Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was rather low key for us this year, which I guess is not unusual.  We went to my parents' house for lunch and had a great meal.  And as usual, I had to make the decision between dessert or another serving of dressing with gravy...  mmmmm....

Gravy won.  (but I'm pretty sure I had cake too, later.)

Bennett was quite the little host.  He took it upon himself to invite everyone to the table.  I made his plate and got him situated at the table while everyone else fixed their plates.  Bennett got on his knees in his chair and with big, wide arm gestures and an exaggerated voice said, "Everyone! .... Join the table!"  And then we all had to raise our glasses and "Cheers" each other.  When asked what he was thankful for, Bennett said, "I'm thankful for Mama and Grandmama making desserts."  There's never a dull moment with that boy.

And keeping with the tradition of Thanksgiving... everyone passed out after the meal. 

(not sure what these clasped hands are about...)

 

Poor little Maria was so tired, but we couldn't get her to take a nap!  Jeff tried putting her in the pack n' play, lying down with her, holding her... nothing worked.  So finally she just laid down in the kitchen floor (with nothing but Black Friday ads between her and the hard tile) and passed out.

I didn't get many pictures that day, but here's me and my Cannon man.

Josh's dad is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  His grandmother and aunt and uncle still live there, so we usually visit with his parents at Christmas time.  Well, the past couple of years Josh hasn't been able to go due to work.  He knew he wouldn't be able to go again this year, so he decided he wanted to make a trip up there after Thanksgiving since he'd have a long weekend. So even though I was sad to miss visiting with Jeff who was up from Florida, we took off Friday morning for Winston-Salem.

We always stay at The Children's Home, which is the old orphanage where Josh's dad was raised.  His dad wasn't an orphan, but his grandfather was and became very involved with the institution.  It holds a very special place in his family's hearts, and over the last 12 years the spot in my heart for it has grown and grown.

Bennett and Cannon with the giant turkey they had at the entrance to the Children's Home:

We wanted to take Bennett to do something fun one day, and we were trying to decide between a place called SciWorks and The Children's Museum of Winston-Salem.  We were leaning towards SciWorks, but Josh's aunt suggested the Children's Museum.  She said there was a lot more for the little kids to do there.  So we took her advice.

Cannon went with Steve and Lynn to have lunch with Mema, and Josh and Bennett and I headed downtown to the museum.  What.  Fun.  We really had a great time.  I don't know how SciWorks would have been, but this place was just right.  Bennett had a ball.

We started out in a room where you could build things.  They had legos, train tracks, huge foam blocks, a make-your-own parachute area, and these little things that were like jenga blocks but they were magnetic.  Kinda cool.

 

 

One of Bennett's parachutes got stuck at the top, so Josh helped him get it down.  :) This video is a little dark, so my apologies if you can't even see what's going on.

Then we went upstairs.  They had a giant beanstalk that you could climb up, but after trying it out for two seconds, Bennett decided he wasn't cool with that.  We took the stairs.  

 

Up there was this awesome little fantastical forest.  

 

 

They had a cow that you could pretend to milk, but Bennett found a spoon in the little kitchen cottage and decided to feed her instead.

 

Next was a room full of giant letters, and each letter looked like something that the letter stood for.  T is for Turtle (Bennett the Turtle wouldn't cooperate with us), J is for Jellyfish, K is for Kangaroo, U is for Urchin...

 

 

I'm realizing what a terrible job I did showing that these things were actually in the shape of the letters.  Oh well.  You'll just have to go there and see it.

There was an area where you could pretend to be a vet,

a pretend grocery store,

 

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and a pretend doughnut factory.

(And if it hadn't been for a terrible attitude right before we left, we were going to visit a real doughnut factory on our way back to the Children's Home, since Winston-Salem is the birthplace of Krispy Kreme.)

But Bennett's absolute favorite (where we spent probably 30 to 45 minutes) was this contraption.  It was a collection of tubes that had air blowing through them and scarves you could feed into them and watch zip around before being spit out and floating to the ground.  It was pretty awesome.

 

Back downstairs, we found these little magnetic doo-hickeys and played with them for a while.

I love this lip.  Working so hard.

Then we were off to the Children's Home again for our last night there.  I really enjoy staying there.  We stay in an old dormitory that has one upper wing, one lower wing, and a common area in between with a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a TV, books, and couches.  We are usually the only ones there, so this common area becomes our living area.  It's just fun being there with your family.  I've only been around it, like I said before, for about 12 years, but I just feel so at home there. I love it.

As Josh and I gathered our things and loaded the car to get ready to leave, Steve and Lynn took the boys up to the farm to see the animals (the Children's Home was pretty much self-sufficient).

 

We loaded up and headed to Mema's complex to eat breakfast with her and Josh's aunt and uncle.

After breakfast, Mema gave Bennett and Cannon turns riding on her walker.  This became the kids' favorite activity last year at Christmas.  And Mema loves it.  She'll push them around until we make them stop.

We so enjoyed seeing everyone.  I know Josh was really glad to have gone after not being there for the past couple of years.  It was a great visit.

Cannon didn't even make it out of Mema's complex before passing out, and Bennett joined him not long after.  :)

Halloween 2011

A year ago, I saw a photo of what a friend of a friend did for her sons' Halloween costumes and I knew then that I wanted to do that for Bennett and Cannon.  The older brother was the fireman, and the younger one was the fire.

