Christmas on the Square

i did some online shopping on black friday and then 20 minutes before the sales ended, amy convinced me to head out. i rushed as fast as i could to kohls and got a few good deals and then decided to hit cvs and old navy just for good measure. #crazy lines. i've been shopping at that time on black friday before, but these lines were way worse! i've got a hefty dent put into my christmas list, so yay!

we headed to Christmas on the sqare at 5. matt went to work that morning, but came home early, partly because everyone else did, and partly because he wasn't feeling well. and since laney's been congested, he kept her home that night too. it was 32°, so we bundled tight! i must be on a grey kick, cause addie's got a new grey coat, and last years grey gloves, hat, and scarf. then she found the shades so her eyes wouldn't get cold.

then poor sister-hand-me-down looked a cute hot mess with mismatched hat, scarf, gloves, and coat. i buy addie a new peacoat every year, (when old navy does their 40% off coupon) but for two years in a row i got 3t's instead of one 3t and one 4t. so franks will continue with the regularly scheduled peacoat hand-me-down next year. at least she's cute!

we got there and immediately got in line to ride in a fire truck. the line was forever long, so chris waited and i took the girls to look around. first we saw the farm animals.

franks was so excited to see mrs hornbuckle and her daughters there. :)

then we had to ride the ponies.

they loved it.

even though it was soooo cold!

this lady loves her some animals!

chris texted as we were finishing up, so we ran down the middle of the (closed off) street. the girls got a kick out of that. then the fire truck ride!

it was so cool! and they took us all around leonardtown, all the way to the governmental center, where they turned on the lights and siren for us to enjoy.

it was spacious and warm and fun!

frankie decided that she will be a firefighter when she grows up. addie said "oh frankie, it will be so hot!"

frankie was okay with that.

and our first ride in a fire truck was a success.

then we met up with the aina clan. they were with grandma debby and aunt susan, and they let us jump into line with them to go on the horse drawn carriage. aunt susan was going to get a picture of all of us, but right as she was going to take it, our carriage took off. it was pretty funny!

happy girls!

after the carriage ride i'm pretty sure i had frost bite on my ballet flat wearing tootsies, so we checked out the cars and the silent auction, and then it was time for santa to ride into town and light the tree. we all lined the streets to see santa ride in after the fire trucks.

it took them the requisite 3 tries to light the tree, we all cheered, and then we bolted. it was soooo cold! so, matt always parks down the hill on the other side of the square, but i forgot and parked in the middle of a mess of traffic. then christian convinced me to take a left, which caused us to sit in completely unmoving traffic for no less than 20 minutes. and it was a dead zone where our phones wouldn't work! we finally had enough room to be able to turn around, so it only ended up taking us 40 minutes to get about 2 miles.

we decided to go to salsas to celebrate with our college student who i got 0 pictures of. in my defense, she was with ryan all day, but then she did meet us at salsas, so that was nice. lex and chris had been promising the little girls a sleepover since lex got home, so last night they finally made good on it. i snuck down to get a picture. now, if i was a good mom, i would have looked at the picture and seen that poor frankie was completely uncovered, but i didn't actually notice that until i went to bed, at 3:30. by that point i figured she'd probably moved and was fine, so no use going back down. ;)

 

it was a good black friday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

we started off with two little ladies in our bed with us, bright and early thanksgiving morning. we got up and ate breakfast and got ready to watch the parade. we watched, and cooked, and ate m&m's, just like we did in days of thanksgiving gone by. at 12, we loaded up a million dishes and a million people, and headed to mccombs. but first, this stylish gal showing off her canadian tuxedo. that's some super cool jean on jean action right thar! she was thrilled to get addie's hand-me-down jean jacket this week cause addie got a new one.

we got to mc's early so we  matt could heat up the turkey fryer. and kids are soooo helpful!

the rest of the crew was a-workin'!

we bought a new turkey fryer this year. i am a dyed in the wool turkey fryer believer. turkey is so dry that i've never been a big fan, but i love when we inject our to-be-fried-turkey with cajun seasoning and fry it, it makes it so moist and adds a nice flavor. look at that deliciousness! and the turkey looks good too. ;))))

i had talked to darlaina about thanksgiving traditions last week and she said her family always did a relish tray. i had never heard of such a thing, and even though i'm not the biggest pickle fan, (they're okay every now and then) i was super intrigued. then when lisa came over, she brought the fixin's for a mini-relish platter. lucky me! but then, unlucky me, i forgot to try anything from the mini-relish tray. oopsie.

the troops were famished, what with all of the laying around, and everyone was ready to eat, and pretty close to our 2 o'clock goal too.

everything was delicious! we made mashed potatoes, creamed corn, green bean casserole, winter salad, pink fluff, and the turkey. laura made frog eye salad, sweet potatoes, rolls, carrots, and cranberry sauce. then lisa brought ham, homemade chicken noodles, pineapple casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, more sweet potatoes, and the relish platter. there was so much food and it was so yummy!

oh sweet daniel...

we ate and visitied and cleaned. we had brought games over, and joseph really wanted to play scene-it, so i cut papers out so we could choose teams. it was laura, lisa, and i, then matt, david, and richard, and then all the teens on their own team. isn't that weird the way it worked out?! we played for awhile, but our scene-it is old, so we switched to our disney scene-it and decided to answer only the video questions, then it was more fun and a little faster. we finished that game and headed on to the pies! lisa brought french silk, laura made pumpkin, lemon meringue, chocolate pudding, and vanilla pudding pie, and i brought chocolate chip pie and cheese cake. only my cheesecake met an untimely fate after i asked aloseph to take some things out to the garage fridge and joseph dropped it. :/ heavens knows i don't need it, but i think i will be making another one this weekend. it's just part of thanksgiving!

the girls started to melt down and it was time to go. i realized i hadn't gotten a good picture of the girls in their thanksgiving shirts - so here goes! super thanksgiving girl.

then i went up to snap lanes before bed, but she was super silly.

she had no diaper (mid-change) and was dancing all around.

