"May Your Days Be Merry And Bright"

I attempted to take pictures this past weekend
for our Christmas cards.  I had this whole "wrap
the kids in Christmas lights" idea.  It was a whole
lot harder than I thought it would be!  If I had my flash
on, then you couldn't see the Christmas lights.  If I
turned it off, then the pictures were blurry.  After some
playing around, I finally figured it out.  None of these are
"the one" so here is a sneak preview-

Riley was nice enough to model for me while I figured out the lighting!

And this is what Macey thought about picture taking-

And last night while the girls were finishing up their baths, sweetie boy Gavin
came out and made a pallet on the floor with everyone's pillow pets and
blankets.  He turned on Rudolph and the three youngest all snuggled while
they watched it.

This was our Christmas card last year.  I've come to grips that there is no way
I can probably ever top it.  I was lucky one more year that Blake let me pose
him and dress him up, although the Santa hats were his idea this year!!!

Thankful...

Yesterday was my birthday and Thanksgiving!  I had
some awesome food for my birthday!  Little one was
ready for some food-

I am so thankful for my perfect, healthy, beautiful little family.  I honestly couldn't
ask for more!

Not only am I thankful for my family, but thankful for my mom, sister and her new family,
my brother and his fiance,  my in laws, my dad and stepmom and everyone else!
AND I am especially thankful for the sweet little life about to come into this world......
baby Hunter will be here is just a couple of short weeks.  Grammy will have her lap
full for sure then-

My Littlest Turkeys...

The girls looked so stinkin' cute in their turkey
shirts that I took a zillion pictures of them!  Macey
looks so BIG in these to me.  I cannot believe that
she will be two in less than a month!

Gavin's 8th Birthday Party...

Gav's birthday was on Friday and more than anything
he wanted a bow for hunting.  He had smaller ones, but he
NEEDED a better one.  We unfortunately started the tradition
that the kids could open their presents in the morning.  It
makes for a chaotic morning, to say the least, when you
have to get 4 kids ready and open gifts.  BUT, we let him
go ahead and open his presents.  He was happy with the first-

But he was even happier with the second present-

Gavin has been begging for months to have all of his friends over to play some
sort of ball, so 4 of his friends came over after school to play football.
Ethan, Caden, Gavin, Mason, and Hunter-

 The boys were hyped up to say the least.  Not even an hour of football helped.
After they played, we loaded up to head over to Galactic Fun Zone for video
games and laser tag with all of the friends and the cousins.

Someone named Macey enjoyed her cupcake!!!

These are two of Gavin's very best friends, Caden and Tyler.  Tyler
met us at the party.

Some family was there, I forgot to invite about half.  I was sidetracked with
taking Gavin lunch for his birthday, taking Blake lunch for a special thing they
were having, and trying to make it to three fall parties for the kiddos.  My
brain was a little spacey.  My mom atleast invited Cameron and Michelle
for me.

Gavin got some really nice gift cards to Bass Pro and some money so he was
able to get a bow case, some arrows, and other bow stuff.  He was in heaven
as soon as we walked in Bass Pro.

Gavin had a St. Louis Cardinals themed party so all of his friends got Cardinals
hats and the cousins got t'shirts!  It turned out to be a fun (and exhausting) party!!!

Happy 8th Birthday, Gav...

Tons of pictures to come...but Happy 8th

Birthday to my monkey boy!

Peachtree Farms...

Going backwards from Halloween, but I had to
get these pictures in.  We had fun like we always
do and barely made it this year.  We went on
October 30th!!!

 Don't you just love the outhouse in the next picture?  I never noticed it until I went
back and looked at my pictures.