A Thanksgiving Surprise!!!

How has it happened??? How has the month of November FLOWN by??? I have some past posting to do (including Dan's birthday!) but I wanted to be somewhat current and then back track when I have time!

I'm sitting here again on a Sunday evening looking back over our WONDERFUL week! A quick recap...Wednesday Dan and I put up all of our Christmas decorations (BIG tree included!) while the boys were at daycare! We grabbed the boys and then I worked on getting a few things ready for our Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house! We arrived quite early because Dan had a few babies that he had to round on in the hospital, so he just dropped us off en route. We hung out and checked out the ads - gotta love planning for our Black Friday shopping trip! Lunch was scheduled for noon and it was DELISH, as always!

Here are all of our happy eaters!
And here is our Baby Henry enjoying his first Thanksgiving meal. Jackie used the Magic Bullet (quick blender like appliance) and "bulleted" the green beans. Henry loved those and the sweet potatoes, but wasn't so sure about the mashed potatoes! Isn't he a cutie???
After our traditional lunch, we cleaned up and were ready for dessert! Here is our table full of pies - Cherry, chocolate, pumpkin, very berry (from House of Plenty in Highland!) and my flop of a coconut cream pie. I TOTALLY owe the boys (Dad, Uncle Gene, Dan and Steve) a make up one...I don't know what happened to it, but it was super soupy!!! UGH!
After dinner we had a knock at the door and there was Uncle Bryan and Alyssa who had made the drive from Memphis! WOO HOO!!!

At this time, we had to have a photo shoot!!! Here are the cousins - Alyssa, Luke, Jack, Henry and Nick! All in their blues and purples!!!
The three "Enzwiler" kids - Jackie, Bryan and me!
And here we are with our kids...notice I am running out of lap room!
Nana and Papa with all their five grandchildren! I know, I know, Alyssa is looking down, but at least we have the MAJORITY looking at the camera...the other pics were not too hot!!!
After we were done snapping pics (I'll spare you ALL the pictures taken!) we played Taboo...boys against the girls!
Uncle Steve LOVED the buzzer...but does look just a TAD bit scary here!!!
Again, the doorbell rang and my cousins Sandy and Kari were there. They had eaten lunch out with family and since Sandy's husband Duane and other daughter Kelli had to work, they accepted our invite for dessert! Because it was boys against girls one had to play on the boys team...it was Kari, well, I mean Gary! Sandy even brought over a roll of toilet paper for Steve to apologize for the night of tee peeing back during the Halloween party....right, Sandy???
The game was getting quite heated and frankly I'm not too sure who won, but we all had a blast. Thanks to Aunt Jackie for hanging with Henry and Luke...
And to Uncle Gene for helping Luke build his tower of blocks...I actually got to play the game fairly uninterrupted!
Dan and Uncle Bryan got Henry his first ornament, one that says, "I LOVE Uncle." Of course we needed the three of them to pose!
Around 7:30 we headed home as we had some shopping to do in just a few hours!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I am truly thankful for all I have in life - my wonderful family, group of friends, and a job that I love (well, on most days!)

Knock, Knock...

Okay, so again I find myself on a Sunday night realizing that I have TONS to blog about! Unfortunately, it dates back to Halloween and I figured with the BIG holidays coming, I better get with the program!!!

So, we spent the night at Jackie and Steve's after their party. Jackie and I went for a run that Saturday (Halloween!) morning and did a little cleaning of the party stuff and toilet paper outside!!!

Here is a cute pic of Baby Henry hanging out!
After we got done cleaning up we managed to get a quick pic of the four cousins (we were missing our little Cinderella as Alyssa wasn't able to make it up!) in their costumes! Nick is the Special Forces Power Ranger, Buka is the Cat in the Hat, Henry is the adorable little dragon and Jack is the black Power Ranger!
We headed home and quickly got moving on carving our pumpkins! We started with the smallest one and worked our way up! We even let Luke draw his own face - with a little help from Daddy!
Nick drew his own face and then Daddy, a.k.a. "the carver" carved it out!!! Nick looks like he likes the finished product!
Jack helped in all aspects of the carving, except for the removing of all the pumpkin "guts" which unfortunately, was my job!!!
All of the finished products...
Luke and I then took a much needed nap before we headed over to Bob and Angie's house! Here are their cutie "angel" and "devil" little girls!!! They were seriously TOO cute! Luke didn't want to pose, so he missed out on this photo op!
We got back home, where Nana and Papa had graciously started handing out candy for us. I took over that job, while Dan and Nana took the three boys out. They didn't last too long as they were back in less than 10 minutes. I did manage to convince Jack to head back out, but only for a few more houses. We did head back home and all the boys had more fun handing out candy to other kids! Here they pose with Nana!!! (Papa and Dan hung out inside the warm house!)
Here is our family pic of the night...with all the pumpkins and even our scarecrow!
Finally though, after the kids came down off their sugar high, they were in bed in no time!!! And I was left to enjoy my Halloween wall, as it has been dubbed!
Hope everyone had a great Halloween, you know, like 3 weeks ago!!!