Thankfully, Bennett was all for being a fireman (but I have already been told that next year he's going to be a dinosaur).  So, I bought Bennett's costume and got to work making Cannon's fire costume and smoke hat.  It turned out really cute, but I think I got a little carried away with the smoke hat.  It wound up being rather large. 

I wasn't able to get a good photo because the reflective strips on Bennett's jacket made flash photos turn out terrible, but if I turned the flash off, any slight move turned into a blur.  Like this:

Oh well.

Once we got all dressed up, we went to Sam's Club.  I had been there earlier in the day, and the cashier told me they were doing trick-or-treating in the store that evening if I wanted to bring the boys back.  So I did.  We just went around to each department and trick-or-treated.  We (Cannon) definitely got lots of looks and laughs.  On our way out, Bennett spotted a fire and ran to the rescue!

Thank goodness he was there.  That could've been bad.

Here's a couple more photos I made in an attempt to get a good one.

You'll have to pardon that big ol' belly in that last picture.  It's a bit unavoidable these days.  :)

I should have made the smoke hat before the day-of, because it needed more time to set.  I used loose batting and spray adhesive to make it all stick together, and it just didn't stay together very well.  By the end of the night, Cannon had chunks of "smoke" hanging down his back.  I'm sure we left a nice little trail of gray batting around the neighborhood.  It seemed like it was going to stay together, but once he got it on and started walking around, that puff of smoke was shaking around on that little head of his and didn't stand a chance.

We had a good time.  Mama and Daddy came over and while Josh made beer cheese soup and homemade sourdough bread (that was delicious), Mama passed out candy on our front porch while Daddy and I took the boys around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat.

Quick Progress

I'm so proud of our little water bug.  Bennett has gone from this on Memorial Day Weekend

to this on July 4th Weekend.

Over the River and Through the Woods

To Grandmother's lakehouse we went!

(Josh's grandmother, that is.)

Yep, it's lake season!  Woo-hoo!  It was last year that I really, really, began to enjoy the lake.  I mean, I've always enjoyed going down there with Josh and his family, but once we had Bennett and he got old enough to really enjoy it, it became so wonderful.  We made several trips down there last year, and I hope we can do the same this year.  Memorial Day weekend has always kind of kicked off the season for us, and it was no different this year.

We go to Jackson Lake, which is about 20 minutes or so from McDonough, where Josh's grandmother lives.  Josh had a meeting at the corporate office on Friday, and the corporate office just so happens to be located in McDonough.  So rather than have Josh drive down to McDonough for his meeting, drive back, pick us up, then drive back down south of McDonough, we decided to go on to his grandmother's house on Thursday night.  She lives in an assisted living facility, so her house is vacant.  It was perfect - Josh could wake up, drive 10 minutes to his meeting, and then drive 20 minutes to the lake once the meeting was over.  Lynn and Steve were coming down Friday morning to pick up me and the boys and take us on to the lake.

We didn't get out of Douglasville until it was almost dark, so it was definitely dark by the time we got to McDonough.  Very, very dark.  It had rained (and actually, hailed at our house) before we left.  Nothing too severe, but there was a small storm that passed through.  Well, anyway, once we reached the square in McDonough, the traffic lights were out.  We continued on towards Nana's, and the streets and houses were unusually dark.  We kind of started going, 'uh-oh.'  Then Josh said, "Ugh.  I just saw someone with a flashlight in that house."  We hoped that maybe Nana's neighborhood would have power, but no such luck.  Darkness.

Long story short, it was dark.  It was hot.  The windows were all nailed shut, so we couldn't even get a breeze (yes, we tried to open them - they weren't budging).  The candles we hunted down made it so that we could see, but they also made it hotter.  We had two boys that were tired and wanted to go to bed.  I take that back.  We had two boys that were tired, but only one of them really wanted to go to bed.  Cannon was hot and tired and cranky.  Bennett was hot and tired, but loving every minute of our "fun" adventure.

We finally just gave up, went to bed, and I woke up COLD.  The power had come back on in the night, and boy, there's nothing wrong with her A/C!

So Josh went to his meeting, and Lynn and Steve showed up to get us.  We first went to visit Nana at the assisted living facility.

She has a drawer full of beads that the children always enjoy playing with.  Lynn started putting some on Bennett, and Cannon wanted in on it.  So, she and Bennett helped him out.

Then, on to the lake.  No big, long story to tell here.  All that needs to be said is that we had a great time, and we have on our hands a little dare-devil that isn't afraid to try anything.  Bennett went from jumping off the side of the dock into someone's arms, to getting a running start off the end of the dock while we all watched from dry ground.  He tubed by himself; didn't even want anyone to come with him the first time, and after watching Josh kneeboard, he said to me, "I want to do that!"  So Josh let him lie down on the kneeboard with him while Steve pulled them.  They rode until Josh's arms gave out.  :)

We're seriously thinking about purchasing some training skis for him.  I think he'd totally do it, and I love that!  I was never that way about trying things, and I have never wanted that to rub off on my boys.  I'm glad to see that, so far, so good.

So without further ado, here is our trip in pictures: