Thanksgiving 2014

I didn't mean to not post about Thanksgiving until after Christmas; there was just so much going on in December that I ended up posting about all of that first! So, instead, Thanksgiving gets to be the very last post of 2014. I think that's ok!

Anyway, Thanksgiving this year was really nice; we went to my parents' house at the Outer Banks and spent about 4 days there with my extended family. In addition to my parents and the 4 of us, Carrie and Stephen were there for two days; my aunt Linda (who lives there) was there the whole time; my aunt Jacki and her wife Arnie flew in, as did my cousins Ryann and Lindsey with their respective significant others Chris and Brent. It's very unusual to be able to get everyone together (the last time was 4 years ago at Henry's first Christmas), so I'm really glad that we had this chance!

We had a pretty packed few days. Evan and I arrived late on Tuesday (after a concert event that I will post about shortly, but I have to do a lot of uploading for that one), and stayed until the Saturday after. That gave us 3 solid days there, and we definitely made the most of it!

On Wednesday we waited for everyone to show up, and then had a lot of fun hanging out with family (and of course prepping for Thanksgiving the next day). I love the shenanigans of getting the cousins together! My cousins were awesome about hanging out with the kids, and Natalie in particular fell in love with both of them.

 

All that playing makes for a tired kid :)

 Aunt Carrie got the kids an early holiday present: Frozen snuggies! The kids sleep with them on their beds every night since then. It's adorable...and to be honest, they're pretty darn warm!

 On Thanksgiving, before eating, we went over to the Sound to take some family photos. Click the link HERE to check out my favorites. So glad we had the chance to do that! In looking through my photos, it looks like I have nothing else from Thanksgiving day so...on to Friday!

Friday afternoon I had an outing with my cousin Ryann and her fiance Chris to take some engagement photos. I'm still working on them (sorry, Ryann!), but I am so very happy with how they came out, and hope to have them done by this wekeend! That night, my aunt Linda had us over to her condo at the beach for dinner. We had a beautiful sunset to look at

 And some fun playing games and laughing while eating!

 What about the dogs during this time? Well, they were just tired out from all of the excitement.

 On Saturday morning, before we left, we took the kids over to a paint-your-own-pottery place. I've always wanted to do something like this, and we all had a lot of fun! Natalie painted a dolphin statue, Henry painted an ornament, and I painted a bird-shaped plate.

 

 

Super, super holiday fun with my family. I know I'm being kind of cheesy, but I was so glad that we got to have that time together!

Philadelphia Christmas Tree Lighting

During the first week of December, my colleague and I were in Philadelphia for work. Our hotel was just a couple of blocks down the street from the City Hall, and we were told by our concierge that the town tree lighting was happening that same night. Having no real plans, we figured why not go check it out? And in such a beautiful location!

When we arrived, we discovered the actual tree lighting wasn't for about another 2 hours - there were all kinds of pre-lighting events going on (singers, performances, etc) in the meantime. There was also a planned protest regarding the Eric Gardner case going on (which was actually done quite well, even if I had a few issues with the protesters chanting over the kids who were singing). So, we headed over to a nearby pub restaurant (that turned out to be pretty good, and cheap!), had some dinner and drinks and walked back over to City Hall.



After a few more performances, with the biggest name we saw being Estelle (random that she was there, but pretty cool!), it was finally time to light the tree!

A very unexpected thing to do on a night in Philly, so I'm really glad that we had the chance to see it!

Holiday fun at Leesburg Animal Park

Two weekends ago (almost three now!) we took the kids to the Leesburg Animal Park for the first time at the holidays! It wasn't that we hadn't been there before at this time, but the fact that this was the first year they had a holiday event there. Since they redid the facility over the past year, they're doing so many more events there, including now for the month of December. We decided to go on Sunday night (they're only open on Friday, Sat, and Sunday nights for the holidays), and it was definitely the right call! Despite the cold, we had a blast.

When we went into the building we first went into the large party room which they had set up for holiday photos. 

 We briefly waited our turn, and then the kids were able to take photos holding baby bunnies!

 There was a woman there taking photos as well, and they emailed them to us for free, but wow...they were really not great. Here are the few salvageable ones that they sent to me. I mean, seriously - who would crop photos like this? (I didn't make any changes to these photos at all) Ah well.

 

But this makes me really glad that I took some photos myself!

 

We then went outside and saw everything all lit up!

 At the back of the area was a live animal petting area (kind of a "live nativity scene"). The kids did great being right next to the donkeys and sheep.