Black and White

So today after work I had an appointment to get my hair cut and colored. I didn't pick up the boys from daycare until after 5:30, so it was time for us to hit the Golden Arches. As we were sitting there enjoying our chicken nuggets and salad (the boys were SO good and calm, it was crazy!) Jack looks me dead in the face and this comes out of his mouth...

"So, who lived in black and white? Did Nana???"

OMG, I SO wanted to laugh, but instead I clarified what he meant and of course, he thought that when TV shows were in black and white that people LIVED like that...too cute! I immediately called my mom who got such a chuckle out of it and told me to make a mental memory of that and write it down...where else better to write it than to share with the world (or at least a few friends of mine on the blog!)

She then went on to remind me of the time that I yelled out in church, "Mom, how do you make love?" meaning, how do you WRITE "love" as I was composing a letter to my grandma...nice, eh???

A Halloween Hollowing Good Time!

The Friday night before Halloween Jackie and Steve had a bit of a Halloween get together! Thankfully all of the rain had stopped just in time for the party to begin, so we all got to hang outside! Here are the boys chillin' by the fire!
There was plenty of dancing...
And TONS of food...

But some of us were still looking for SOMETHING to do! I don't quite know how this happened, but a few of us found ourselves "decorating" Jackie and Steve's trees!

Here are me and even my mom posing with our "tinsel!"
Jackie and Steve had just planted 6 new trees, all of which were tied to stakes in the ground. Unfortunately, it was very dark and VERY wet! Poor Sandy definitely took one for the team when she tripped over a rope and was SO close to falling into some MAJOR water. Luckily she kept her balance and just stepped into the "river" flowing through Jackie and Steve's backyard! Here are her poor, wet pants!
Here was the "decorating" crew! My cousins Kelly, Sandy, Kari, me and Luke (with tons of Halloween stickers on his face!). (Nana flew the coup before we took the pic!)
Jack, Nick and Luke were GREAT that night!!! The toilet paper in the trees added to their fun! They loved it...and it kept them busy for a good 30 minutes of so!
The adults weren't wearing costumes, but Henry was...wasn't he just too cute as a dragon!!! (Jackie, you looked cute too!)
Again, I honestly don't know how this happened, but we ended up decorating Jackie and Steve's room...here is Kelly and Kari!
...and the finished product!
Dan went downstairs with the boys and surprisingly was the first one to fall asleep! Sandy and her girls were ready to make a little more mischief...but Dan woke up...
Thanks to Jackie and Steve for hosting a GREAT party! Thankfully we spent the night and good thing too, as Buka was partying until after midnight! Here is one last picture of me, Jackie and my mom and dad! We certainly missed Bryan (our brother!) this year as he had to work and was unable to come up for the big party. Can't wait to hopefully see ya, Bry during Thanksgiving!

A Cat at CID...

This past Tuesday and Thursday nights, I have had to stay at work until after 8 pm for parent teacher conferences! In return for our late nights, we got Friday off! It was a perfect day to be off too, as I got to help Luke Trick or Treat at CID! We started our morning off with circle time...

Here are his teacher Ms. Natalie and his classmates, Francis, Buka, Boogie and Ella!
After their morning routine, they all put their costumes on! This was a bit of a fight for Luke and I as he is a TOTALLY different little guy at CID. He refuses to talk, until he opens up a bit around 11, just one hour before class is over, and on Friday he screamed b/c he didn't want his Cat in the Hat costume on.
Luckily, I won that battle (minus the hat!) and he was able to trick or treat with the rest of his class! Here he is with Miss Natalie - prompting his language, and Ms. Katie, his SLP, handing out the candy!
After about an hour of trick or treating...the kids got TONS of candy as EVERYONE at CID participated in handing out candy and the kids got TONS of practice and lots of good language!!! Here Luke is getting ready to dig in! Check out the smile now!!!
He got to eat a few treats then went to gym class, while I went to talk to the Pre-K principal to discuss the possibility of Luke attending there. In a nutshell the program is AMAZING and I'm sure Luke would grow in leaps and bounds...just not sure what we are going to do in February when he turns three yet!!!

After our meeting and Luke's class was over, we ran to the car. Check this out...Luke would not let go of his candy bag. In fact, he held it the entire way home!!! Check out the cheese in this pic!!!
Stay tuned...pics from Jackie and Steve's Halloween Party!!!