The Christmas Spirit

We are ready for Christmas! Well, not completely, but we're working on it. Saturday we got our Christmas tree and then had Steven's birthday lunch. He had a chocolate cake with chocolate/cream cheese frosting and got some nice new clothes.

Then Sunday morning we decorated our tree.

Before:

After:

And today, Gavin and I have been decorating for Christmas.

Here is the fireplace:

The thing in front of the fireplace is a countdown nativity. The middle manger part is magnetic and each day you open the box with the right number on it and remove one piece of the manger scene and stick it in the middle so by Christmas Eve you have the whole scene.

Gavin and Austin's stockings. I had gotten Gavin's from LL Bean so I got Austin one from them too.

This is the sofa table behind the couch (obviously):


My Precious Moments Christmas village and a countdown to Christmas for Gavin (maybe he'll stop asking if it's Christmas yet):



The table in the kitchen. The tree in the background hasn't been decorated yet because the decorations I use for it got ruined in their box so I have to get some more!



A bowl I put on the island in our kitchen.


Gavin put up a tree in his room with 'boy' decorations.

He also decorated the rest of his room by taking my decorations I'd put around the house and sticking them in his room! (I did organize them a little bit!)



Gavin also wrote his letter to Santa today!

Our Thanksgiving Day

Austin was very excited to be celebrating Thanksgiving today. He wore the same onesie his big brother wore on his first Thanksgiving. There's a little matching turkey hat that goes with it, and I found it in a box a few weeks ago, and I looked and looked for it this week and couldn't find it anywhere. I'm sure it will turn up tomorrow.






Here is dad and the boys hanging out before lunch.





Gavin was ready to eat as soon as I started putting food on the table and was thrilled when the food was piled on his plate. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, green beans, fruit salad, stuffing (I made it in the slower cooker), cranberry sauce, biscuits, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Austin didn't get any today, but I think I'll give him some sweet potatoes and maybe mashed potatoes this week.

Than dad took a nap while I finished getting the Christmas decorations outside. Now we are watching the Cowboys beat the Raiders, Gavin has his Cowboys uniform on and is playing along with the team and dad is hanging out with Austin.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but we've been busy! Monday Gavin, Austin and I put up the Christmas lights on the outside of the house since it was so beautiful outside. We turned them on for about five minutes Monday night to check them and make sure they looked okay and then turned them off. Starting tonight we get to turn them on every night!

Tuesday Gavin wasn't feeling well and we had a quiet day. Yesterday, Gavin cut out a turkey and glued it in front of it's feathers, then traced the feathers with a crayon.

Then he helped me bake a pumpkin pie and an apple pie. He used cookie cutters to cut maple leaves, oak leaves and acorns to decorate the top of the pies. They aren't as perfect as the pies I saw in the Williams Sanoma catalog, but they are still cute.

And, as an update to the Thanksgiving tree, here it is after a month of thankfulness.

Hopefully, Gavin will learn to be grateful for the things he has. It's not easy when you are three-years-old, but the hope is eventually it will kick in!

Christmas in November

This morning we finished a Thanksgiving hand print craft that we started yesterday. We had to let the paint dry! This morning we added the beak and legs and then glued on a wing. Kaitlynn loves the feathers!

Then we went to church, ate quickly and took a short nap, and headed to the Christmas parade. We had a great time. Gavin liked the bands, and the candy of course!

It's not easy waiting for a parade to begin.

I told Gavin these were trombones and he looked at me and said, "I know." Sorry.

He really liked this car!

I really thought I'd look good driving this car...

The great thing about one-year-olds is there expressions. Here are some pics of Kaitlynn during the parade.

Gavin and Dad head to Faurot Field

Gavin and I headed to the Mizzou-ISU football game this afternoon for a little father-son time. I posted in September about our trip to the Furman game, so anyone who reads this already knows that Gavin loves going to the games with me. Gavin was well-behaved as usual. He loved watching Truman the Tiger do his thing, and hearing the cannon discharge after a Mizzou score. For those who don't know, whenever Mizzou scores a touchdown, the cannon is fired, and the stadium announcer says, "Touchdown Missouri, M-I-Z," to which the crowd replies, "Z-O-U." Well, as we were leaving the game, (MU won 34-24), I was carrying Gavin on my shoulders. As I walked us back to the truck, Gavin repeatedly said, "Boom! Touchdown, M-I-Z." Of course, I had to reply Z-O-U. There were several other fans nearby who were more than happy to chime in with such an enthusiastic little fan. I have yet to take Gavin to the game when someone doesn't come up and say something about how great Gavin is. After all the excitement, Gavin was pretty tired. By the time we got halfway home, he was asleep in his car seat. I'm a little sad that this is the last home game this year, so no more games with Gavin until next fall.