Latest Obsession

Thanks go out to Amber and Pop pop for Alden's latest obsession. It seems that while Matt and I were doing the Reindeer Romp 5K on the 5th (click here to see our photo) , they were watching Twister on TV...you know, the one with the tornado chasers...the one where the little girl's dad gets sucked up?? Amber drew a little picture of one on a scrap of cardboard, and Alden has been carrying around that, and the VHS tape for the past week. Last Thursday, she even took the cardboard drawing as her show-and-tell. Really. She even told Jessica the other day that she wanted a tornado for Christmas. At first she couldn't remember what it was called and just said, "You know, those things that suck stuff up?"

And we continue to expose our 3 year old to scary movies by letting her watch part of Harry Potter. She calls it "Harry Paw-Bo".

We celebrated Amber's birthday/our anniversary on the 9th with dinner at Bebe and Pop pop's house. We helped decorate their Christmas tree. Alden and Hudson liked the beads a lot. I don't know if they ever were untangled. We had a yummy candy cane ice cream cake from Coldstone, and then everyone came back to our house to watch the new HP movie so that the kids could go to sleep...in theory.

On the 3rd, the Y had a little Jingle and Mingle thing, so we went over after dinner. They had crafts set up for the kids, and Santa was even there. The kids liked seeing Santa, but were not too keen on being close enough to him for a picture, much less to sit on his lap. View the fruit of our effort here - we are photo #'s 65 & 66. We did write letters to him; Alden asked for a princess tea set, and a dinosaur, and said that Hudson would like a reindeer. Matt was playing volleyball that night, so we watched some of his game. Hudson loved watching them play, because he is always interested if there are balls involved, and Alden was a great cheerleader, saying "Go, Daddy!"
What else, what else? We got our tree weekend before last, and it is HUGE. I think Matt thought it looked a little smaller at Ace Hardware. Alden stayed up on Saturday night and helped us/pulled all the ornaments out of the boxes and played with them. She did hang a few on the tree, however, they all seemed to be clustered on the same branch.

Hudson was so excited when he got up on Sunday and saw the tree. He has been a little nervous about the ones around the YMCA. He loves pointing to the ornaments and watching the train going around.

Speaking of the train, last Monday, we had Mom, Dad, and Amber over for dinner. Matt and Dad spent most of the time that they weren't eating dissecting Matt's childhood Lionel train engine and repairing it. Who knew that my dad's first job was at a train store? Who knew that the light on the front of the train ever worked? When my dad heard Matt say that he had two more train sets under the house, you should have seen his face light up at the possibility of more toy train projects.

This past weekend Matt got to teach our couples Sunday school class. We are beginning a study on the Gospel of Mark and Matt was given the task of introducing the book and leading a discussion of the first chapter. I slept through the whole thing, so unfortunately, I missed his debut...not because I was bored, I was home since I had worked the night before, but I heard through the grapevine that he did a great job, and he said that it went really well.

Alden's preschool class talked about reindeer last week. Here she is modeling her antlers.

Angels...in the pumpkin patch

We picked up Alden after school today and went to Chick-Fil-A with Bebe. She started singing a song that goes:

There was one
There was two
There was three little angels

There was four
There was five
There was six little angels

There was seven
There was eight
There was nine little angels

There were 10 little angels in the pumpkin patch

What?!?!?!

We asked her what they were doing in the pumpkin patch. "Looking for treasure chests," she explains.

Hudson has been enjoying turning the light on and off in the kitchen. When he turns it off, he kind of tenses up his whole body and holds his hands in front of him. This is his sign for "spooky". He just made it up.

In other signing news, he finally signed "thank you" today. Still no mom. I think he may have actually said "Bebe" today in the car.

I worked Saturday and Sunday night and I swear that he looked older after I woke up from my nap on Monday. He runs faster, too. I joke with Matt that Hudson knows how to "drive" us. He will come over and want to be picked up and just lean in the direction he wants to go, pointing, or signing until he gets to where he wants to be and obtains what he wants.

He really likes the horse ornaments on the Christmas tree and turning the radio on and off. Alden has a little tree in her room, and he always pulls off the same little girl ornament, brings it to Matt, and wants to hang it back on the tree in the exact same place.

Not so big yet

The other night at dinner with Bebe and Pop pop, Alden told us, "Please cut the crust off my bread. I don't eat crust yet." So, when is that, I wonder, when kids start eating crust?

She has a Playmobile pirate playset and we let her play with the big parts. There are about 50 little pieces in plastic bags in the box. She told us the other day, "I can play with the little pieces when I am 5."

We are thankful

After working 3 out of the 4 nights before Thanksgiving, somehow I managed to get everything packed and we were loaded and ready to head to Aiken by noon on Wednesday. Matt graciously took the kids to the Y in the morning so I could get a little bit of sleep, and expertly loaded the car.

