piping bags (multiple bags of each color) and several "stations" set  up so that each child had their own turkey makin' equipment. They all did great and put their own individual spin on their turkeys.

 All the kids enjoyed the fruits of their labor after lunch time together and Avery thoroughly enjoyed hers:

 THOROUGHLY

 Next year, I think I'll try my hand at these cuties:



 Aren't they adorable? Now that I'm a believer in The Pinterest (it's just fun to say it that way), I'm sure I could find a tutorial...not only on how to make above Oreo turkeys but maybe even how to make my own oreos, candy corns and peanut butter cups too. I kid, I kid...