Horse Lessons and A Special Day

Peanut told me that as much as she is loving her horse lessons she would like to take December and January off. The indoor arena is not insulated so her last lesson was pretty frigid. I am definitely not complaining because it is sooo much harder to keep these two occupied when the weather isn't nice out! This day it was raining. We brought a bag of Barbies for them to play with in the back seat which lasted for about 20 minutes but the lessons are an hour so they were soon climbing back and forth between the seats and all over the place.

 

 

 

 

Then they started playing Hide and Seek...in a 20 square foot car. Haha.

 

 

I'm happy to take a couple months off and get back to it when the weather is decent enough to play outside again! Peanut is really getting good command of the horses and it's so fun to watch her living her dream!

 

 Lou got to go on her special day with Noni a few days before her birthday. She had a wonderful time!

 

 

So proud!

 

 

 

She picked a donut for breakfast. :)

 

 

And Noni bought her a Lego and helped her put it together. She is getting so grown up! 

 

 

Thank you for her special day Noni!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Decking the Halls

 Before we left for Thanksgiving we ran over to the grange and got all our Christmas bins out and set up the tree so we could decorate it later. Normally I like to clean the house before leaving so we can come back to a tidy space...this time that definitely didn't happen! :P

 

 

It took a good portion of Saturday and Sunday to get everything decorated and put back in order! We were planning to decorate the tree Saturday night but forgot that Bug had Driver's Ed so we had to wait until Sunday night. It was worth the wait though...our calmest, best decorating session yet with no broken ornaments!

 

 

It's so nice that they girls are getting older and are such a big help! Peanut put up all the Dickens Village for me and the Nativities!

 

 

And Lou did a great job with the ornaments this year! 

 

 

Bug didn't want to change so she threw her red blanket over her shoulders to be festive. :P

 

 

Reach...

 

 

The girls like hearing the story behind each ornament. :) 

 

 

Jax wanted to participate even though he was panting from the 70 degree heat. :P

 

 

Lou was so excited to put on the star!

 

 

Daddy had the fire burning nice and hot. I love how it makes the house so much more cozy.

 

 

Ta da!

 

 

Silly faces!

 

 

Daddy brought out a new Christmas Lego set and let them put it together while we got the bins put away.

 

 

And the whole house turned out so festive and beautiful!

 

 

Ready to celebrate the Christmas season!

Thanksgiving!

 We got to spend thanksgiving with Noni, Papa, and Mama! Of course that meant lots of games, and puzzles, and visiting!

 

 

I found all sorts of pictures on my phone later. :P Lou took a whole bunch...here is one of the only ones that you can semi-tell what it is. Haha.

 

 

Peanut has been getting into photography and likes to set things up and take pictures.

 

 

And of course she always likes to take pictures of the animals. :P

 

 

I also found a couple of videos. 

 

 And here is another video I took.

 

 

We had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey and ham Bug won at Bingo plus all the traditional sides...so good! 

 

 

The rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing. 

 

 

T did probably 75% of this puzzle by himself! He is great at puzzles but never has time to sit down and do one. 

 

 

We watched a Christmas movie on Thanksgiving night...Christmas Detour. It was very cute!

 

 

 

 

We were finishing up a card game and Noni was putting the little ones to bed and we kept hearing so many giggles. She and Abby were "dancing". 

 

 

The next day we got up early with Bug and Boo and headed out for our Black Friday shopping. We had a lot of fun but Black Friday is definitely not what it used to be. Target didn't even open until 7am and it was just like a regular shopping day. We did find a few deals, but "Black Friday" shopping starts two weeks before Thanksgiving now so no one has any motivation to get up early to do doorbusters. We had a great time shopping though and hit a bunch of stores!

 

 

Bug had one of her drives so we got lunch and then dropped her off 

Then it was one more store and back to Noni's for another round of Canasta!

 

 

The girls helped Noni decorate her tree.

 

 

Lou desperately wants to put every ornament just as high as she can get it. :)

 

 

Noni let her put the star on. :)

 

 

After dinner we played Bingo. Apparently Peaches had been waiting all day to play it. She was the caller and was SO excited! :)

 

 

It was a wonderful, relaxing, sweet Thanksgiving!