Thanksgiving and Santa!!

 Things have been busy around here with the holidays approaching. We are enjoying living in South Alabama even more than before. There are tons of fun holiday things to do every weekend! Hayden was out of school for the whole week of Thanksgiving, so we decided to stay at my parents house in Gulf Shores. (so we could go to the beach everyday! which we did!) Unfortunately my parents weren't there to enjoy the week with us. They went to Gatlinburg for the week, along with my brother and his family. My sister and her daughters did come down midweek to stay with us though. It was a blast! A much needed cousin and sister bonding time. Thanksgiving Day was awesome. We took the boat out in the morning, and the water was like glass. We saw tons of dolphins that day, and the kids loved it! Then my sister took all the kids to the beach, and Sean and I prepared Thanksgiving dinner. (Sean mostly, I was just there for moral support!) Dinner was amazing of course, and Sean even added a little Gulf Coast flair, with blue crabs, stone crabs, and gumbo! Delish!! After dinner, my sister, my niece, and myself went Black Friday shopping!!! Sean was an amazing husband once again and stayed with the rest of the kiddos so we could go. We left at about 7:30pm and shopped until about 3am. We wore my niece out FOR SURE!! We all decided that we have definitely started our new Thanksgiving tradition.

We always get our live Christmas tree on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So thats just what we did! The place we went too was really nice. They had train rides, camel rides, live nativity scene, tons of different kind of trees, and SANTA!! The girls were surprisingly great with Santa. Everyone hugged him and jumped right in his lap. Hayden told us in line that he wanted to tell Santa that he wanted a scooter. So when Santa asked Abigail first "what do you want for Christmas?" Guess what she said?.....SCOOTER! So then it was Emmaline's turn, and take a wild guess....SCOOTER!!! Poor Hayden, he doesn't have a chance with these girls, but he was very polite about it. He just waited his turn and said he wanted a scooter too. My sweet boy! We are looking forward to the rest of December and all the holiday festivities to come!

Turkey Trot 5k

My brother volunteers at the Prodisee Pantry here in Spanish Fort. They had a 5k last weekend that his family was participating in, so we decided join them. They have done many 5k's, even my 5 year-old nephew, Landon. He has even come in 1st a couple times for his age group. This particular race was having a 5k followed by a 1 mile fun run. So I asked Hayden which one he would rather do... He said "let me think about it." He decided on the fun run. I explained to him that Landon was doing the 5k, so he was not going to be able to hang out and play with Landon. Then later he changed his mind all together and said he just wanted to "watch" from the sidelines. WHAT?!!! So with the advice from Sean, I just signed us both up for the 5k. So early early Saturday morning I load up my double jogging stroller and all three kids. We started in the back of the race to keep our strollers out of the way of all the hardcore runners (Brian). I for one was WALKING, no way I could run and push 2 little girls through all the hills that were on the race course. (Kristy and I did run a few times though) Landon and Hayden were infront of us for a little while, then Hayden was GOOOOOOOONE. He ran the whole rest of the way and finished at 38 minutes, a full 10 minutes before me. I was so proud of him. Here he was, 2 days earlier, not even wanting to do it, and then finished before me! He finished 6th in his age group, but all the kids before him were 8 or 9, so he did pretty good considering his age and size. There are so many 5k's around here all the time, so we have decided to do 1 a month. Next time Sean will do it with us and run with Hayden. I bet he will do even better next time. Love my little man!

Thank Uncle Brian for taking this pic (since I was far behind him!)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was fun like always! There were so many festivities here and around Spanish Fort. So the kids got good use out of their costumes for sure. Hayden and Abigail were superheroes! Emmaline was an owl, but she thought she was a SUPEROWL, thanks to Hayden and Abigail. It was so precious though to hear her say "I am a superowl!" We did do one thing different this year though. We only carved one pumpkin instead of the normal 5! Sean and I end up doing all the work every year, and it takes forever. So maybe in a couple years we can go back to our family tradition of everyone carving pumpkins. Hope you and your family had a Great Halloween!!