Thanksgiving

This year it was just the four of us.  We had a great mini-vacation at home!  We decided to skip the turkey and just do a roasted chicken since I don't really like turkey anyway.  It turned out great, an Alton Brown recipe that we've done a few times before.I have been seriously slacking on doing crafts with Emmery so since I had some time with Mikey being home, I did this simple turkey printable.  She painted all the parts of the turkey, then I cut it out and let her glue them where she wanted them.

We're still working on smiling for the camera.  She's getting a little better ;-)

We shipped our stuff back from Boston, along with some big stuffed animals that Marc and Kathy gave to us.  You know the saying about the cardboard box being better than the toy inside?  Yep, here are the pictures to prove it.

She always takes time to give Marc a hug.  I love to see her show affection towards him, and he gives it right back (when he's not pulling her hair or pinching her ;-)

Where'd Emmery go???

Our evening walk.  Emmery decided to use Marc's knees as a footrest.

These pictures are from a play date last week.  She rented a bouncy house, the kids had a great time.  Marc was a little timid at first so I had to climb in there with him.  He loved it!

Another random object that provided hours of entertainment.  I finished off the cinnamon and before throwing it away I gave it to Marc.  He loves to open and close things... doors, cabinets, containers.  I think he loved the smell of the cinnamon too.  He would open it, smell it, close it, and do it all over again...

And when the magic of the cinnamon wore off, he decided to climb the oven!  Again!

With all this climbing, he does hurt himself often.  Nothing too crazy.  But this week he managed to get a fat lip and scrape his forehead pretty good.  Here's a shot of the fat lip.

He was trying to walk while carrying one of Mikey's steel-toes.  He dropped the boot and smacked his face on the hard wood floor.

On Friday we decided to start the Christmas decor.  We made some room here for the tree and began to set it up.

It seemed to be going good but it was all downhill from here.  The lights weren't working throughout the whole tree.  Thank GOD we bought it at Costco!!  The next day Mikey brought it back.

While Mikey was at Costco, Emmery asked to go to the playground.  I knew that it was an 80% chance of rain that day, but it wasn't raining at the moment.  And I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to put Em in her raincoat and boots and try to get some cute pictures.  So I suited her up and put a hooded sweatshirt on Marc and out we went!

Raincoat and boots courtesy of Auntie Karen!!

So far so good, grey skies but no rain!

She had to stop to play in the puddle.

This is where she stopped to point out that the pool was DEFINITELY open.  For some reason they had the fountains turned on at the pool.  So Emmery remembered from the summer that when the fountains were on the pool was open.

We got to the playground and her hand touched the swing.  The rest was kind of a blur.  Huge, fat raindrops started to fall so I grabbed Em and said, "let's go!"  Marc and I did not have the luxury of a raincoat so we got soaked.  Emmery enjoyed the whole fiasco but was sad she didn't get to play..

When Mikey got home we (okay HE) put up our new tree.  It looks gorgeous!

Emmery woke up just in time to help us finish putting up the ornaments.

Then Marc woke up and decided he should "help" by pulling down any and all ornaments within his reach.

You can see the scrape on his forehead in this picture.

Final touches... the STAR...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Boston Trip Part III

The next day we went to the New England Aquarium.  Mikey's friend Josh was able to hook us up with free tickets which was so nice of him.

The seal tank was on the outside, so before we even went in we got to see some seals.  The kids were so excited.

The layout of the aquarium was very cool.  In the middle is a huge tank with sharks and other sea life.  The whole bottom surrounding the tank is the penguin habitat.  So right when you walk in this is what you see.

Marc gives kisses now.  Open-mouthed most of the time, but still kisses.  So cute.

Did you spot the stone fish?  Pretty cool!

We got to see the diver go into the tank and feed the turtles and sharks.

Some more random shots.

It was so cute, one morning we were all just hanging out.  Marc was playing with this teddy bear, next thing you know he's just laying there.  I think he was trying to tell me he was ready for his nap!

So Kathy has been dying to cut Emmery's hair.  Since I had a hair appointment we brought Em in too.  This is Pepe, he has been cutting Kathy's hair since she was pregnant with Mikey!!!  Maybe even before that.  Crazy!  So Pepe cut a tiny bit off the ends, I really didn't want to do much more than that ;-)  Emmery did great, sat still and sucked on her lollipop.

I noticed on the door that leads down to the basement Marc has been keeping a growth chart of the kids.  So we put Emmery up there.  Forgot to do Marc though!  Next time!