Caden's Bday Party!

One of the girls' classmates, Caden, had his 5th birthday party at Partridge Plantation. It was perfect weather for a farm party. The girls had been to the Plantation a few times before so they were so excited!

See-saw time!

All the daddies on swinging duty :)

Doubling-up against the birthday boy ;)

They can never get enough swingin' in ;)

I cannot believe they can actually use the monkey bars all by themselves.....it's crazy!

Payton "the girl".  They all told the little dude he had to get in the back. Hilarious.

Checkin' out the animals....

They LOOOOOOOVE riding horsies.....

Christina and Payton "the girl"....their two besties in their class :)

Love it!

Caden and his fam!

This is such an accurate picture.... Gabbie SOOOO thinks she is the queen and Jocie is her servant.  We have to make sure she remembers that is not the case :)

Hayride time!

The daddy and his girlies :)

Christmas Decorating Time!!! yippppeeeeee!!!!!

The day after Thanksgiving we decided to decorate for Christmas. The girlies were BEYOND excited :) 

For the past two years some sweet, sweet friends of ours have bought us a Christmas tree....just because. They just want to "bless us". And it is definitely a blessing to have such a huge, beautiful tree to decorate!

Getting it lined up and stable....the girls definitely assisted in this ;)

All the ornaments laid out and ready to be placed....

The girls had to find the "perfect spot" for each and every ornament....so cute!

Our New Zealand Ornament....

Our "in memory of"ornament for our sweet baby we will meet one day.....

All done with the tree!

Nativity from Kazakhstan.....

I LOVE our Willow Tree Nativity.....

The daddy (aka Clark Griswold) has loooooonged to put up outside Christmas lights every year. Well, he finally got his dream. The girls really wanted outside Christmas lights as well, so that was all the extra motivation he needed :) 

SO, he and the girls went to the store to get some "hangy" lights. They got back and he took them out of the box and started STAPLE-GUNNING them to the porch (I'm tellin' ya....he IS Clark Griswold!). I asked him if he plugged them in first to make sure they worked. Of course he had not and said that he didn't need to b/c they were brand new. I told him I still thought he should check them. After "discussing" this for several minutes and after he had already staple-gunned alot of them up on the porch, he got fed up with our "discussion" and decided to SHOW me I was wrong.....he climbed down from the ladder, got an extension cord, and wha-lah! They DIDN'T work. Needless to say, the daddy was a TAD bid frustrated ;)  SO, he had to take them all down, pack them back up, and go exchange them at the store. 

SUPER. HAPPY.DADDY.

When they got back from their 2nd store trip, they CHECKED the lights first and then started stapling them up again.....

Clark worked into the night.....

And after several hours and two store trips.....Drumroll, please.....I said, DRUMROLL......

Thanksgiving 2012

On Thanksgiving we headed over to Jay for the day. Here is PawPaw slicin' up the YUMMO ham....

Grandma's homemade chicken-n-dumplins. Ummmm, yes, please.

 Aunt Emily butterin' up the rolls....

 Grandma Burch givin' George some love....

 The girlies and their great-grandma Burch :)

 The three little rascals....

 Kaylea made a blue cake for dessert. Everyone was pumped about trying it :)

 The three girlies wanted PawPaw to play hide-n-seek with them.....

It wasn't too hard to find those loud three.... :)

 tickle-time!

 Aunt Emily, Kaylea, and Uncle Josh!

 Goin' for a spin.....God bless us when this is a reality one day! ahhhhhh!

 The girlies with MawMaw & PawPaw!

 Getting ready to go feed the fish....man, Gabbie is always SOOOOOO happy in pics :)

 Headed to the pond.....

 Uncle D, Aunt Juliet, and Landon came over that afternoon and joined in on the Thanksgiving fun....

 I sure do love my brother....SO thankful for him.

 Cutie-pies :)

 We decided to all take a walk through the pines. What a gorgeous sunset!

 I remember when we planted these pines MANY years ago.....I can't believe how big they have gotten....

Our fam :)

Douglas, Juliet, and Landon. The Lord is SO amazing. He has done miracles in their lives. 

 Love.

 Merry-go-round time!!

 PawPaw caught the kiddos a frog. They were mesmerized :)))

A fantastic Thanksgiving Day. We truly do have SO much to be thankful for.....every single day.