Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is all about family and this year we were blessed to have them with us. Jamie's mom and stepdad came from Kansas for the week and my sister and her family came up from Birmingham for the day. The kids played all day and we all just ate and enjoyed each others' company. Thanks for joining us, family!

Kids' Table - Morgan actually ate!

Thanksgiving meal at the Adult Table

Aunt Mimi loving on Ella-Bella (aka Ella Katherine).

Kelsey, Ella, and Morgan passing time with play-dough.

The boys were playing with the frisbee and got it stuck on the roof, so here they are trying to get it down with the balls.

Monkeys

After the walk, Morgan decided she wanted to watch a movie on the laptop. So I laid on the bed to put one on, and she climbed on my back. Then I proceeded to attack her with kisses...can you see her resisting the ambush?

Another Pretty Day

Wednesday before Thanksgiving was such a BEAUTIFUL day that we went on a walk after Morgan's nap up to the clubhouse/playground. Kaden was hoping to do some fishing, but I accidentally picked up Kolton's fishing rod that had no lure instead of Kaden's...oops!

Bag Lady

Morgan has decided that grocery bags are articles of clothing, too. Tear small holes in the bottom sides of the bags (at the seams) and put the arms through the bag handles - and you have an outfit! I know one day these will all be blackmail material!

Thursday Fun

Thursday is our day off from the gym and our day to just hang out or go somewhere and have fun. Today was no different. By 8AM Morgan had already changed her jammies about 3 times (all other changes consisted of jammies, also), gone through and worn several of her dress-up clothes (mostly worn over her pj's), painted, and colored in her coloring book. She then told me she wanted to go on a walk, so that meant "Mom, go take a shower." About 9AM I walked out of the bathroom dressed, but wearing my slipper socks in hopes that she'd forgotten about the walk and would allow me to just lazilly lounge around the house and be a bum. No such luck! As soon as I walked out into the living room Morgan said, "Ready for walk, Mom?" I said yes and got her coat on and after we were all ready to go she says, "Yay! We go to real park?" I asked her, "Oh, did you want to take a walk to the park and play?" She started jumping up and down saying , "YES, YES, YES!" I informed her that in order to play at the park she had to change out of her jammies and into clothes...and she agreed! So we took the coat off and changed into clothes and off we went. What a beautiful (a little chilly) cloudless day!


Look at that static electricity - poor little girl has her mama's hair!

Morgan insisted on "Take YOU picture, Mom" - and she actually got a pretty good one!

Here she's posing in these two - she told me where to stand and told me how she would pose!

Home, Jammies, Home!

After almost two hours, we made it home and she immediately wanted to change back into pj's. She came running in to me saying, "I have a baby in my tummy, Mom"! We had a conversation the other day about how she was in my tummy...guess she remembered and decided to role play!

What's a girl to wear?

Morgan has really been going through a difficult phase with clothes. She doesn't like ANYTHING, except maybe jammies...and even those she might change two or three times in a day. I am about ready to throw in the towel in this dressing game and settle for pj's everyday. However, Jamie has informed me that I cannot take Morgan to the gym in pj's because it's "ghetto"!! Ha-ha-ha! So I finally got Morgan's approval on these pants and then she found her fairy costume from last year and decided to accessorize. If this is fashion, I'm in trouble!

This is her posing for me:

Fun While Mom's Away

I checked our other camera (the one I left at home) to make sure I had updated the blog with everything and I found this footage...seems they had a little amusement while I was gone. Thanks Kolton for filming!

Brrrr, the beach!

We got to town Friday evening just as it started sprinkling...and we ended up having a couple of hours of downpour and lightning. We were going to start Friday night off with dinner out at The Melting Pot and we were within walking distance, but it was pouring so we drove. Just as we both reached for our door handles and slightly opened the doors a huge BOOM of thunder hit and we both slammed our doors shut, screamed and fell back into our seats laughing hysterically! Then we just kept feeding off each others laughing - it was so funny! We did make it indoors (after I hit about every puddle in the pavement there was) with soaking cold feet. They put us in the coldest corner they had, my feet were frozen by the time we left. The food was so good...but my stomach was upset (stupid nervous stomach) so I didn't get to eat as much as I'd have liked. Saturday we spent about 5 hours shopping. Then we went back to the room and Jeannie rested and I decided to pamper myself, so I walked over to Nail Spalon for a pedicure and manicure...aahhh, talk about being pampered! After two hours (yes two full hours of relaxation) we headed out to dinner at the Crab Trap. I tried crab legs for the first time and yummmmmy! The only downer was that I messed up several nails - oh well, the pampering was more important than those nicks! Then we headed back to the hotel for a night of cards...yes, that's how we enjoy our evening away from our kids - gin rummy and UNO!! Ha-ha-ha! Both Mom and Jamie mentioned we were "a ball of fun"! Jeannie won both. The cold front hit Destin sooner than originally expected and the high for Sunday was only supposed to be 44 (originally it was supposed to be 59), but I was still determined to get my feet on that beach! Jeannie took us over to Seaside where we walked through the shops and onto the beach. It was cold and windy, but so worth it. I got home around 10 PM last night. I had such a GREAT time with my sister, we're hoping to make girls getaway an annual event.

We didn't care how dorky we looked, we wanted to walk on the beach.

Jeannie was an excellent navigator, tour guide, and travel partner.

Dancing With Morgan

Morgan was dancing while watching Dancing With the Stars and I was able to capture some of it before she got too goofy!

Painting