Thanksgiving!!!

Holy moly! I have so much to be thankful for! We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend! We went to Nana's house where all the action is. Before we left, my girlies had to model their turkey shirts, we saw these on Pinterest, and Tink HAD to have one, so we made 'em, surprisingly I had most of the stuff I needed to make them. They turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

Check out Tink's modeling, let's see how long she can hold this pose shall we?

Here, with Smalls...

Still holding it while Kermit humors me with a picture...I happen to love his shirt very much too.

And a solo shot of miss supermodel! I love that she was so proud of her turkey! She cracks me up!

She held this pose for like 5 more pictures too...

And she finally changed positions for Smalls to come on in and do her own thing.

I am thankful for my turkeys...and spotty the dinosaur there in the corner...

Once we made it to Nana's house it's always off to their room where they can assault this poor big bear, Clancy. Really though folks, he is a loved bear.

Rambo couldn't wait to get to Nana's so he could....sleep. He had to work the night before, so ssshhhhhh.

Back to playtime! Smalls had way too much fun getting out all of Nana's stuffed animals and hauling them around and hugging the stuffing out of them (not really Nana, they're all fine). And they all had fun playing with their little cousin Liberty!!! She is the cutest little thing! We LOVE her!

Tink throws caution to the wind and rides the sheep! Look how cute this thing is! Grandpa got him Ireland, and I think he is much happier here in the states.

My sweet little Kermit playing with these silly little girls. He is such a sweet boy.

Never change Kermit!

I was just happy to be snapping pictures of these little sweeties.

Again! How proud this makes me, you do not know! I love that my son goes all mushy for babies! Where exactly does he get that????

Dinner time!!! These little girls had a table set just for them and they loved it. I just thought this picture of Smalls was hilarious...that is her puppies scarf she is smooshing her nose with.

Tink is excited and ready to eat. GLOVES OFF!!!!

Seriously, she took her gloves off to eat, see that pink pile on the table...that's them.

Libs and Aunt Sharon. I think Nana had to whack Aunt Sharon's hand from trying to eat those rolls. Seriously, it gets all survival of the fittest up in here!

Uncle Havel smashing the potatoes, they were fabulous might I add.

Rambo and Nana doctoring the gravy.

Aunt Sassy-or is that the hottest Mrs. Claus ever? Nope, just Aunt Sassy, she looks so cute in that 1980's Christmas apron...it's the vintage I think.

And Liberty...she didn't help one bit!

She is ridiculous! I just want to grab her out of this picture. She was such a snuggle bug with me, I ate up every minute of it too, LOVE this little girl!

Time to eat!!! One of my favorite memories from this is that Nana lit the little candles at the tables and Smalls picked her's up and blew it out and said "Happy Birthday!" and then I had to light it again so she could do it again, and watch all the smoke go up in the air...it was so stinking cute!

And Kermit! He took a turkey leg! Look at my viking son! He is a regular Hiccup! I love this kid, I took so many pictures of him with this thing, he finally said, "Would you quite taking pictures of me!?"

No son, I won't.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you Nana, we had a yummy dinner and a good dang time!

Later that night/morning, my pop-in-law and I braved the black Friday madness and had so much fun. He is seriously one of the funnest people to hang out with. He was the only other person who wanted to go, so he and I went out and shopped until 3am. I still haven't found my Lalaloopsy doll, but we had so much fun! I asked him if he was sure he wanted to go, and he said, "Even if we don't find anything we want, we have to go so we can tell the tales." I loved that, and I will never forget that. Thanks Grandpa!

I LOVE YOU!

Next day. Check out these ladies working feverishly over a crossword puzzle and an I Spy book. I spy books are my kids' favorite things these days.

And Rambo with these adorable babies! I could just eat this picture. Christmas tree, cute hubby, and precious babies in pajamas to boot! What's not to love?

And to end our post...Rambo won Apples to Apples for the first time in his life while we were at Nana's on this trip, so I had to document this momentous occasion. In the same night my father-in-law proved that he is the Smartest Ass.