"no, just hold still and look at me...just let me see your shirt..."

oh, picture taking of a goofy 2-year-old.

 

chris is pet sitting for 2 families in our neighborhood, so he had to come home to let out dogs and then he and i headed back over to watch mom's night out, which lexi had rented on tuesday, and we'd never gotten around to watching. it was cute and had a lot of really relatable parts, but was super blown out of proportion and over done.

ma big kids! we got home way too late, but we had a really great day and a happy thanksgiving!

 

pre-thanksgiving

franks pre-k had a charlie brown thanksgiving party on monday. it was funny, because i had seen the flyer sent home and put it into my phone for monday at 2:15. then i talked to kim at the bus stop and she hadn't heard anything about a party for the pre-k crowd, but her 1st grader was having a party on tuesday. then i started doubting myself, so i went back to email and saw that the teacher had said it was tuesday, so then i texted kim and told her it was actually the next day. then when i dropped frankie off at school that afternoon, she told me she was so sorry, that she had sent me the wrong day on the email and it was actually on monday. sooo the story of my life. i confuse myself so much!

anyhow, monday morning my tagalongs came along and we met up with laura for some thanksgiving shopping. we were on a tight schedule because we had a vt appt at 11, and we totally made it right on time. then we went straight to drop franks off. then an dr's appt at 1, then straight home to pick up the popcorn for franks party, then to the charlie brown party, then home for pie baking.
 phew!

monday was beautiful so the man took advantage of that opportunity to put up the christmas lights, ahem, for the first time in a few years.

he wore an awesome camouflage one piece that was sooo hot! ;)

we sent addie off to gymnastics in the streeter gymnastics bus, we ate a quick leftover dinner, and then on to the marsh's for their pre-thanksgiving pie night. it was deeeelish. they had a pie contest that we did not win, but when i asked mrs. g's daughter which was her favorite, she said my chocolate chip pie, so that's a win in my book. ;)

(on a sidenote, at our actual thanksgiving pie time addie whispered in my ear "did we win this pie contest?" she's so cute:)

we stayed way later than we should have, but it was fun catching up with old friends and talking parenting, parents, holidays, and everything in between. i talked to some moms that know about planning daughters weddings (not for any reason, just cause i'm trying to mentally prepare myself for the time, in a few years when lexi gets engaged) and now that's been on my mind. we need to start a new savings account! and this chic does not like footie pajamas. takes them off and throws them out every time!

franks came down for breakfast one day in a whole lotta stripes and awesome hair.

the big excitement of tuesday was watching the progress of this little plane! a couple weeks ago lexi told me that instead of kimmy coming out to visit her, she was going to send lexi her buddy pass so lexi could come home for thanksgiving. i have a tendency to be cynical about some kids schemes, so i wasn't fully convinced it was gonna work, but it did! (ahem, so far)

she finally made it! and had to get online to register for another class. sniped ya!

she got home right before a group of lay-days headed out to visit charlene for her birthday. we had a nice visit and when i got home all the kids were acting strange and saying "you don't need to come in the family room, mommy!" lexi was going to paint the girls nails when, somehow, totally not lexi's fault, delaney got ahold of the nail polish, and, somehow, totally not lexi's fault, the bottle opened and, somehow, you get the picture.

i got home, googled how to remove nail polish from carpet, we watched a video, and i put them to work.

they did pretty good. the carpet is bad anyway, but at least there's not a bright red "v" there anymore. i told lexi when we get our new carpet she's not even allowed in.

on wednesday the big kids wanted to go visit the mccombs, and when the little kids heard that, they wanted to go too. so my crew piled into the jolly green and off they went!

it rained all.day.long, so i was glad the gang wasn't just stuck inside our house all day.

lexi ended up getting picked up by taylor and chris brought the girls home for lunch. i got a couple hours of quiet to do some google work, so that was nice.

sometimes it's hard being the littlest sister and not being able to play piano yet. this was after she'd played and sang "let it go" several times. but then mr. hyde couldn't find her "music," so she couldn't play. she's so fun right now!

wednesday also brought pre-thanksgiving prep. i was thrilled to be able to finally break into this giant 6 lb. can of green beans to make a delicious green bean casserole. ps -grocery auctions can make a girl buy some ridiculous things.

we also made another chocolate chip pie. i sent this to mt family gang to see if anyone else in the fam was doing the same thing, you know, somewhere out there style. they were not. there's just something i love about the thought of all of us doing the same thing even thought we're many miles apart. at least my little girls promised they'll make chocolate chip pie every thanksgiving.