::thankful::

Today we are thankful.

We're with Matt's family this year. We switch off every other year. When we're with his family we have dinner at his Aunt Alaine's house (on his mom's side). This year we had 60 people for dinner. I (and my sister-in-law, Stefanie) was in charge of sweet potatoes (MMMMMMM!).

some cookin' in the kitchen...

some of the shoes...

the dinner...

our table...

(chloe sat in the other room with all th other "little girls" when I was doing this post she said "mom next time will you take a picture of me too")

family, family evwy-wheyeh

some football (and the Cowboys won!)

Then it was down to business...

...yep, we're black friday shoppers. 3 years running now. We went through the ads to map out our plan for the next morning. We love it, well Matt does more than me. It scares me a bit. I'm not big enough to really love it-the big crowds make me nervous that I might get trampled and squished. We managed to get all the things we needed and got a pretty good show in too (Toys R Us was nuts!!).

It was a fun Thanksgiving. We're so thankful for family. We're thankful we have somewhere to go and somewhere where we are always welcome. We were all together (for the most part-there were a couple of families missing), and there were 60 of us. I love that. Everywhere you went in the house, there was someone there-and it was nice. Matt has a great family. They have an amazing ability of making everybody feel welcome and loved. I'm lucky to be a part of it :)

::notes::

Chloe....

...writes me notes all the time & sticks them everywhere....

...and I love it :)

::Coopie's 1::

Can you believe this little Bubba turned 1 this week???

He had a John Deere party.

The invitation

"Our 'Deere' little Cooper is turning one.

Come join us for all the fun"

A few decorations...

...from Portie's toy box ;)

On to some birthday presents...

lots of help (as always :) )

the cake...

help with the candle

some tears after the shock of the noise of the song and clapping-poor baby :(

a bit of cake...

the cake carver


party to the right...

party to the left (there were a few downstairs too, I think)

the toy "assembly line"

some playin' with the cousins

all the new toys!!

We had the big family party on Sunday, and his little family party on Tuesday (his actual birthday). He had a little teeny cake and got a little present from us.

It's a "walkin' toy!!" Portie said we should get him that! The kids helped pick it out. They did a great job too, 'cause he really loves it! He walks behind it and does pertty good, but then he gets mad when he gets to a wall and has to stop. He loves to walk!

Cooper had a great birthday!! Thanks, family, for all your love and support for Coopie. He got so many fun toys. He's a lucky boy to have had all his aunts & uncles, all his little (and big) cousins and (almost) all of his grandparents come to his birthday party. He loves all his toys and is so glad everyone could come and so thankful for all his presents. He plays with all of them and loves them! And thanks to Gramma Ruby for the card and $. We'll take him shopping and find him something fun :)

::school school school::

I just thought I'd brag real quick about how great the kids are doing in school!

Chloe's loving it and is always so excited to tell me all about it. When I pick her up every day, she comes down the steps, and as soon as she sees me she yells "Maaaaaaama!!" and runs to me with her arms out for a hug. I love it.

She's been doing great on her reading. She's gotten a few awards and rewards for reading at least 20 days per month since school started (free taco and a free little pizza at a couple of restaurants). She also got a book and a certificate for passing off all of her sight words. She is one of only 3 kids in her class who have done that already. We're so proud of her-she's worked really hard and read a lot.

(I have a picture of that, but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone onto the comp).

She's student of the week this week. That's a thing her teacher does with everybody. It's a rotation she does with all the students. She got to color this big poster and we filled out all the spaces (just little facts about her). It'll hang in the classroom all week. She feels special.

Portie loves school too. He has snack every day, but he always makes up something when we ask him what he had. Last Thursday he said he had "mutt-balls" ???huh???

Port-Port's teacher says he's doing awesome with his letters! We've been practicing, and he knows (recognizes) ALL of his letters. They played "alphabet soup" at school, and she said he knew every letter they pulled out. He recognizes when they're lowercase too (he usually gets them wrong, but at least he reccognizes it's a lowercase something, right? haha) He's learning lots of songs too. He sings them for us all the time.

His class decorates turkeys right before Thanksgiving so they won't get eaten. So (surprise!) we did a Buzz turkey. He took it in today (cause was a little behind last week), and he was SO excited about it!!

his buzz "tihkey"

I, on the other hand, am not doing too hot with school. I forget all the time when library/bookday is, I washed Chloe's gloves yesterday and forgot to put them in the dryer (so she didn't have any today and she didn't want to wear socks on her hands instead-go figure that!, and I kept forgetting to do the buzz "tihkey" so it will only get to hang on the wall for 3 days instead of 5.

whoops.

::disney princesses on ice::

Disney Princesses On Ice came to town...

and, of course, we went...

Chloe, Grandma Kitty, & I went. We went last year, and decided we were going to make it our "thing" every year as long as Chloe's into it.

...she wore her Snow White dress...

...got a wand at the gift shop...

we saw...

Sleeping Beauty,

Beauty and the Beast,

Snow White (her fave right now),

and Cinderella (the main attraction) to name a few.

...and a few fireworks at the end.

She loved it!!

...and so did Grandma.

Then Grandma took us to lunch...

...can you guess where???

(watching it snow)

We missed the boys. Portie was so sad he couldn't go. He thought he could go and wear his Buzz costume (I don't think he got that it was kind of a girl thing). We told him he and Dadduh could go to Monster Trucks when they come to town, so now he's excited about that :) We brought him home a little Buzz toy.

We had such a great day! She loved it! She thought all the princesses were so beautiful and such good skaters! "How can they skate like that, mom???" Everything was so pretty and sparkly. The ice was even pink and flowery. Girls' days are the best! I'm so glad I have a little girl to go do these kinds of fun things with. I'm glad we went. Glad Grandma Kitty came with us. We hope Grandma Snowman can come with us next year ;)