 Then they climbed around for a while on the playsets.

 This train in particular was great for photos!!

 We then headed over to the petting zoo area to feed the animals. They were also doing nighttime pony rides which the kids were very excited about (Natalie most of all). Henry asked to go on the pony, and then had a brief freak-out when we were putting him on there, but got to like it part way through. He wouldn't sit for a photo though!

 After we finished up outside, we went into the craft room so they could make a craft. They were once again super amenable to one last photo!

Oh, and how cute is Natalie's hat? My friend Amy bought that for her as a birthday present. Hand-made knitted Elsa hat!

Leesburg Christmas Tree Lighting

Happy Christmas Eve!!

On the first Friday of December, Leesburg held the annual town tree lighting ceremony. We go pretty much every year; this year was a bit crazier for two reasons. First, Natalie and I had to meet Evan and Henry there, as they were at Henry's new music class. Because the streets were so congested with people trying to get downtown, my guys didn't get there until just before the tree was lit, so they unfortunately missed all of the pre-lighting activities! Second, those activities were a little different this year, due to some really bad rain. So the ceremony had to be moved to the parking garage next door. They did all of the activities that we had seen in previous years, including reading "Twas the night before Christmas" by the members of town council.

And some Christmas songs from one of the adult choirs.

Followed by some rather ridiculously cute kids singing a couple more holiday songs.

At this point we were finally able to meet up with Evan and Henry, just in time to see the tree get turned on. Unfortunately, one of the kids picked to help the mayor flip the switch got a little antsy and flipped it before the countdown ended, but as we were standing right there we did get to see it turn on. I didn't get to take very good photos yet, as it was still raining, so I hope to get back there sometime this weekend to take a few more photos. But here's what I did get, of Natalie in front of the tree.

Henry was not in a mood to pose for us, and due to the rain there wasn't really anyone to ask to take a family photo. So here's hoping we can get one of all of us this holiday season still! 

Natalie's 7th birthday party

It's time for a week of holiday-related posts! While this is not strictly "holiday", I don't want to let it be January before I post about Natalie's birthday party, and as it was a winter theme (Frozen!), I thought I'd do that first to kick off the holiday week. Note: this post was supposed to go up Sunday, and then a new holiday post each night, but the last two days have been so crazy I wasn't able to get anything up before today!

We held Natalie's party two weekends ago, at our house. We decided to do "Frozen makeovers", which included braided hair, sparkly makeup, and Jamberry nails! We used these two patterns:

 

The girls had a blast, and honestly I think the adults did too! My friends Amy and Emily, who sell Jamberry, came to put the nails on the girls. My sister did all of the braids, and I did the makeup. My mom was also here to help keep everything running smoothly!

That morning, while Mom and Carrie took Henry out for a bit, Natalie and I decorated the house (mostly kitchen area) to make it look like a "Frozen palace" (Natalie's words).

 

I even ordered custom labels to put onto the favor bags!

 When the girls arrived, I had bowls set out for each of them to fill and create their own Christmas ornament. After all of the girls were here, we started working on the makeovers!

 As the girls were waiting for the different "stations" to be available, we taught them how to make friendship bracelets.

 Natalie was very patient in waiting to get her nails done (she let some of the other girls go first). She was so excited for it all!

 Oh, and we also put tattoos on the girls. Everyone else wanted them on their hands, but Natalie wanted hers on her face. Note: that thing took me almost a week to get off of her face!
We also got Natalie this special Frozen sticker, which she did put on her hand.

 We had enough of the tattoos for all of the grownups to get one too. Here is Carrie, Mom, and me with our tattoos!

Did you see in the picture above, looking into the hall, the photo backdrop and snow setup? That was so I could take photos of the girls after their makeovers. These girls were so cute!!

 

I took photos of Natalie with each girl, and each girl solo, but here I'll just show my beautiful birthday girl!

Then it was time to sing "Happy Birthday" and have some cake.

Finally, what's a Frozen birthday party without "Let It Go"?

 Where was Henry during all of this? He basically wanted no part of the party. So we let him watch Star Wars downstairs during, He didn't even want to come up for cake! Instead, we all celebrated on her birthday (as I posted before), and he joined us afterwards, even putting on his own tattoo.

 Natalie had a great time opening her presents afterwards (her friends and family were very generous!!). Her favorites had to be the dolls she got - two of them (Elsa on the left and Anna) from my mom and Carrie, and a different Elsa from a friend. She was so excited to add them to her Barbie collection! Overall, I think it was a pretty darn successful birthday party, and we all had a great time.