It was such a nice weekend and I'm sad to see it end, but I made the most of every minute.  Thanksgiving was really nice, and we had such a good time with our families.  The food was amazing, and we are still eating leftovers.  We are so thankful for our families, and it was great to spend the day with them.  I got to meet the newest member of our family, Rachel.  It was so cool going from Kenley being the only baby last year, to her being the oldest of 3 now!  Kenley had a fun Thanksgiving, and took a little while to warm up at my Grandma's house, but was great the rest of the day.

I went shopping Thanksgiving night for the first time ever.  It was insane, but I am so happy I went because I was able to get Kenley's birthday present at a great price!  It was worth the hour long wait at Toy's-R-Us.  Ray came and picked it up around midnight, and then dropped me off at Kohl's to meet up with my mom and sister. Between us all being so tired, my mom & sister's cell phones dying, and pure maddness throughout the store, I panicked when we all got separated.  We were all delirious by the time we left the store at 2:00 am.  But, it was a fun, and I kind of liked not rushing out early in the morning even though I still made a quick stop at the mall to Carson's and Macy's.  I got quite a lot of gifts, and I even started wrapping a few!

We put up all of our Christmas decorations throughout the weekend.  I was happy at the end of the day when Ray started up the fire place for the first time this year, and it felt very cozy.  Kenley was so excited about every decoration, and she has had fun checking everything out.  Ray and I watched Kayla for the first time this weekend for a few hours, and my sister took our family Christmas photo before they left.  There was a lot of bribing going on, but we got a few good ones. 

I'm excited to do a lot of fun holiday things over the next few weeks.  We started "elf on a shelf" today.  I don't think Kenley quite understands it, but she has named our elf, Chewy.  No idea where that came from!  I can't wait to take her to see Santa, to play in the snow, to look at all the Christmas lights, to build our gingerbread train, and lots of other holiday stuff.  We have a busy couple of weeks between her birthday and the holidays, so it should be really fun.

Let the Holidays Begin

I am so looking forward to Thanksgiving weekend, and it is almost here.  Besides getting an extra long weekend off of work, I am looking forward to spending some time with family,  eating good food, doing some "Black Friday" shopping, decorating our Christmas tree, and having some downtime at home. I am actually considering going to Kohl's at midnight on Thursday depending on how our day goes.  It might be kind of nice to beat some of the crowds and not have to worry about chasing Kenley around or pushing a stroller.  I also will probably hit up Toys R' Us since I need to get Birthday and Christmas gifts for her.

This weekend I got almost all of my indoor decorations up!  I was having fun digging through all of my boxes of holiday stuff, and remembering what I have accumulated throughout the year.  Kenley's little pink tree in her room went up and she loved it.  She kept saying, "Come see my Christmas Tree Daddy!"  She wants us to leave the lights on all the time.  I know it is going to be extra fun this year now that she's older and is starting to understand the holidays.  She has even started learning a few songs and can sing most of, "Santa Claus is coming to town."  It is so adorable. 

Well, I'm off to finish the rest of this work week.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with their loved ones!

Here are a few pictures from Halloween that I never posted.  Once she got a hold of the candy it was hard to get a shot where she wasn't eating!  She wouldn't really say, "trick-or-treat," to anyone, but everytime they put something in her bag she would look at it and say, "I got candy!!"  and then she would want to eat it right away.  We just went to a few of our neighbor's houses, but she had a good time.

Celebrations

I have been M.I.A. here for a few weeks, so here is my catch up!

Kayla's christening was 2 weeks ago, and I was honored to be her Godmother!  She looked so beautiful in her gown made from Katie's wedding dress.  She was so good during the whole ceremony, and I think she enjoyed the actual process of having the water on her head.  Katie and Greg had all their friends and family for a big party afterword for the first big party at their new house. 

In other baby news, my cousin, Darcie, had her baby this week!  We have seen a few pictures of Rachel, and we are so excited about the newest addition to the family.  We can't wait to meet her on Thanksgiving or Christmas!  Also, Cheryl's baby shower was today.  It was really nice, and only 2 more months until her baby boy is due!  I also got to meet up with Ashlee this week, who is due with #3!  So many babies this year!  And, yes, it does give me baby fever :)

I truly CAN NOT believe that it is almost Thanksgiving!  I know everybody, including me, says this every year.  But, for real, where did the year go? I think part of the reason this year seems to be going extra fast is that I am having a better school year so far.  I am teaching 2 honors classes this year, and it is like night and day.  So, fingers crossed that the rest of the year goes well. 

I have already been buying Christmas stuff, and I am ready to start decorating.  But, is there some law against decorating before Thanksgiving?  I also don't want my neighbors to think I'm nuts!  I saw people "liking" on facebook that Nordstrom's won't be decorating until after Thanksgiving, but I don't mind the early celebrating one bit.  Ray came home from work the other day to find me and Kenley rocking out to Christmas music in the kitchen. I keep telling Ray that we have to go Grizwald style this year.  I don't think he quite shares my love of decorating, especially since he's the one who has to get up on the roof!

We are also starting to plan for Kenley's 2nd birthday!  It's less than a month away now, and all I'll say for now is that there will be a "special guest" attending.  I'm not sure if Kenley will be happy or scared about that, but either way, it will be fun.  I've spent way too much time looking at pinterest and other sites to get ideas about her themed party.  Totally worth it, she only turns 2 once!

Hope the start of November is treating everybody well, and I'm pretty happy that it's been in the 60's here this weekend!