Thanksgiving and Beyond

Good thing I don't believe in Santa or I would be on his naughty list for my tardiness in posting here. The thing is, I have the best of intentions but each evening when I should be typing, a Christmas movie comes on the Hallmark channel and I can't help myself. The kids are in bed, the tree lights are twinkling, the pine candle is aglow, and I can't help but sit and soak in all the Christmas-ness.  These weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are my most favorite times ever.  

The only way to catch up (because I have a movie I've started and need to get back to) is to mostly post pictures so bear with me!

I will give a separate shout out to Thanksgiving Day at least.  It was wonderful! The kids really do love the holiday so much and can't wait to watch the parade and spend the day with their friends.  We had 32 persons...19 adults and 13 kids.  The menfolk did their usual golfing in the morning and we ate the big meal at about 2:15 pm.  I love having it earlier than we used to so that I have time to look at the ads for Black Friday before falling into bed from pure fatigue.

The Grodacks (6), Braces (2), Bergherms (5), Bergherms (3), Isidros (5), Isidros (2), Zbarashcuks (5), Bobbi (Amy's mom), Julia (Jennifer's mom)

Jennifer had a friend who made these lovely box centerpieces for me.

Jennifer decorated the inside of this one.

And I did this one.

The outside kids' table.

The inside kids' table.

Time for some games!  An egg race...

A potato race using a spoon only to roll it along.  Now I can see how Aubree (brown shirt) got a hole in her leggings.

Throwing wadded paper into the bowls.

Winners

My handsome boy chilling out (nice photo, Allen!)

The girls and I were in Duncan's car out running errands after soccer a few Sunday's ago.  We were in the Target parking lot and as I stopped to turn into a parking spot, we felt a fairly significant bump to the back side of the car.  Sure enough, someone was pulling out of a spot and hit into us.  The gentleman and his wife got out of their vehicle and the guy was clearly not happy and kept saying sort of to himself, "Where did you come from??? I looked like seven times!!" It was obvious that he didn't think it was HIS fault and his wife was trying to calm him down. The paint job on Duncan's car was clearly damaged but fortunately no dents whereas this guy's car didn't have much to show.  The wife mentioned something about calling the police which I guess I should have but I didn't feel like waiting around.  I finally said that I was certain that if the police came, he would be ticketed because he bumped into me.  I was fine with just exchanging contact info.  That's what we did but Duncan never contacted them. I guess it's too much trouble than it's worth.

Because it's so sunny, you can't even really see much here.

Now for some more pictures of other activities...

The last day of soccer was Sunday, November 20 and it was COLD!

Everyone gets a medal, right??

Guess they saw the Olympics.

Gala time at Disney's Coronado Springs.  Jennifer was most kind and did my hair for me.

The music was Rascal Flatts which I neither liked or disliked going in.  It was okay but really not my cup of tea.  Which was too bad because we were right in the front row.  Duncan and I did have fun watching all the women (some of which were in their 50's) act like groupies taking all these selfies, etc.

Jennifer's basket which she donated to the gala like last year.  It sold for $350.

It was fun having Uncle Ricky and Tia Ana in town from Mississippi for Thanksgiving.

They came to ice skating to see the kids skate.

We introduced them to Zoey's Kitchen with which they were very impressed.

Now that we have eight seats in our van, we were able to take Ricky and Ana on the Apopka Wildlife Drive all in our vehicle.

Got our tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We first attempted it at Lowe's and then I remembered why we never go there.  The trees are all closed up and you have no idea what you are getting.  We ended up at a mom and pop place in Winter Garden and it was SO much better.  The owner even told us him mom used to be a Patriots cheerleader when he saw our license plate!

Black Friday shopping.  Calleigh is really into dressing her and Aubree alike and the boys alike and will pick out all of their clothes.

We stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, La Granja, for lunch.  They have the most fantastic black beans and yellow rice and three of the four kids love it.  I'm sure you can guess which one won't try it.  We did get him to try a tostone though because it looked like bread.  A Christmas miracle!  You can see his PJ&J there that I had to bring.

I got this set of books at a yard sale for $6 and sold them on eBay for $24.99.  I was very excited!

Colby went on an outing with just he and Daddy and stopped at a Starbucks for a treat.

Found this note that Aubree had written I guess to post on her door.  Love # 5!

Three of the four sound asleep. Poor Colby. All left out.

Building a snake habitat one morning so I let them have a few extra minutes before school started.

Isn't he an amazing artist?  Ha!  Pretty sure Dad helped him here.

Trying to guess which things will float and which won't.

Recording the results. Hard to tell here but a can of Coke does NOT float whereas a can of Diet Coke does.

Diet Coke is lighter than Coke because it's flavored with Aspartame which is much sweeter than corn syrup (used in Coke) and thus less of it is needed. Bet you didn't know that!

Watching water boil and evaporate and then condense on the lid.

We just started studying the plagues so we've brought some of them to life with activities.  Here they had to find 100 "frogs" hidden all over the downstairs.

They were everywhere.

Counting them up.

Afterwards I said I was thirsty and needed water.  Ahead of time, I had put some cherry koolaid mix in the bottom of my glass.  As they watched me fill the glass with water, it looked like it was coming out red like "blood." They were extremely impressed especially the boys and Brady wouldn't rest until I told him how I did it.

Eating lime jello which had turned red from the blood in the water.

Even the toilet water had turned to blood!

Plague # 3 was gnats and Colby threw poppy seeds on the "Egyptians."

Plague # 4 was flies and Calleigh got some (black and white papers from the hole punch) dumped on her head.

Went to Holiday on the Drive in College Park last Thursday night.  I made sure to get there right when it opened at 5:00 pm so the kids could do the trampoline thingy and the climbing wall without waiting a long time.

It worked out perfectly.  They were the first ones!

Even Colby got to do it.

They loved the "snow." It was ice on the bottom but bubbles blowing out.

Calleigh and Aubree just love Violet and Nora.

Elaine so desperately wanted to let one of the helium balloons go that the kids had gotten from a booth.  Finally after a long time, one of the kids agreed and she let it go....and it promptly got stuck in a tree right above her head.  Oops!

The Florida Hospital Church had a jazz group there performing and they were really, really good.  I wished I could have stayed and listened to them the whole time.  We made it through about three or four songs at least.

Decorating some Rice Krispies treasts.

Saturday night we went to Crane's Roost for the tree lighting and fireworks.  Love Colby's face!

Some Girl Scouts sang a bunch of Christmas songs and the kids LOVED it, especially Brady.  I said we needed to leave and he kept wanting to stay for one more song.  And Aubree now wants to take voice lessons!

London's 2nd birthday was celebrated at a park yesterday.

The girls found this new Elmo purse at a yard sale and were SO excited to give it to her since she loves Elmo and purses.

We were going to go to Gaylord Palms to do the scavenger hunt yesterday after the game but it got so late that I enticed the kids to go to Winter Garden instead and stop at Jojo's for frozen yogurt.  They bought it!

I just love downtown Winter Garden.

They have a light show on the town hall.