11 years

On December 15th, Rob and I celebrated our 11 year wedding anniversary. The 15th was a Thursday so we celebrated on Saturday when my parents came in town to watch the kids. We went to a restaurant that I have been wanting to try called Funky Monkey Wine Company. It is a little pricey but every course was really really good. Afterwards, we ran some errands and got frozen yogurt. I have been trying to plan a trip for us since our 10th anniversary and now that Nola is older I hope we will be able to have a getaway soon.

November and Thanksgiving

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Rob and I went to go to Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park. Someone at work gave Rob tickets and they expired at the end of the month. Unfortunately the only day that worked for Rob to take a day off and that my parents could be here to watch the kids was an unusually cold day for Florida. The week after it was back in the 80s. We braved the cold and still managed to have fun.
Rob's favorite attraction was the scuba diving experience with the sharks. I did not scuba dive because they kept that water in the 60s and I was already pretty numb from the cold already. There were several fun slides and it was nice to spend the day just the two of us.


We spent Thanksgiving at my sister Katie's home. We had a fun time eating, playing with cousins, and visting a fun historical park called Fort Christmas that had cute little old homes to walk through, a Fort, and animals. Katie was also able to get a few good family pictures.







A new Thanksgiving tradition in our home is that Rob makes a second Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Rob's favorite meal is Thankgiving so he has to have it twice. After we got back from spending the weekend with my sister, we made a mini Thanksgiving meal after church. Jack and Callie got to break the wishbone from this turkey and Callie won.


The next week, we spent decorating the house for Christmas.

Halloween 2011

This Halloween, Jack was a mad scientist...


Callie was a witch....


Hudson after changing his mind every day was a bug......



and Nola was little red riding hood.





We trunk or treated and trick or treated and the kids got lots of candy.











Jack and Callie each got to design and carve their own pumpkins this year.

Fall Sports

This fall, our kids' sports seem to have taken over our lives. Jack has been playing baseball and Callie and Hudson are playing soccer. With baseball three times a week and soccer four times a week between the two kids, we never seem to have a free evening at home anymore and our Saturdays are completely gone with games. While this new schedule has been really challenging for me and I am looking forward to the seasons ending next week, I am glad the kids(most of them anyway) have been having fun.

Jack begged to play baseball and we were hesitant at first because it is not one of our favorite sports and we knew it involved a big time commitment. However, it has been fun to see him improve throughout the season and he really loves playing.



Callie loves soccer. She is so excited to go to practices and her games and is really sad to have the season end.



Hudson is playing soccer mainly because we thought that the 3 year olds always looked so cute chasing after the ball. While Hudson does look cute, he doesn't love playing. We have to drag him to games and practices most days and while there he is mildly interested at best. Oh well, we learned our lesson.

Nola's First Birthday Celebration

To celebrate Nola turning one, we threw a family birthday party the weekend after her birthday.

My sister, Nancy, wanted to make the cupcakes for the party and decided to make Oreo panda cupcakes and so I decided to theme the party around her choice.
We started the cupcakes the night before the party and were up till 2 in the morning finishing them all.
They turned out very cute but were a lot of work.

Nancy made a special princess panda for the birthday girl.
We decorated with chinese lanterns and origami cranes


Nola started the party out dressed in a pajama shirt of Callie's that worked as a little kimono


We served stirfry veggies, chicken, lo mein noodles, sticky rice, egg rolls, wontons, and potstickers for dinner.
Nola loved the noodles.

While looking for ideas for Nola's party, I came across a first birthday tradition in asian cultures called the "birthday grab". Various items are set out in front of the birthday child and whichever object the child chooses or picks up first represents the childs future career or interests.
We put out a baby to represent motherhood, a CD for music, a ball for athletics, a dollar bill for wealth, stethoscope for medical career, a book for intelligence, stamps which represent a career in public office, a calculator to represent math or accounting, and a pen to represent the arts or writing.
When Nola came out and saw all the objects, she did a great job looking them all over.
Its almost like she knew what she was supposed to do because she walked up and down the line of objects looking at them all before touching anything.
Finally, after careful review, she selected the pen....
and then the book. She held onto the pen for quite awhile too so we may have a future writer in the family. This was such a fun activity and I wish I had done this with all my kids for their first birthdays. All the older kids were really into it and were all cheering her on and trying to guess what she would pick.



After the birthday grab, it was time for presents.
Nola did a pretty good job opening her presents and loved all the surprises inside.


We finished the night with the panda cupcakes.
Nola loved her cupcake and ate it very neatly. She mostly just picked off and ate the oreos and only ate a little bit of the cake. It was a fun party and a great way to celebrate our Nola.