We were so excited to host Thanksgiving this year for my side of the family but a week before Thanksgiving my dad got a kidney stone and my parents couldn't make the trip! We thought about rescheduling my brother's flight and have everyone together for Christmas, but decided just to go with it and Mike still came. We loved having him!!!
Luke had a MOPS Thanksgiving playdate
Whitney was given 3 different Thanksgiving outfits!
Turkey bootie!
Uncle Mike and Whitney
She hit up some big holidays early in her little life!
Too much turkey!
My girls and Riley across the street put on a Thanksgiving performance for both families in our basement. They rehearsed for days and it was super cute!
Riley's extended family came to the show just minutes after arriving from an 8hr drive from Michigan! We had 14 spectators and 4 actors! Whitney was a pilgrim, a bird, and the Thanksgiving turkey.
Kai helped Leevi inject the turkey with seasoning!
And Hailey baked a cake for dessert
A new tradition we started this year is to decorate gingerbread houses while the turkey cooks on Thanksgiving day!
Thanksgiving cake birthday song??!!!
Lots of games with Uncle Mike
We pulled out the Christmas décor on Friday
We have an artificial tree but each year that a kid is born we do a real tree and save the stump to be a part of our "first tree collection" This year the kids wanted to cut down a tree from the woods behind our house and I was all for it to save $40 some bucks. Apparently this was the best that they could find and while I was perfectly fine using it (it reminded me of German Christmas trees) Leevi couldn't! We still cut the stump for Whitney and then put up the fake tree, ha!
Daddy and Whitney doing their part in decorating
The kids went to town and decorated the whole thing themselves!
Mike was here from Tuesday thru Saturday and we all loved our time with him!!!
I forgot that I hadn't posted about Halloween yet!!!! I wanted to do a better group photo of the kids in their Star Wars costumes, but we never got around to it!! Halloween was definitely a blur!!!! Whitney was born on a Wednesday, we came home on Thursday, the girls had school on Friday and went to the Fall Fest at their school that night with our neighbor, and Halloween was Saturday. We carved pumpkins Saturday morning and hoped the rain would be gone by Trick or Treating time. Around 4 Leevi and my dad took the kids to Waynesville park for the Fall Fest and then rushed home to get ready for Trick or Treating around our neighborhood followed by the Fall Fest at our church!
A rocket launch at the park Fall Fest...I love that Darth Vader wears converse and carries a Zebra pillowcase for candy! :)
The first capture of that sweet smile!!!!
A 4 day old R2-D2...the kids had decided on the Star Wars theme way before we knew that there would be a new movie in December. I had looked at an Ewok costume or the official R2D2 bunting costume, but couldn't bare to spend the money since we didn't know if she'd even be here in time. I found this cute R2D2 iron on for $2.50 on Etsy, score!!
Snoozing thru her first Halloween
Kailee went as Padme (from the first 3 Star Wars)
Luke was no other than Luke Skywalker
I miss that summer tan!
Leila as Yoda
And Hailey was Darth Vader
A rushed group photo before they headed out
Riley across the street joined their theme this year and was a Storm Trooper
Sorting his loot! It wasn't unbearably cold and thankfully the rain had stopped. Leevi said Luke was super cute taking his time going to each house and he would completely STOP if he saw a car coming and wait on the curb (there were WAYYY too many lazy parents driving around in cars this year!) Needless to say, the girls left him in the dust and continued on with my dad and Riley's mom.
