Thanksgiving Break

We're back from our Thanksgiving vacation...did you even know we were gone?

We had lots'o'fun while we were away. Here's a quick snynopsis and lots of pictures.

Tuesday, November 23rd: got up way before dawn and flew to Colorado

Wednesday: prepared for the holiday by getting pampered at the nail salon and doing a little cooking

The girls showing off their nails and feet.

Nephew Noah "helping" make the pumpkin pie

Aunt Christina w/ Sawyer and Noah

Thursday: ates lots of good food with lots of family

Family pic before the eating began

The "kids" table

Sawyer enjoying his 1st Thanksgiving of mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes

S trying to escape or licking the glass

The whole family relaxing after the meal

Friday: did a little Christmas shopping, took family pictures

Saturday: the big kids went skiing at Copper Mountain and then had a family birthday dinner at P.F. Chang's

Tache & Papa w/ the great grandkids

S w/ Uncle Adam & Wendy

S playing w/ Papa & Tache in his pj's

Sunday: went to church, worked on school work, put up the Christmas tree, and just relaxed

S before church in his big boy sweater (he's outgrowing the baby clothes and looks more like a toddler every day :(

Playing ball w/ Tache

Getting started early learning to golf

Grandma & Sawyer enjoying the Christmas tree

Monday: relaxed and went Christmas shopping by myself, played @ Focus on the Family, ate dinner with the family

Taking a snuggle break after climbing on momma

Tuesday: opened a few Christmas gift, begrudingly went back to reality and started doing homework, flew home that night

Sawyer getting his 1st shot of getting money out of grandpa's "piggy bank" for the grandkids

S opening his first Christmas gifts.

During our week in CO Sawyer decided he preferred to walk instead of crawl. He's walking all over the place and sometimes he seems to be running. He was also spoiled with all the grandparents and aunt and uncles, but he did really well and adjusted his schedule very quickly.

I Simply

Can't

Resist

His Cuteness!

Typical picture of S...blurry, he's always on the move

Simplified Christmas Decor

This year due to lots of holiday traveling and Sawyer's rapidly approaching 1st birthday I was not going to decorate for Christmas. But in the end I could not resist decorating the mantle. I've never had a mantle and I really wanted to hang the stockings (even though 1 got cut from the arrangement).

So here's my simplified Christmas decor:

Mantle

Door Wreath

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

This past weekend we headed to Akron for the annual Christmas tree festival. Kyle and I decided this was our first kid type event we have taken Sawyer too...while he had fun I'm pretty sure we were far more entertained than he was :)

The event was a fundraiser for the Akron Children's Hospital, in which different people and groups donate a decorated tree then people buy the trees. Plus there are lots of fun, kid-friendly activities.

We (as in Me) learned how to make an origami christmas tree, Sawyer visited Santa, and then we viewed the wondrous trees. There was some very creative trees such as an Avatar tree and a Wizard of Oz tree.

In honor of his heritage Sawyer had to get a picture of the Wizard of Oz tree.

This was one of my favorite trees...Sesame Street themed...I've become very fond of Sesame Street in the last few months :)

Sawyer also got to meet Santa for the 1st time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so blessed and we are giving thanks today!

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The Picture of a Little Girl...

is no longer.

I am a sucker for a good deal @ our local Habitat for Humanity Restore. They had a sale on frames and I was searching for a large chunky frame. I left the store with a monstrosity of a picture. It was so ugly I forgot to take a picture, but it's similar to the one below.

In all it's gilded gold glory.

Source: Edgar L. Owen

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it or where it was going to go, but I kept it in the middle of the living room until I had an epiphany (or I saw something I liked on a blog).

It took me many weeks to get up the courage to transform this ugly duckling into something beautiful. But this quick and easy project turned out better than I could have imagined.

The once outdated picture is now a chalkboard! Actually a very large chalkboard that resides on our mantel.

All I did was use 3 coats of spray chalkboard paint. Once that was dry I taped off the chalkboard and applied 2 coats of spray primer and 2 coats of white spray paint.

The total cost was $6!

The current quote is Thanksgiving inspired:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4

It should be fun putting different Bible verses or quotes on the chalkboard that reflect our family or the season.

Control

Someone has a control issue

A remote control issue that is

He believes they all belong to him

But he's willing to share sometimes