Thanks

We headed over to Jim and Lisa's house for Thanksgiving. We have known them forever and they were very sweet to ask us over. There were about 2 dozen adults/kids and we were not short on food. Six turkeys, casseroles and sides and so many desserts I lost count. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast. Lukas cried when he had to leave. Of course, about two minutes later he feel asleep. Hans took about 300 pictures and some how in my exhaustion .. while looking at the pictures in the car, I deleted about 180 of them. Oops! There are a few of the kids, so that's good.

We are very grateful for the many blessings we have in our lives. The only difficult part is being away from family over the holidays. Hans and I are going to have to fill our days with our own special traditions this year for Christmas. There has only been one Christmas in my life that I haven't been with family. It was just the two of us and it was good, but much better with family.

I, for the first time, woke up at 4:30am and shopped on Black Friday. I mapped out my game plan and off I went. There were some serious shoppers out there. I got just about everything I had hoped to get. It was funny to watch all the crazies grab the tv's. The line to get into Target was at least 500+. I did wait it in but was towards the front of the line. I scored big time at Gymboree (kid's clothes). So, all in all, a successful Thanksgiving. I had hoped to get the Christmas decorations up, but it just didn't happen. Tonight, we will get all the boxes down and tomorrow the decorating will begin. Then, it's time to finalize plans for Lukas' party. He is so excited for it!

Jim and Lisa

their backyard

Lukas' placemat he made in school... he's thankful for Santa, trains and Mommy


Love the handprint

They asked each child what is the one thing he would get for his family for Thanksgiving dinner and he said candy corn and cookies and it would cost $10.

another handprint