Christmas Decorating

I woke up Tuesday morning knowing I was going to have to get pretty much all of my holiday decorating done that day.  I'm SO thankful Cary surprised me and told me he was staying home to work on some projects.  I'm also SO thankful Ellery had preschool, one less set of hands to occupy while I'm busy at work.

It was a lot of fun to pick her up from school and see her face when she walked into the house to see her Christmas tree with lights and a bow, all ready for her help to hang the ornaments.

We have a box of ornaments from Cary's childhood that are fun, whimsical and perfect for her little hands.

My advent calendar is my favorite part of the season (and decorations). 

I made these cones from scrapbooking paper and under each cone is a small object and a slip of paper with the meaning of the object.

For example:  Under day #1 is a small box of raisins.  The meaning of the raisins is, "Grapes make jelly and juice, raisins & wine, but Jesus didn't need grapes to perform his first miracle.  Read John 2:1-10"

My hope is to do this mini devotion with Cary and Ellery each day so we can focus on the REAL meaning of Christmas.  I love the significance of each item.

And just to give credit where credit is due, a girl from my MOPS group found the advent activity.  She shopped for 4 hours to find all of the little pieces and one night at MOPS we just assembled bags of the materials.  The cone idea is from here.

I was up pretty late but got the majority of the decorating done and boxes put away.  There is something about having a decorated house that can warm a heart and put a smile on everyone's face.

Christmas Tree Farm

One of my favorite family traditions is cutting down our Christmas tree from the Ayers-Kreh Christmas tree farm, 1/2 mile from Mimi & Grandad's house.

While we waited for Walt to wake up from his nap, Daddy & Ellery did what they usually do on the farm, hang out and explore.

 Amos has to be a part of the action!

The tractor ride to pick our tree!

I saw this tree up on a hill and said, "This is it!  Let's get it and GO!"

Happy Holidays!!

Country Bath

Mimi has a TON of toys, blankets and misc. things from Cary and Parker's childhood.  Most of the things that Ellery and Walt play with down here are from Cary.

After dinner tonight Walt was going crazy, like squawking and clearly tired.  Poor little guy drools like a champ and his entire shirt was soaked while his neck shined from drool.  Mimi offered to set up a bath in the kitchen sink and I took her up on that.  While we were washing him she made a comment that she has pictures of Cary getting a bath in her mom's sink.  So I told Cary to grab the camera and capture these moments.

Ayers Thanksgiving

It's our annual trip to the farm for Thanksgiving!  The weather has been amazing.  Ellery has been super excited to go on the tractor and see the cows.  Cary planned a few fun "Father/Daughter" things for them to do; special adventures.  I'm excited to get our Christmas tree tomorrow!

Some memories:

This is Walt's new thing, sucking on his bottom lip.  

I think he looks like an old man with no teeth.

Cary, checking out a hunting stand that we came across while touring the back of the farm.

He's been hunting but had no luck, yet.

DeFoggi Thanksgiving

Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures while we were celebrating Thanksgiving at my parents house.

We had a really nice time! 

My aunt and cousin visited from Canada and our friend Ginger, from church, joined us as well.

Walt hung out in his new bouncy seat and kept everyone entertained while he jumped and squealed the entire meal.

After lunch Ellery asked Mar Mar if she could "cook."  Mom has a little spice station next to the cook top and Ellery just pours salt into the pepper bowl and makes a huge mess.  But that's part of the fun!

We have so much to be thankful for and when the day ended, my heart was so full.

A Little Off The Top

Although I cut the "wings" above Walt's ears a few months ago, while we were in Florida, the hair on top was quickly becoming out of control.

I had enough and decided to give him a little trim on Thanksgiving morning.

He is SO curious!  This was the 10 seconds of the entire haircut where he wasn't trying to get into something on the bathroom counter.

MUCH BETTER!!

Thanksgiving Baking

It's a tradition in my family to make and give "Nut Roll" for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I simply can not wake up Thanksgiving morning with out having a slice of nut roll and coffee.

It's a labor intensive and time consuming task, especially with 2 small children.  But this year I was excited to get the dough made while E was out and have her by my side when the time came to actually assemble the pastry.

I saved some dough for her to play with and a bit more for her to make cinnamon/sugar pinwheels.