We had so much fun with everyone! Thank you Nana and Grandpa!

Christmas pics sneaky peek!

Oh my gosh! I cannot say enough about how much I love our Christmas pics this year! We haven't done a family one yet, but when your kids look this cute, who needs mom and dad ruining the picture? Okay, we do, but for now...just the kids!!!

How stinking cute is this!!!

Thank you so much Kami, I am in love!!!

Mr. Handsome and Miss Gorgeous!

At this point of the shoot, Smalls was done, and much preferred picking up all the acorns around the park.

Love love love!

Want to kiss that beautiful face!!! He is going to have so many girl problems it's not even funny!

My little sweetheart! She just melts my heart. How about those little dimples!

And this picture turned out gorgeous! I love everything about it! There's another one I have to post where Tink's eyes look CRAZY green and I love them!

My kids are beautiful and they're mine all mine!!!

Halloween!

Of course I'm going to get back on and blog for this occasion!!!

We love halloween at our house! Seriously, we can't get enough of it.

My 3 monsters.

We started our festivities at our Trunk-or-Treat this weekend. This was my first year of having to be in charge of it all! It was no easy feat, but we pulled it off and had a blast!

Smalls could not believe people were putting candy in her bag and all she had to do was say trick-or-treat. She had a great night!

Tink and her friend Edyn. These two were made for each other, I tell you, they have so much fun together. I love that neither of them does the cutesy princess thing (not that there's anything wrong with that) they would much rather be owls and pirates.

Right...This was taken after church on the 30th, Smalls did that pose all on her own, I was laughing so hard, I couldn't hold the camera still.

I do have to decorate my children. I tried to find something for Kermit, but boys are harder to decorate as they get older. I need to find him a tie or something....

The big day!!! Here's Rambo and his babies carving their pumpkin together. I love love love that Smalls.

Kermit did his own pumpkin this year, and.....there were no visits to the E.R.!!! Way to go Kermy! Look at the concentration, the sweat...and that little tongue.

Love him.

Ready for trick-or-treating!!!!

All I can say is, enjoy your baby boys while they are baby boys, and they want to be things like frogs, and dinosaurs, and Mario because one day he will be 10, and he will want to be.......that.

That smile...I could melt into goo right now.

Love.

My spooky spider! Again! She wanted to be a spider again this year, and I wasn't about to stand in her way. No princesses at my house! Spiders, owls, and.....Death???

At one point of the night, she had 4 suckers open, and was just going between them, it was sucker buffet night at our house! That is the great thing about Halloween, this sort of behavior is acceptable/expected.

This girl makes me so happy! How can you not smile when you see this picture?!?! I love her! She asked me this summer if I could make her into a bird, and I couldn't think of how to answer her question. So, when she told me what she wanted to be for Halloween I was all over this! I found some super creative ideas on-line and voila! Here's my little owl!

Again...just refer to my baby boy comment from earlier.

We had a great night trick-or-treating.

We got home around 9, and Smalls went in her room and got into her bed and told us we needed to have prayers in her room so she could stay in bed. Talk about a worn out kiddo!

I love these kids, and I never ever ever want them to grow up.

Dear kids,

Please stop growing up.

That is all.

Love, Mom

London's Birthday! (finally)

We sort of just celebrated Tink's birthday all week long! It was so much fun. We had a weekend of everyone being sick, so it was nice to celebrate a birthday to get over our sicknesses.

It started out with Nana and Grandpa coming up on Tuesday to have cake and presents and go to dinner together. We always have fun when they are here! The best part for Tink was that they brought her her most coveted birthday presents...kookoo birds! She was beside herself, they got her the clubhouse, and lots of little birds and a little crash egg-mobile.

We had to get them out and play with them immediately!
Smalls was excited too, she was pretty sure it was her birthday too.
And, I'm not gonna lie, I love to sit and play with the toys with my kids, especially when they're this cute!

