I'm the Queen!

Here are a few glimpses of Brookie over the last month or so.  She is growing, growing, growing! (surprise)  And is now comfortably wearing 6-9 month clothes at age 4 months.  

 Pismo Beach during Thanksgiving.  This looks like an evening shot, but each morning while we were camping, Lee or I, or both, would get up early with Brooke and go walking in the morning hours while the others slept.

 Napping in a warm and cozy back bed in the trailer at Thanksgiving.

 Hanging out with her 2nd favorite person, watching the turkey fry.

 Sitting with Daddy.

 Really excited to wait AGAIN to pick up Carissa.

 Having a laugh in the ladies room at Macys whilst shopping .

Just being adorable at home in the kitchen.

Home Depot Christmas

Our Christmas tree search is a far cry from the outings through people's forested property of my childhood, or at least a trip to real Christmas tree farm where the trees were still growing, where we'd search and search and search and finally cut a tree, only to bring it home and find that it had some huge gaping hole in at least 75% of it.  I've romanticized those memories in my adulthood, but the truth is:  you just can't beat a Home Depot tree.   The chain linked-off section of the parking lot smells like a tree lot, the trees are really quite full, and the price??  You can't beat it!  PLus no one ends up covered in mud, and rarely does it end in a huge family fight.  So Home Depot is where we get all our trees, no matter that there is an element of "ghetto" to our outing, which this year included a giant painted mural of Santa, Mrs. Clause, the elves and even a couple of reindeer doing "Gangnam Style".  (If you are unfamiliar with that- youtube it)

 And thank you Grandpa for the use of your truck which made our entire outing the fastest it's ever been!

 Our plan this year was to pick up the first tree we saw, which is exactly what we did!  Truth be told, we did unbundle one other tree so that Grayson could use Lee's knife, but we bought the very first tree we picked up.  In and out in 10 minutes!

 A brief moment of brotherly love.

We had a festive evening of tree trimming, Christmas music and excitement as we ushered in the Christmas season!

Thanksgiving...A Little Belated

I volunteered to be the room mom for Grayson's kinder class.  Why, you ask?  Because no one else would do it!  It's actually been fun thus far.  Now that Brooke is a little more active, we'll see how it goes.  I was excited to plan a Thanksgiving feast for the class.  Once again, I hardly took any pictures, but I managed to get one of the simple fare we provided:  rolls, turkey, carrots, dip, apples, corn muffins, cookies, cupcakes, and my popcorn turkey!

 I spent hours cutting out little decorative pieces on the Cricut for the placemats you see pictured below.  I borrowed a cartridge from my scrapbook Queen friend with a Thanksgiving motif and put together little Indians, turkeys, the Mayflower, etc.  Then I copied one of Derek's old kinder poems and had the teacher put it all together as a laminated placemat.

 Then we made Indian (or Native American, to be PC) , vests and I came in one day to help the kids paint symbols on them  They each put together a headband, as well.

 As you can see, almost none of the kids wanted to dress up as Pilgrims for the feast ( I mean, would you, if you had such a sweet butcher paper vest to wear??), which is too bad considering I stayed up late at night laboriously cutting, folding and stapling Pilgrim hats, bonnets, collars, and aprons.  But not to worry- the kids had a wonderful time, and that is what I was hoping for!

 My favorite part of the feast was this turkey, however.  Two kids got to take the "drumsticks" home.  It was great fun for all, and now it's on to our Gingerbread Man party in a few days!