Thanksgiving 2013

This year was my year to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family and it was perfect timing as we just moved to our new "hopefully" forever home. Thanksgiving was my motivation to get the house as put together as I possibly could and I was pretty happy with the turn out. I was able to have the house painted and furniture arranged for everyone to get a good sense of our new home feeling. I used the entire Thanksgiving week to prepare because I knew I wouldn't have much time left once we got back home from the Turkey Trot. My wonderful Mom saved the day of course helping me prepare and cook the turkey and I have to say, we did a pretty darn good job on the turkey. It was golden brown and juicy as could be. Brent reluctantly took on the role of carving the turkey but under my dad and mom's watchful eye, we got it all craved up just in time.

The turkey has been prepared

 Perfect Golden Brown

 Dad giving Mr. B pointers on craving up the turkey

This year was a little different as we didn't have Grams with us anymore so Vicki, Dave and Peeps joined us for Thanksgiving as well as Leon's son David and his family Amber and Little David. So needless to say, we had a house full and luckily plenty of food to go around not once but twice.

So happy to have Peeps with us this year

 Mr. Leon

 Dave

 Dad, Vicki, Michelle

 Leon's son and daughter-in-law

 My sweet little guy

Brent and I enjoyed watching all the kids play in our new backyard with lots of room to run around. The kids enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, playing basketball, riding Preston's toys and going down the front yard hill in the roller-coaster car.

 The boys rough-housing

 Reading one of his favorite books

 Now reading it to Jerod

 Jerod showing him how to do alligator

 Preston doing it back!!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and next year we will celebrate the holiday with John and Kathy!!

The day after Thanksgiving, my dad and I got started on working on the work bench for our garage. My dad got a new saw and bravely showed me how to use it. He let me cut the first cut on it and I was beyond nervous. I totally thought the worse was going to happen but we had our safety gear on and all went smoothly. It was a lot of fun getting outside and working with my daddy!!

Dad giving my a few pointers on his new saw

 Here we go...

 Nice, on to building our work bench we go

Turkey Trot 2013

This year was our 3rd year to participate in the annual Turkey Trot. We kept to our tradition of meeting at John and Kathy's house for breakfast and to get our shirts and race numbers. We could have just met everyone in Dallas since we are living in Heath now but I didn't want to break our tradition of having sausage balls that morning made famously by Kathy!!Kathy's son Shelton couldn't go this year but his wife Amy and son Mason came along as well as Brad and Jessie. This year we also added Jerod to the mix. I was excited for him to participate and he helped me run the entire 3 miles. The last 2 years I have walked because the first time I was pregnant and the second time, Preston was still a baby but this year, Jerod and I ran as I pushed Preston in the stroller and then met up with Brent back at the parking lot. It was a lot of fun as usual and then we had to quickly head home to finish up our Thanksgiving meal preparations before everyone arrived to our new house!!

Turkey Trot 2013

 Next Year I bet Preston will be out of his stroller

 My favorite boys

 Making our way to the starting line

 The Girls + Mason

 The Boys

 Halfway Through

 Finish Line!!

Halloween 2013

This year for Halloween I was super excited because we were told when we moved into our new home that last year the neighborhood did a hayride for all the neighborhood kids and we were thinking they would be doing it again this year. Unfortunately, we ended up finding out that they cancelled the hayride and was going to do a fall picnic instead. I was pretty disappointed because I thought the hayride would have been a really cool experience for Preston. So we decided to go ahead and give our neighborhood a try anyway for Preston to go trick-or-treating in. My parents came over and we were all ready to go by 6pm, we just needed Brent to get home so we could start. He was planning to get home early but got tied up at work and didn't get home till almost 8:30pm. We noticed that while we were waiting, we didn't see a whole lot of people walking so I don't think our neighborhood is good for trick-or-treating anyway. Brent finally got home so we decided to give the Wyndemere neighborhood a try. The neighborhood was pretty empty probably because it was getting too late but Preston made it to a few houses and was really getting a hang of it by the time we needed to head back home. The first house we went up to, Preston wasn't sure why we were there but when the lady opened the door, Preston just walked right on into her home. I had to get my fairy wings past her and her doorway so I could quickly grab Preston. It was a pretty cute moment. Hopefully next year will be better.

Waiting for Daddy to arrive home

 First House

 Ringing the Doorbell

 Picking out his Favorite

 Showing Daddy his candy