Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving With Loved Ones


This year we had Thanksgiving at my Sister-in-laws house. Her husband cooked the turkey in his smoker, Faye made her pineapple fluff (like stuffing with pineapples in it), some kind of creamed corn dish that was out of this world and pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

My Mother-in-law brought dinner rolls, green beans and peanut butter swirl brownies. I made regular stuffing, mashed potatoes and an apple pie.

We got to Faye's house around 2 and dinner was still at least an hour away from being ready so I took all the kids out back to play in the open field behind Faye's house. Keith (her husband) got out the little castle moon bounce, wagon, barbie jeep powerwheel and baseball stand for the kids to keep entertained until it was time to eat. My kids love going to Aunt Faye's house to play with their cousin, Shelby.

Once everything was ready we got the kids back in the house and washed up. Keith has a large folding conference table we all sat at together. Faye said grace and we all ate. This was our first Thanksgiving without my Father-in-law, who passed away earlier in the year. There was a little bit of sadness being together without him, especially for my mother-in-law who had been married to him for 44 yrs. But, all in all, the day was wonderful and I was grateful to be surrounded by loved ones and we all had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving together.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

A Bouncy Birthday


Today we had a joint birthday party for the girls since both their birthday's are in November. Each year we typically have the birthday party at our house and I make lots of food, spend a week cleaning the house top to bottom and getting chairs set out for the guests.

This year Charlie and I decided to nix that idea and have a birthday party for the girls at a place called "Kangaroo Kid Zone". It's on the other side of the bridge, where all of our guests would be coming from anyway. The KKZ is a room with giant inflatable moon bounce stuff like an obstacle course, 2 slides and a massive bouncy house for kids to jump around in.

The best part about it all was the facility provided set up (with cups, plates, napkins and plastic ware) and clean up!!! All we had to do was bring the food and show up! SOOO much easier on Charlie and me.

The kids all had a blast bouncing around along with quite a few of the adults. Our time was set up for an hour in the play room and then 45 minutes in the party room for food, cake and gifts. Once our time in the play room was done everyone made their way to the party room and had something to eat. The girls opened all their gifts and got a lot of wonderful stuff

I'm so glad Charlie and I did this because it was a LOT of fun for everyone and we got to come home to a clean house and not have to worry about cleaning up anything, haha.