We ate lunch at home before we left, and were able to make it to Aiken in 4 1/2 hours with no stops. Hudson slept for a long time, and thanks to Auntie Amber's DVD player, Alden sat quietly watching movies and eating Cheezits.

Grandma had a wonderful dinner ready for us when we got to Aiken, and we got to visit a little bit and let the kids play before baths and bed. I can't tell you how good it was to sit on the couch with Matt and watch TV (especially because Glee was on). I cannot remember when we did that last. It was AWESOME.

The morning of Turkey Day, Matt got up with the kids and let me sleep until after 9 and we had a great big breakfast. One of our favorite Aiken traditions is the Blessing of the Hounds on Thanksgiving. We did realize on the way down there that we didn't have the backpack, so Matt ended up carrying/shouldering Hudson on the walk into the woods. Both of the kids were excited to see the horses, and Alden was very vigilant about warning us to avoid the horse poop. We had to wait a little while for the hounds to make their entrance. Alden kept calling them "pounds." One of the "pounds" got loose and ran off into the woods, and she was very interested in pursuing the "lost pound." After the ceremony, we let the kids run around and we tried to take a picture. This seems to be the hardest thing in the world to get both children to smile and look at the camera at the same time. AHHH!

On the way out of the woods, Alden met a little boy named Christian and they chased a car and played the whole way. This made the walk go much faster. Hudson wanted to walk some, too, but couldn't quite keep up with the big kids.

We had a little lunch, and we all took a nap. GLORIOUS. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, although we really missed Leigh Anne, Eric, Rachel, Michael and Baby Jake. Alden ate a lot of turkey. She claimed that she didn't like ham, although 2 nights later, she loved it. Hudson enjoyed the cranberry sauce. Both of the kids chowed on the pumpkin pie that Grandma made. I think between them and Matt, they ate 1/4 of it that night. Once the kids were in bed, Matt and I watched The Right Stuff. Wow, that is a long movie.

Friday, Matt and I got up and went on a run. Then, we all packed up and walked around Laurens Street. We checked out the toy store, of course. We walked in and Alden saw this baby doll playset, and exclaims, "OH, Look! How cute!" Hudson was a trooper riding around in the stroller. Matt got three new bowties to add to his collection.

We got the kids down for nap (although Alden never slept) and Matt and I had a date with Lily to walk around the woods. I know I have said this before, but Hitchcock Woods is one of my favorite places on earth.

Before dinner, we got the kids outside and walked around the neighborhood. Hudson saw the moon and flipped out he was so excited. He was doing this cute little running in place thing, and pointing and making noise. He knows the sign for bird now, and kept doing it when he saw them flying around. He and Alden ran in the woods; Alden was a fox and Hudson was supposed the be the "pound."

The kids played together so well. Alden was generous and kind to her brother, which is a rarity. I think us just being able to spend so much time with them helped, too. It was fun to enjoy our kids without the responsibility of laundry and meals looming.

Alden was in Tinkerbell mode a lot, and kept telling Hudson to be a hawk, and telling Matt to be a thistle...except she would say "fissle."

Saturday, Matt and I drove into town and did a long run around the Historic District. We took the kids to the park after lunch. We almost didn't bring Lily with us, but it ended up being a good idea, because she was a hit at the park. At one point, only Alden and Hudson were on the playground and the other 8 kids were petting Lily. She was in heaven.

We went to the woods again during naps and decorated cookies once the kids were up. Alden helped Grandma cut them out and we all had fun icing them...and eating them.

Saturday night, Matt and I escaped and went out to get ice cream. We had seen a sign for pumpkin milkshakes on Thursday, and it had been on Matt's mind since. We walked around downtown, and went to the new Wal-Mart to look at toys. What a great date!

We went to church on Sunday morning, and had lunch at FATZ. We love Fatz. Love it, love it. After loading all our things back in the car, we got on the road and drove to Charlotte to visit with Nana for the night.

A strange phenomenon occurred during our vacation. Our kids LOVED eating bananas. Have they eaten any since we've been home? No. Have they really ever eaten them at our house? No.

There is something about Nana's house and holidays. They just don't seem right unless we are there. Probably because that's where we went every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it is just so special to be there with her and the rest of the family. Hudson really liked Nana's stuffed turkey ("gobble, gobble") and Alden remembered right where the books were that she likes. We managed to fit even more food in our stomachs at dinner time, got the kids in bed, and stuffed a little dessert in there, too. One of my favorite things is sitting around and talking in Nana's living room at night.

Hudson and Nana fixing their hair.

Nana fixed us an excellent breakfast and we played outside for a little while before going to lunch at Foskoskis. We headed back with two sleepy children...and two sleepy parents...and a tired dog...all of us thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family.