A big thank you hug for Nana! Then we went to dinner at Red Robbin. Poor Tink, we were all getting over a stomach bug, and she was still not feeling much like eating. She wanted to be sung to, but her ice cream did not appeal to her at all.
Smalls and Grandpa helped her out with that. And I think Dad had a little too-we are here for you Tink!
She did have a little cake from Coldstone though. It was so yummy, thank you for the cake Grandpa and Nana. Nothing like cake and snuggling with Grampa.
Tink and a kookoo bird. They were all over in her bed the next morning, I have no idea how she slept.
Nana and Grampa found a really cool present for Tink, they are called Blankies. They're little figures that are completely white and then you color them with markers and put stickers on them. My girls spent forever making them the next morning.
The next day, we got a gift card from Great Nana for Tink's birthday, so she was immediately excited again, and we went to Wal Mart that night, she could not wait!
She got to have a birthday party in her class, and have cupcakes and party hats. Smalls got in on that action right away. I love this picture of her. She's on her way to somewhere special.
Here's what Tink chose at Wal Mart with her gift card. Some girls would choose dolls, or hair things, but my daughter chose a monster fish it lights up. Thank you Great Nana!

Here we are the night before the big (actual) day! Her birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so she wanted her nails done all beautiful. She could not pick one color, so we decided to do rainbow nails!
Later that night after she was in bed, I finished her cake! We had a hard time coming up with a cake this year, she wanted a rainbow cake, and then a penguin cake, but she finally decided what she would really like is a fish. Because then we could pretend we were penguins and eat fish, because that is what penguins would eat for their birthday. She has an amazing mind that girl.
It was quite tasty too-I might add.
The day had arrived!!! She is finally 6 years old!!! And look at that adorable dress! Thank you Nana, it matched her rainbow nails, and she picked the crown in Primary that matched her dress the very best (seriously folks, she sat a picked which color would be best).
Me and my brand new 6 year old!
Again, Smalls was pretty sure this was all for her too, so she pulled out her "princess skirt", and begged Tink to wear the crown (Tink was a very sweet birthday girl and let her have it), and she turned herself into a birthday princess.
Simply stunning.
Tink with all her loot!
Can you believe this!!!??? She got a pillow pet!!! She could not handle the excitement! Thank you Aunt Dana, she sleeps on it every night, she can't get enough of it, neither can Smalls...

I got her this cute little glass penguin, and she could not contain herself, she even warned us that she was going to scream, and then she let loose and screamed! It is really cute though.
We got her a bubblegum Squinkie machine! Ever since we went to Madelyn's house, my girls have been all over these toys, they looove them!
Me and the girls sat and played with it forever. And Rambo talks about being so annoyed with these little tiny toys, but he sat and took tons of pictures of me and the girls playing with them.

See this picture? Rambo took it! Not even one of the daughters in it, just pictures of the toys. I think he secretly loves Squinkies....
Later that night, we had some really good friends come over for cake and playing around, and just fun! The Arnold boys are always good to have around, the kids caught rolly pollies and ran around the yard. There were all these boys here for my daughter's birthday, squirt guns galore. It was so much fun.

BUT WAIT!!!

The very next day, we got a package in the mail from Madelyn! She got London the zoobles of the mommy and baby sea turtles. These girls, they have the same brain! Thank you Madelyn and Aunt Nettie!!!!! We love you.

The other package was from England! That's right folks, England! I got a present for London from London, makes sense right? When we stayed at Nettie's, she had the most adorable family of sea turtles. Well my girls talked about them, and talked about them so much, so I just had to find them, and the only place I could find them was at a toy store in the UK. I also found a family of penguins, so we HAD to have them. The girls were so excited! And Tink was so excited to hear where they were from.
Look at those cute little babies. And on the package it said "Mums and Babies" toooo cute! Smalls has already stashed 2 of the baby turtles somewhere, we cannot find them! I'm sort of panicking about it, I hope she didn't put them in the garbage, seeing how she's playing with them on the garbage...grrrr, I hope they are not in a land fill somewhere. I would still order another one-it's still cheaper than going to England and buying one.

Happy Birthday London, we love you so much, our family rocks with you in it!!!