Thanksgiving 2014

We had a smaller Thanksgiving this year. Jen was our only out of town guest. I was a little nervous about my turkey this year because I was using the electric roaster that Mama got for me. I had already used it for other dishes, just not the turkey. I read several articles on the Internet about how the roaster is different. The main thing I found out was that it cooks faster and doesn't brown the skin as much, but that the turkey ends up being extra juicy. So I timed everything based on the longer cook time. One of the recipes I saw said that a 19 lb turkey would be ready in 4 hours. My roaster cookbook said 2 1/2. Mine ended up being ready after 3 hours. It did brown a little, but I rubbed it with butter and stuck it in the oven for 30 minutes to get it browner. It was perfect! I also did mashed potatoes and rolls. Mama made the dressing, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. And Grandmother made her broccoli salad and cream corn with sausage. Everything was so good!!!! Plus we had a little birthday party for Mama. We gave her $50 to Tuesday Morning and a hummingbird charm.

 

After everyone left, we took short naps, watched the Cowboys game, and got all of our Christmas decorations out. My main goal for that evening was to get the tree decorated. Nathan and Charlotte helped me, and it looks so pretty! I did the ribbon and then just let them do all of the ornaments. They only broke 3! Poor Nathan broke two in a row and felt really bad. Then I broke one (so I guess it was 4 total) and he felt better. Ha! Around 10, I left to do a little Black Friday shopping. Since everything opened earlier this year, and I didn't have to wait til midnight to start, I figured I'd just be gone a couple of hours especially since I didn't have anything specific that I needed. Well, once I got out, I was having so much fun shopping by myself that I didn't get home until 4:00 am!!! I bought one thing on sale (a pair of pajamas for $7.00 and everything else I liked was not on sale like two pairs of earrings, a necklace, and some shoes). It was fun though. Now we are finishing our Christmas decorations, which I'll show in a different post. We are trying to get everything ready because Wayne and I are going out of town Monday through Wednesday for Wayne's Nashville Christmas party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Ready for Christmas

The big Toys R Us and Target toy catalogs came to our house, and two little kids were VERY excited! I was thinking now that they are a little older, maybe they could really just circle only their favorite, must-have toys and give us a good idea of what they really wanted. I told them to try to just circle their top 10. Both seemed to think that was a good idea. They worked really hard and long, and when they showed their choices to us, how many things do you think were circled? Only EVERYTHING! 

Nathan

Nathan is now toothless! He's already lost his two bottom teeth, and has now lost one of us upper teeth. It was loose just a few weeks ago, and then it seemed like in one day, it got VERY loose. When I picked him up from school two weeks ago, I could see this big space between his front tooth and the side tooth! He wiggled and wiggled it, and Wayne and I even attempted to help him out. One day last week, he came home from school and it was leaning to one side. I told him we had to get that thing out! Then he came up with the idea of using his stomp rocket. We tied a long piece of dental floss to his tooth and the other end to the rocket. Jake and Skylar were over playing and they were our audience. Jake helped encourage Nathan. Here is a video of one of our first attempts. It was so hard for Nathan to get his courage up even though he really wanted to do it.

From watching the video, it looks like it worked. But the string ended up breaking. And Nathan was done after that! He told me just to untie the string and he would wiggle and wiggle and get it out himself. The only problem was that the rocket ended up making the string really tight and up high against his gum. There was no way I could get it off! So I just clipped it, and he ended up having this tiny piece of floss hanging between his teeth! I emailed the video to his teachers who thought it was hilarious and let him show it to the class the next day. The next night, I made fried chicken. Nathan took one bite and yelled that his tooth came out! Leave it to my cooking! He was so excited!!! 

