Tree Farm

This year we went to a different tree farm.. Spring Creek Growers.  It was fun to see something different.  Not too many tall trees, but we were looking for a shorter tree this year anyway.  Next year I know to take hot dogs and smores and roast them by the fire!!!  YUM!

 This is one of my favorites! So curious about everything!!

I made Kate's Christmas overalls.  It's hard to see the presents under the tree.. including a doll, nutcracker (of course) and rocking horse.  The back is her handprint in the shape of Santa and "Merry" and "Christmas" on her pockets.  I hope I have made it big enough that she can wear it next year too!!!

 This is it! This is the tree!

!TIMBER!!!!

Move Eddie!!! It's MY turn to smell!!!

Eddie at the tee pee.

This was up in the tree house.

I'm not sleepy... I promise!!!

Then we saw Santa... I don't knwo who I was kidding thinking that she would sit with Santa.  She won't even sit with family members!!

Who ARE YOU!? Ok, he seems pretty cool as long as Mommy is sitting right here too!!!

Eddie had a whole laundry list of things that he wanted from Santa!!!  Hope he's a good boy!

Thanksgiving

   This Thanksgiving I have tried to take time to thank my friends and family for being special.  Last year a dear friend of mine called me to tell me that she was thankful I was her friend and it meant so much to me.  She passed away in March and I wanted take her idea and share it with my family and friends.  We never tell our family and friends how much we love them!

We spent Thanksgiving with Lyle's family.  It's aways fun to get the cousin's together to play. 

Triston and Allie

Katie and Eddie (Katie and Allie are sisters)

Kate loved being dressed up in her party dress!

Tuesday before Thanksgiving Eddie came to eat lunch with me and I noticed his first loose tooth.  He lost his tooth on Wednesday and the tooth fairy came Tuesday night!!!  It was so much fun!

My Black Friday experience....

I was a Toys r Us at 11:45, 15 minutes before the store opened.  The line literally stretched over 1/4 of a mile.  I waited in line in 50 degree weather for 2 hours with my friend.  We did some tag team shopping while we stood in line.  An hour in line and we were finally out... at 3:30!

I took my friend home and then headed to Kohl's for the 4am sale.  Got there just as they opened and had a successful trip.

My plan was then to go to Target... and I did park and get out.  But when I couldn't see the end of the line AFTER it had wrapped around the building, I decided I had enough of waiting in line and went home.

I slept for a few hours, got up and when to the tree farm (see next post) and then came back home only to leave to go to Target for a few more deals!  I am done Christmas shopping!! In fact they are all wrapped (no bows yet)  With Lyle being unemployed, we are going to have a light but festive year.

I will add one more post of the tree farm, but them I'm off to bed!!!

Kate's Overalls

   I finished Kate's Halloween overalls, and they turned out SO cute!!!  The overalls are hand me downs, I had most of the fabric, and the halloween fabric was 75% off.  So I paid like $1 for these!!!!  As you can see from the backside picture, I am thinking she will be able to wear them next year.

She LOVES THEM!!!  She also loves wearing and showing off her new black patent mary janes! (Stride Rite... ebay.. $7!!!)  She's such a girly girl!

The Beach -- The Finale

A cold front came through Thursday, so it was a little chilly on Friday.  Grandpa had this contraption rigged to get shells from in the water.  He would dump them on the sand and then Eddie would comb through them getting a ton of cool shells.

Eddie was really interested in the different types of shells.  He learned a lot from Grandpa.  I assured them both that we didn't need that many shells (since we still have bags from past years...) but we ended up bringing home 3 trash bags worth of shells.  What in the WORLD am I going to do with that many shells?!

Eddie got this fishing pole last year, but due to the weather he didn't get to try it out until this year.  We had practiced in our front yard... casting over to the neighbors yard and reeling it in.  He ended up catching FOUR fish!  Now.. they were all small catfish... but FOUR fish!!!

This was the sunrise this morning when we left.  It was REALLY cool seeing the steam coming off the water.  The air temp was in the lower 50's.

We had an AWESOME visit and arrived home safely.  We enjoyed catching up with Grandpa and Grandma, fishing, shelling, swimming, shopping, and much more!  Kate even perfected her walking taking over 30 steps at one time!    She's really taking off!

The Beach -- Day 5

The plan was that is was supposed to rain all day today.  But it's the beach... it was GORGEOUS!!!  We went down to the beach this morning.  Then Grandma watched Kate (take a nap) while we headed to Foley.  We found a REALLY cool minature train museum.  We did a bit of shopping and ended our excusion at Lambert's.   

What a beach baby!  At one point kate tried eating shells.  Of course she was most upset when i took them from her!

This minature train was donated to Foley from some man in Montgomery.  In all it is worth $300,000.  It is AWESOME!  they even turned the lights out to show the night view.  Signs and trains were all lit up.  The museum opened about 3 years ago, and we highly recommend it.  The best part is it's FREE!!! 

There was a "Caboose Club" which decontructed it in Montgomery and then reconstructed it in Foley.  The man in the bottom left was part of that group.  He talked about how it took them a couple of days to deconstruct but took almost 14 months to put it back together!

Thomas was even there!!!

We always take our Christmas Pictures at the beach.  The weather may turn colder tomorrow, so we wanted to get them in today.  Kate was awake, happy, and ready to go!  She is doing SO good at walking! Tonight she took over 30 steps!!! YEAH KATIE BUG!!!

a close 2nd  for the Christmas pictures...

... and the winner is....!!!