Thanksgiving

Emery is ready to move on to Christmas and Thanksgiving already feels like it was a long time ago, but it happened, we survived, and even had fun.

 

We started our celebration at Hailey's class Thanksgiving program and feast.

 

 She sang some cute songs and they performed a short little play. Then her class sat down for a small feast. Hailey was so good to share her seat and meal with Emery. It just made Emery's day. 

Then for Thanksgiving day, we had all of Corey's family come to our house this year. I was nervous about having such a large group here, there were about 32 people, but it all worked out and was a lot of fun. The weather was so nice that even though there was a house full of kids, you would have never even known. I was able to set up tables on the patio and then they just stayed outside to play.

I cooked rolls for several days before, made pumpkin cake and even cooked my first turkey. I was nervous about that, but it turned out perfect. Then everyone contributed to our feast with salads, stuffing, ham, veggies, and of course, pies.

The men even helped with all the cooking. It takes a lot of cooperation to get that many potatoes done.

 

Once we sat down to eat, MaryAnn and Jeremy kept us all entertained through our meal. It also gave me some good evidence that we had a really good time.

 

 Although turkey justs gets to you after awhile though.

I take it as a compliment that my turkey was done right.

One of the biggest reasons I invited everyone to our house was so that we could black Friday shop here. Of course, I didn't know that black Friday would really be happening on Thursday, but we went anyway since everybody was here. It was a lot of fun though. Walmart was just crazy, I really don't think I would ever go there again, but I could handle the rest. Good company always makes for a good time. We actually partied and shopped all weekend. It was a lot of fun, and I can actually say I would even host again. It truly makes me thankful to have such great family that I can really enjoy and have fun with.

To Papa Steve

It's not hard to see why he is so loved around our house

We kinda like you around here so we hope your birthday is a good one!!

Still reading

It has been forever since I posted the books that I have read. I have slowed a little since this summer, but I have still made my way through quite a few. I make sure I always have something to read when a moment presents itself. That is usually the 30 minutes a couple times a week while Emery is in speech, but I look forward to those minutes of reading in peace.

My most favorite in the most recent reads was this...

Not too surprising since I just love historical fiction. This was long, I felt like I was reading it forever, but it was worth it. The story of several people living in America during the Civil War and how their lives intersect. 

This one was book club selection a few months ago. 

This was a pretty quick read. An interesting story and idea and I liked it, but was a little disappointed with the ending. This takes place in the future, where the world is drastically different though, (dystopia, I think is what this genre is called, like Hunger games, etc.), like I said it was interesting and worth a quick read. 

The Maze Runner was also a book club selection. Although I got carried away and read the whole trilogy.

They are also dystopia novels. I also liked them, but I wouldn't say they were my favorite maybe only because I was getting sick of the dystopia theme, but I couldn't stop reading because I needed some answers.

I just finished reading this, it was this month's selection. 

 I liked this, better than our previous selections. It is also the first in a series. I will probably read the rest at some point. I never know how much to write about the books so I don't give anything away and I am not very good at summaries, but it's worth the read too. 

I am currently reading

The first book to this series was another book club selection and it was one that surprised me at how much I liked it. The story is about the next generation from the first, but it has been very good so far. 

My days with Emery

 Emery can be such a pill, she is super stubborn and independent, making many moments throughout the day difficult. But I really enjoy the days with her too, she can be so entertaining, and I know my days would be so boring without her around. 

She loves, loves to help with the laundry, but before we fold, her favorite thing to do is crawl in the basket of warm clothes and pretend it's her bubble bath. 

Nothing like having a bath in everyone's underwear.

She also regularly raids my jewelry box and adorns herself lavishly.

While she looks stunning, I have to watch her though so it doesn't turn up missing and a couple of necklaces have been returned hopelessly tangled. 

Never a dull moment with her around.

The end of the festivities

Halloween is done. We had a lot of fun this year, but I am ready to move on now. The decorations are put away and I have changed everything for a more "fall" look. It doesn't look or feel like fall outside, but we will pretend it is anyway.

Emery was so much fun to take trick-or-treating. She was like the energizer bunny. She literally ran the whole night she was just so excited. She was waving to everyone we passed, yelling "happy hallween", "I yike your cotume", " I yike your house", "candy, candy, candy"!! It was hilarious, but then she was really confused when we didn't do it all over again the next day. She even wanted me to take a picture of her costume at the end of the night.

She is posing a little more like a zombie though than a fairy.

 Then everyone dumped their piles of candy, assessed their spoils, and trading began.

This went on for awhile until everyone was satisfied with their piles. Then I tried to convince them to just get rid of it all. They weren't so keen on that idea.