A reminder of how thankful I really am....

This weekend, after a wonderful holiday we got some very bad news. Last night Nate's family suffered a great loss, with the passing of his cousin, Dustin. I didn't know Dustin all that well, but I know him as a big guy (the kind you would want to have in your corner), with a big heart, and his family will miss him terribly..... My heart especially goes out to his mom and daughter - Ashlyn is 5 I think. So sad.... It makes me look at my little family, and be reminded of how truly grateful I am for our health and happiness.

With that in mind, I wanted to share some pictures from our Thanksgiving. It goes without saying that I am thankful for Nate, Annabel, my mom, dad, brother, sister and the whole big crazy extended family. And I am lucky to have such great in-laws, too!

Me and my girl on her second Thanksgiving

Annabel and Grandma - try as we might, the girl was not smiling!
My dad doing the honors carving the turkey

Annabel and her Thanksgiving feast. Unfortunately, a 3:00 meal doesn't fit into her schedule too well... so it was really a super sized snack. She pretty much just ate cranberry sauce. But she enjoyed it! Don't mind the hair, she had just gotten up from her nap.
This is how daddy works out these days.... a few reps with this adorable 30 pound weight will firm up those arms in a hurry!

You can tell how much Annabel loves this - it's one of her favorite thingsMe and Annabel - again. I just can't get enough! :)
A family pic
This was actually taken today when she discovered the joy of stickers. That's a Goofy sticker on her cheek, in case you can't tell.

My mom and I took Annabel Christmas shopping, and she had tomato soup for lunch. She LOVES tomato soup.... so much that she had the fork and spoon both shoveling it in at the same time! Did I mention that she LOVES this soup?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, and I get the feeling that each year will only get better from here. I've started doing a little decorating early, and Annabel walks around exclaiming "pretty!" as she looks at all the Christmas lights. Here are just a couple pictures that get me excited about this Christmas:

Can it be??? I think Annabel may actually understand posing for a picture! Not that she will do it on command, but it's a start!

I have to brag a bit - I made this! I'm very proud....

I love Thanksgiving and all, but bring on Christmas already! :)

HGTV wanna-be

The past couple of weeks Nate and I have been working very hard to give our living room a make-over. Prior to this, every single room in our house has the same boring cream color on the walls..... but now we have a splash of color! I got this idea off of HGTV, with the different color on the top and bottom. It helps "shrink the room" so that it feels cozier and things on the wall don't get lost in all that wall space. Or at least that's what their designers told me. :) We'll see if it's true once we finally put something on the wall! And we still need window treatments, but it's a good start!!!

Here is the before:

And the after! Don't mind the dead body on the floor.... he was trying to "hide" from the camera. Not very effective.

Nate and I reflected on this last night when we were finally finished, and said to ourselves "it really doesn't look like we did that much". But let me tell you, with Annabel around, this was monumental! Even with my parents' help on one of the weekends, it turned out to be a two weekend job. I think I've satisfied my thirst for home improvement projects for the time being.

Best Friends!

As they get older, thankfully Annabel and Brooklyn are becoming good friends (I think because they actually enjoy each other's company, not just because Brooklyn's mom and I make them). They are a riot to watch, and play really well together - at least most of the time. One night Brooklyn and her parents came over to visit after work, and the girls ran around like crazy people.... so fun!

You might say this is mean - I say it is adorable!

Trick or Treat!

Of course we went trick-or-treating on Halloween.... we only went to our neighbors, but that was enough for this year. Annabel didn't have any other kids to watch, so she didn't really understand what to do. She walked up to each door, waited for them to answer, and when they opene the door, she just walked right in like she was there to visit. Although she did't really get how to do it herself, she did enjoy having all the kids come to our door. All in all, I think she had a pretty good night!

So I know what you're thinking - Annabel was such a cute little flower, I wonder what her mom dressed her up as this year? Well, mom didn't get any say. Apparently, Daddy had some hard feeling about the flower, and claimed this year as his turn. So I played along and secretly bought a lady bug costume figuring that when Halloween came he probably wouldn't have bought anything. He talked about dressing her as a hobbit, and also contemplated dressing up as a referree and dressing her up as his yellow flag. I wasn't thrilled about any of these of course, and was super excited when I came home one day and he told me had ordered her a princess costume! A little puzzled, I asked why he had the change of heart? He said that he thought she would be a cute princess, and that he found a costume that was unique..... what is unique about it, I asked? "I dunno, it's white, and fabric.... it's just cute". Perhaps someone smarter than me might have figured out he was playing games - he definitely did not stop the images of tiaras and glitter that were going through my head! Then it arrives, and suddenly I see what he was doing..... she was a princess alright, Princess Leia! Well, this is definitely not what I would have picked, but I have to admit that it was pretty darn cute. Here are pictures from Annabel's first Trick or Treat!

Princess Leia @ just under 3 feet tall

Nate was squatted down trying to take the picture at her level.... Annabel sees this and thinks she should do the same. So funny!

Heading to the neighbors

On to the next house!

Checking out her loot

By the end of the night, Princess Leia was pooped! (and no, it wasn't because she was hitting the wine - that was Mommy's!)

My parents came to visit that night, and brought their dog, Woody. Annabel loves Woody! And Woody just tries to stay out of the way.... in this shot, he didn't stand a chance!

We all took a turn with the wig - wild times at our house!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Sorry Grandma!

So my mother reminded me today that it has been awhile since I've updated the blog..... My goodness, how do you keep up when you're being run ragged by a 19 month old! So I'm going to try to get up to date, one section at a time. First, our trip to the pumpkin patch!

A couple weeks before Halloween Annabel and I met my friend Lori and her daughter Mady at a pumpkin patch near here. It's the same one that we went to last year, although it was a lot different.... for one thing, it was packed because we were there on a weekend. And for another, they were out of pumpkins!!!! No joke! We were waiting for the tractor to come and take us to the pumpkin patch and it pulled up and told us they were out of pumpkins! Well that is disappointing..... Lori and I agreed that next year we will take an afternoon off work at the beginning of October so we can go when it's peaceful and the pumpking patch is full. Still, the girls had a really good time.... here are our pictures!

Miss Annabel, looking far to grown up

Miss Mady

This was the best picture we could get of the two of them..... they grew tired of the cameras pretty quick!

There was a petting zoo, which Annabel was pretty leary of. Mady, on the other hand, was fearless as usual!

And there were pony rides! Who do you think looks more excited, Annabel or me?

The girls got to drive a tractor (or pretend to)

I've seen her make this face a million times.... and I still think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen!

There were hugs goodbye - a lot of them! They would hug, and then say 'more' and hug again. This went on for a couple of minutes....

This picture cracks me up.... the hug was so fierce it knocked Mady over!

Since we struck out at the pumpking patch, Annabel and I decided to stop at a farm on the way home that had a good selection of pumpkins. Annabel had a good time picking out her favorite!

She started trying to pick up pumpkins that weighed about as much as she did....

Then she went a little smaller, but still couldn't pick it up....

And then we FINALLY found one that was Annabel size!

Checking out....

This is just a random picture that I really enjoy. Annabel is pretty obsessed with hats these days.... this bucket is her favorite.