Holiday Visitors and Fun

FRIENDS AND FUN!

This weekend was full of friends, family and fun! On Friday night, my bestest forever friend, Christy, came to stay. Her dad and 2 kids too. We made smores, exchanged gifts and visited for hours...

On Saturday morning Chirsty and her family left for Florida. At noon Cameron fell down while standing at the coffee table. I was sitting there and was happy he did not hit his face on the table, only to realize he hit his face on the toy he dropped.... a first black eye is normal for learning to walk, but still breaks my heart.

A few hours later a large black Suburban pulled into my drive with 5 kids and a long missed friend! Becky was a dear friend to me in Japan and we had not seen eachother in over a year. She too is headed to Florida for the holidays, so stopped in to see us. We stayed up late and visited. The kids played hard. Sunday we spent the day playing, visiting and keeping order to 10 kids in my house! Becky has 5, my 4, plus the little girl from next door.

It worked out so well though, because EVERYONE had a playmate and got along perfectly! All day, 10 kids, 2 moms and no fights, not one spill, and a GREAT TIME! The only real mess was when Luke pushed his nose against the fire pit screen which was NOT hot, but VERY messy from smore the night before!!! How cute is that?

It really made me happy to be back in the USA this holiday when I saw my family for Thanksgiving, Kev's family for an early Christmas and then friends for Christmas too....

I am even more thrilled, as the fun continues in the New Year when all of these friends come back by on the way home!!!!

Offically a PRE-TEEN!

Carrie is offically a pre-teen. She turned 11 this month and is making me feel old. We had a little party with a few good friends. I guess she is not too old yet, because she wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese.

By the end of the day Cameron was so tired he fell asleep sitting up!

Some time in Florida

We spent Thanksgiving in Florida. The kids got to see the grandparents and great Grandparents on both sides of the family....

It was a lot of fun. On Saturday, the kids all went fishing with my dad. Collin caught the biggest fish...I swear this thing was as big as a frying pan. And Kyle caught the most with 4....

This was the first time that my parents had all 8 of their grandkids together at once. Between us living over seas and other things in life, we kids had not all been together in over 5 years. It was so nice to see everyone and take some fun pics of the kids...

Lastly, a shot I find important. This is Cameron with his Grandma and GREAT-Grandma on Thanksgiving day....

Halloween...through Thanksgiving....

So much Craziness with the holidays that I have been negligent on my blog. I learned at Thanksgiving that many of my family are reading this. I was unaware...so leave me a hey there when you sign in, so I know it is worth my while to write ablout my busy, but simple little life!

Halloween...

My brother and his wife came in with 2 kids. My bestest friend since college came in with her 2 kids...count them up. With my 4...that is 8 little candy monsters on Halloween weekend! It was a BLAST! We all had a fun time. The adaults were significantly outnumbered. witht htat said, nothing was broken, destroyed or even needing a litte duct tape after the long weekend.

The kids all got along famously. Here is a shot of all of the kids with 3 grown ups that also got into the spirit!!!!

Friday afternoon meant decorating pumpkins. We 3 mommies had run to the store for dinner prep and came home to find the 2 dads and kids carving. Us moms were delighted and then a pumpkin gut war exploded. Pumpkin guts everywhere...I am still finding seed in my house and I SWEAR I clean regularly!

The month of November brought cold weather and icy mornings to our home. Kevin and I had to google and learn to weatherize our home. We definitely did not want a pipe to freeze or burst. Then the clothes dryer died. Again Kevin googled it, found the part and fixed it all in one day...then as if the google gods were testing us, the window on my van too a final nose dive and refused to go back up! Hello darn window, it is COLD! So, off to google again to see how to replace the motor. This led to a little plastic piece of the auto lock breaking...a few trips to Auto Zone, some cursing and finally a window and door lock that work...So, if you own stock in GOOGLE, we are helping keep you in the money!

Thanksgiving...

Turkey day was spent in FLorida. It is a family tradition on my side to have a huge family reunion for the holiday. 58 people attended. The youngest was less than 2 months and the oldest almost 90! We had a lot of fun, ate too much and enjoyed catching up.

That evening we took off to Kevin's mom's house, decorated for Chritmas and crashed. We awoke Friday morning to Christmas a few weeks early. The kids had a great time opening gifts from their Great-Grandmother, Great-Aunts and Great- Uncles and of course, Nana...

The only catch was that it did not all fit in the car to come home...hehehhe. So, Kevin's mom took some larger boxes and will be bringing them when she comes to visit near Christmas.

The only hard part of the holiday was the traffic on the way home. I 95 was a parking lot and our 5 1/2 hour trip took over 9 hours...we were tired, cranky and done when we finally got home!