A Week of Thanks

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed to good ole NC. The kids and I flew alone on Monday...which went well considering we boarded our plane and THEN were delayed for 45+ minutes just sitting on BOTH our flights. Not fun, but our kids actually did pretty good. We all were exhausted when we finally landed in Raleigh, but it was well worth the trip. Paul arrived Tuesday late afternoon for the craziness ;) 

We really had such a great week with Paul's family. We ate, watched football, ate, shopped, played outside, played cards, and ate some more :) I also endured Black Friday at midnight for the first time with my sister-in-law, Ashley. Great memory for sure! The rest of the week was rather uneventful, besides an unexpected trip to the emergency room for our precious 2yr old niece after falling off a stool. The diagnosis was a fractured elbow and she did surprisingly well in a splint and sling. Our kids are a bit older now, so it's fun to see them interact and play together. At one point, Micah and Maddy were playing "Honey" (aka mom and dad) and Jordan and Emma Grace were their children. It was quite comical. We sure missed Tim, Anna, and their kids as they were in Turkey for the week seeing old friends. Unfortunately, we all won't be together for Christmas, so we had an early Christmas :)

Sweet cousins.

Celebrating Lottie's birthday.

Brotherly love.

The whole crazy crew (but, definitely not complete without Tim, Anna, Levi, and Judah)

Hope each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Reconnecting

The weekend before Thanksgiving we had some good friends, the Taylor's, come visit. We served alongside them in Kenya and have missed them. Thankfully, we now live only a few hours away from each other, so I look forward to staying better connected. We got to meet their newest addition, Luke, for the first time which was a special treat! Their oldest son, Noah, was born while we were in Africa, and it  just amazes me how quickly time goes by--he is such a big boy! We are definitely blessed by their friendship and had a wonderful visit!

Turkeys, Turkeys, Turkeys

Well, I don't know about you, but we are in full swing of this whole turkey thing ;) Our house has been invaded by them this year and I'm loving it.

Last week we went over to a neighbors for a play date and she had made the cutest little turkeys for the kids to eat.  

Ummm...can you say, delicious!?!

She also had stuff for each of the kids to make a pine cone turkey--which I thought turned out perfect!

This isn't exactly a turkey, but I couldn't pass up sharing his scarecrow.

Micah's school Bible verse is Psalm 118:1 "Oh give thanks to the Lord; for He is good." This year, we've really tried to talk to Micah about "thankfulness"--especially to be thankful for what the Lord has done for us and provides for us. I recently asked him what he was thankful for and this was his response, "toys, chocolate milk, regular milk, movies, school..." Oh, you sure can tell, our teaching is clicking. Haha.


I'm in shock it's already November 16th. I'm trying to slow the clock down so I can really soak up the holidays. I feel like I'm going to blink and they will be over. We leave Monday for a wonderful week in NC with Lottie and Granddaddy. Our family jokes around and call their house the "holiday house"--it just has a special holiday feel about it. Oh, how we cannot wait to get there!

Zoo Time

This post is a little behind, but a couple weeks ago we went to the Birmingham zoo with some friends. It was my first time to go, but not my kids. My Mom had taken my kids this summer while Paul and I were in India. We enjoyed the gorgeous day with good friends and especially loved the African exhibit :)  

A little playtime in our yard after nap time.

Fall Festival #2

After we spent last Saturday morning in downtown Bham, we headed home for naps, and then were back out again for our second Fall Festival of the day. Our Small Group put on a Fall Festival for an apartment complex where some of our friends live, and are wanting to engage their neighbors. Our kids were ecstatic to put their costumes on and to spend the evening with some of their friends. The apartment complex was rather diverse, as there was many nationalities represented. This was fun for us as we met several Kenyan families and enjoyed talking to them about our time in Nairobi. We hope to go back to visit them soon. It was a great turnout and an overall wonderful fall family day! 

Setting up and waiting for people to arrive.

These gorgeous teeth were quite the hit!

Some of our Small Group kids

Downtown Fall Festival

Last weekend our church helped throw a Fall Festival downtown and we decided to take the kids to check it out. They had a free medical clinic and some preschool games inside, and then some older games, events, and food outside. It was a gorgeous day and great to get out into the community. 

Jordan attempting her first try at "corn hole"

Micah and a new friend listening to the Creation story