This is a perfect example of Nathan's spunky, adventurous, and funny personality. I can definitely say he is all boy! He has such a great personality. He loves to be funny and make us laugh. He can quote and act out tons of commercials...he expecially likes the insurance ones. He's got his British/Austrailian accent down to a science and even told the sister of one of Charlotte's friends that he was from England and was just here visiting his cousin for a few weeks! Where Charlotte has my passive personality traits, Nathan has his Daddy's assertive personality. He will grow up to be a great lawyer or politician. If I tell him to do something and he asks why, I can't just say "Because I said so." He wants to know exactly what it is, why it's necessary, and if he doesn't agree, he will give me his reasons why or try to negotiate something different.  

He and Charlotte have their moments of not getting along or getting on each other's nerves, but overall, they are really very close. They really play together well and actually enjoy being with each other. There was one night when Nathan really wanted Charlotte to sleep in his room with him. She used too but now loves her room and her bed. I had already tucked them both in, but heard Nathan get out of his bed. I went to the hallway by their rooms and heard Nathan talking to Charlotte. He said that if he had a Genie, he would wish that he could have all the toys in the world, then he'd wish that Charlotte would stay little. He said that now that she's bigger, she doesn't want to be with him as much. Then Charlotte told him she still really loved him but she just likes her bed. So then Nathan asked if he could sleep in her room! I was dying laughing because they were having this sincere conversation and really trying to negotiate what each of them wanted. So I let them work out this agreement and Nathan slept in her twin bed. In the middle of the night, I heard a big thud and Charlotte crying. She fell out of the bed! 

Where one of Charlotte's favorite things is shopping and dressing up, Nathan's favorite thing is to wrestle with Daddy. They have wrestled before bedtime since he was little. I used to worry about Nathan getting hurt. Now I worry about Daddy! Nathan is getting so big and pretty much has no fear!

Another funny thing Nathan said was just a few weeks ago. I fixed him a bagel but told him we ran out of cream cheese. He said, "That's ok, I'll have some..." and he pauses for a while trying to think of the word. "Mommy, what's that white stuff we have at Thanksgiving?" I answer, "butter?" and he says, "Yeah, I'll have some butter." I laughed so hard. I guess we don't have much butter around here, ha!

I love you Nathan! Thank you for making our lives so entertaining and unpredictable! Even though you are getting big, you are still my baby. I love that you love your family so much. We love you too.

Here are some pictures of Nathan pre toothless and post. Also, some pictures from his first grade Thanksgiving feast and the teacher dodgeball tournament at his school

Charlotte

Charlotte is such a sweetheart and is so sensitive. She makes me laugh every day and is just a joy to be with! I love her tender heart and her dramatic tendencies. She has become very particular about her clothes. She prefers dresses and leggings and does not want to wear anything tight or itchy, which is a little hard because all the pants right now are skinny/straight leg pants. Every morning, I'll pick out an outfit for her and cross my fingers that she'll like it. We've had a few mornings with tears because I'm telling her it's soft and she's telling me it's itchy. Or she just wants to wear a pretty dress. So instead of trying to change her mind about pants, I went shopping for her with these words on my mind: soft, loose, pretty. Here are a few pics of a few of her new clothes. The picture of her without pants is because she loved her shirt and furry vest but not the cream corduroy pants, oh well!

Charlotte's sensitive side has been coming out a lot lately. The other day, she got mad at Nathan for something that he did accidentally (I know that he does things to irritate her on purpose too, but this was legitimately an accident). It hurt his feelings and when I got onto her, she just started crying and ran to Nathan, saying "Nay Nay! I love you!" And she pretty much threw herself into him and hugged him. She was kept crying until Nathan told her it was ok and he wasn't mad. He was hugging her and looking at me like what in the world is going on?! And then she wanted nothing to do with me. She wanted Nathan to tuck her in and brush her teeth. Nathan acted like he was about 5 years older and said, "Mom, I'll take care of her. You can go downstairs." It was so funny! Another time I got onto her, she cried and asked me if I forgave her and told me we would be friends forever. I really don't have to put her in time out because as soon as I correct her, she is genuinely sorry. I don't like it when she gets dramatic, crosses her arms, and storms off, but that doesn't happen too often...it just adds to her little personality.  She also loves to take care of any of us if we are hurt or sick. Daddy had a little tiny cut on his finger, and Charlotte was his nurse. She cuddled with him, fixed him water, and kept asking if he was ok. 

