Another attempt at catching up

I realized a couple of weeks ago how many pictures I have that I haven't posted and how many stories I haven't told ... and then another few weeks passed and the number grew!  I posted a bunch of pictures onto facebook, so in an attempt to catch up more quickly, I will just be posting the link to the facebook albums here with a little synopsis of each.

After our trip to the Smokies, we had a birthday party for Joel at home.  I put a picture or two up on the blog, but there are many more here if you want to see 5 year olds celebrating like Iron Man.

Before Thanksgiving, our city has a holiday parade that has become a tradition for us.  I think we all enjoy watching the parade, although the boys probably enjoy the candy more.  We were able to go again this year, and while I didn't get too many pictures of the parade this year, we did get a family picture with Santa.  We also ran into some friends and had fun visiting (adults) and playing (kids) with them after the parade while we were checking out the booths and activities.

Evan's school had a lot going on for Thanksgiving for this year.  All of the second-graders in the school decorate a turkey and then the school votes on the best one.  With all of the traveling and partying we did between Halloween and Joel's birthday, I completely forgot about Evan's turkey.  Thankfully someone reminded me the day it was due (after Evan was at school).  I was able to "magically" guess how he would want to decorate the turkey and start cutting out some supplies that morning.  (My good friend helped by punching out some letters for us to use, too!)  I then picked him up from school at lunchtime and he missed lunch and recess to put it together.  He also added a few details of his own.

The day before Thanksgiving was the big feast, complete with a visit from a Pilgrim couple and Squanto.  They talked about life in the colonies and the Indian village around the time of the first Thanksgiving.  They also demonstrated how to plant corn.  That was also the day of a school-wide Run for the Cures (kind of like a turkey trot).  I hung out with all of the grades a little to take pictures.  Basically I was at the school most of the day taking pictures of one thing or the other before we left for Mississippi for Thanksgiving.

Somewhere in there was an awards assembly for the second six weeks.  Evan got an award for all A's and a Pearson Pride award.  All of those things have a picture or two represented here.

We traveled to Mississippi to have Thanksgiving with my family there.  We saw more people in my family this year at Thanksgiving than we have in a long time!  It was great!  Of course, I didn't get pictures of many of them.  Both of my brothers were there and that was really nice.  If only all of my nieces and nephews had been there, too!  I did get a few pictures from some of our fun (but not black Friday shopping) and I borrowed some from one of my cousins.

Joel is continuing to amaze us with his Lego skills.  He can now follow the directions with the kits, but he will also look at a picture and figure out his own way to make it.  That is all he wants for Christmas this year, too.  Our house runneth over!

We are prepping for Christmas, but I think we are mostly done.  I have a few more things to do around the house before I host a cookie exchange for my Bible study group on Wednesday, but that is mostly cleaning.  I have been working on my sewing skills some as I prepare Christmas decorations, but I will have to share those pictures later.  For now, I need to go and finish some cleaning and organizing.  Then I can do some more of the "fun" stuff later today and maybe have more to share!