She loved rolling out the dough, painting it with melted butter and using the little shaker of cinnamon & sugar to POUR on the sweet goodness.  (I LOVE the flour around her mouth and on her forehead in this picture).

I rolled up the dough, sliced it and then baked them with the nut roll in the oven.

It turns out tasting like a mini cinnamon roll but with a sweet dough.  The microphone is classic Ellery right now.  Ah the joy of singing into an over sized microphone and eating a yummy treat.  Does an afternoon get much better?

Preschool Thanksgiving Program

Tuesday was Ellery's Thanksgiving program and I was about to DIE from cuteness.

As soon as the kids began walking on stage, Walt went CRAZY!!

He was just wiggling and squealing from excitement.

She sang, 

"All the leaves are falling down,

red, yellow, orange & brown.."

"Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel,

swish your bushy tail...

wrinkle up your little nose,

put the nut between your toes...."

Ellery was that kid that danced a bit more than any other and everyone laughed at her little bootie shake during the line "shake your bushy tail."

Appendectomy

What a crazy few days!

Wednesday evening Cary went to bed complaining of indigestion.  He believed the chili I made for dinner was "bad."  I disagreed because his folks and I ate it for dinner and had no problems.

Well, he wasn't feeling well on Thursday either and came home from work early.  I took the kids out for a little over an hour that evening so he could rest with out disruption.  When I pulled into the garage, at 5:30/6:00, he was in his coat and heading out the door to Patient First.  He thought he had appendicitis and just wanted it checked out to prevent a 3AM emergency.  I was skeptical.

Sure enough, 45 minutes later he called and was being sent to the ER!  What the heck?!

Thankfully his parents were in town and met him at the hospital to wait and see how things were going to progress.  I waited until the kids were in bed and Walt had his last feeding before heading to the hospital while my dad sat at the house with the children. 

Cary went in for surgery at 9:45 and 1 hour later he was done.  It took him FOR-EVER to wake up and get settled in his room.  I didn't get home from the hospital until about 1:30 AM.  Thank the Lord he didn't listen to me!

He was discharged the next day and has been recovering fairly quickly.  Whew, I am so thankful that experience is over and even more thankful everything went well. 

Fall Fun

Richmond 1/2 Marathon!

Here we are!  6:25 AM.

Greg did the full marathon, and KILLED it! (it was his first marathon)

Samira and Christine were my running buddies this year and also KILLED their first 1/2 marathon.

I'm so proud.

2:02 was my time and I'm happy with that. I know I left it all out on the course.

Now it's time to recover and bask in the joy of my accomplishment.

Here We Go

In just about 12 hours I will be crossing the start line of the 1/2 marathon!!

There seems to be SO much to do tonight to prepare; gather my clothes, fill my water bottles, organize my GU's, pin my race # to my shirt, put out the dishes I'll use in the morning (less noise to wake up the kids), clean up the car (I'm driving a few friends down), etc. But most importantly GET TO BED!!

I'm feeling oookay.  Not 100%.  I'll definitely need to take some tissues out on the course with me.  That's not fun, running and blowing my nose.  Oh well.

It will be fun and I have a feeling that when I cross the finish line I'll be glad I didn't run the full marathon this year.

Aaahh!!  Here we go!!

Ugh...

The Richmond 1/2 marathon is on Saturday.

I have a full blown cold.

Last year I ran the Raleigh, NC 1/2 marathon, 13 weeks pregnant and sick as a dog with a horrible cold/sinus infection.

I guess if I can do that race then this year should be a cake walk, right?

I'm not even taking the time to think about the race.  I'm too focused on getting healthy.

Off to bed at 7 pm for the 3rd night in a row.

I will say this, God is so good. I can make it through the day with the kids but it seems like the minute Cary walks through the door is when the aches/chills/headache sets in.  We eat dinner, I put Walt to bed and then go to bed myself.  I'm so very thankful the Lord gives me the strength to make it through the day.  Sometimes you just have to take one day at a time.

Another little side thought:  I was driving through town today that is part of the marathon course.  At the stop light I looked and saw a sign that said "Marathon Course: No Parking Saturday" and had a moment of "awww....I'm sad I'm not running the marathon this year."  Then I had flashbacks to running this particular part of the course.  I'm thankful to be able to do the 1/2 but my heart longing is for the full.  How crazy is that?