One thing that's made me sad is that she has been going through a separation phase where she cries when I leave her at school, church, play dates. It's gotten better this week. And her teachers always say that she has fun at school and stops crying after a couple of minutes. It does make me sad though for her to keep wanting to hug and kiss me. 

So we've been having play dates at our house. She LOVES to have friends over!!! I love my sweet girl so much.

Here are some pictures of sweet Charlotte:

Happy Halloween!

Charlotte's school had a fall festival along with open house the Sunday before Halloween. They were also doing Trunk or Treat at the festival and needed volunteers to sign up. One of the moms whose daughter is in Charlotte's class (and they just love each other) is really involved in all of the events at the school and asked me to be one of the trunks. So I did, although I wasn't too excited about it. I had never done a Trunk or Treat before and really didn't want to go to a lot of trouble or spend any money on it. On the other hand, I didn't want to have a boring car when everyone else had something great. So I decided to make my car a "Sleepover" theme. I pretty much just put Charlotte's room in my trunk. I had her quilt, lamp, basket of books, pillow, teddy bear, hair/makeup/nail kit, sleeping bag, slippers, and I used her sheet to make it look like curtains. And then Charlotte and I dressed up in our pajamas. It actually turned out really cute! 

We had fun but it ended up being a LONG night! Nathan had a make up soccer game at the exact same time so Wayne took him to that (lucky guy!) What I didn't think about was that we had to be at the school at 3:30 to set up our trunks, then go to the open house from 4-5, then have the fall festival from 5-7, so towards the end, Charlotte and I were exhausted and ready to go home, but we couldn't just leave because our car was where all the people were walking around! There were a few people who were starting to leave, but they had their spouses with them to help pull out and stop people from walking behind the car. Finally at 6:30, I had enough and found a friend to help me pull out. Charlotte and I were starving because we only had candy and cotton candy at the festival so we drove through McDonalds :) 

This is of Charlotte at her class party, which was also pajama day. She got to wear her pajamas twice in one week! The moms who set up the party went all out. Everything was so cute! But now the bar is set high for the rest of us who have to plan parties! They had cupcakes, orange juice in little mason jars with gummy worms on the bottom, fruit kabobs, and a clear plastic glove filled with popcorn and candy corns on the end of each finger to look like nails and a ring on the outside! That was my favorite. They also got to decorate and paint their own pumpkins. 

On Halloween night, which was a Friday, Nathan and Charlotte were so excited! Charlotte was so excited that she ended up falling asleep in Daddy's chair. I was glad she was taking a nap before Alison, Shawn, Lauren and Trevor, came over...but she would not wake up! We were supposed to go to the neighborhood party at 5:30 and our friends were coming over at 5, so I wanted to get her up and dressed a little before 5. It took me 15 minutes to get her up, and while I was doing her makeup, she kept falling asleep again! She is such a PEARCE! But once Lauren and Trevor got here, she perked up. So Charlotte was Anna from FROZEN this year and Nathan was a red ninja from a show NINJAGO. Charlotte's wig completely made her costume! It was so cute on her! We ate pizza here first and then headed to the neighborhood party. The kids did bounce houses, a petting zoo, pony ride, got balloon animals, and just had fun being together. Then we went trick or treating. The boys stayed together and so did the girls. It was so cute to see how much they all love being together and that they really do look out for each other. Trevor thinks that Nathan is the coolest thing in the world and Charlotte thinks the same about Lauren! We were out for about an hour and a half and then headed back to the house to eat it all. I think I almost made myself sick from eating so much candy. And Nathan had fun handing out our candy to all of the trick or treaters. He also loved playing with Charlotte's wig the next day!