Lots of Everything!

All 3 of the kids have been having a lot of fun dressing up in costumes lately. One of my favorite things is walking into a room and seeing them looking and being totally crazy. It puts an instant smile on my face!

One of my other favorite things is Winston wearing his boots and top hat. He wears them a lot.

We went to the Veteran's Day parade with our friends. We love, love, love parades!

We had a zoo day with friends. It was so great to see our West Virginia friends, the Montagues!

We've also been going to lots of different parks to play lately, mostly for my benefit. I get bored with the same sand and slides.
This one was in Scottsdale, and it was great, minus the very sweet but wart covered kid who kept picking up Winston and hugging him and accidentally sneezing in his face and hair. His mother, Smokey the Bear, was too busy puffing on her cigarette to get him a tissue, but lucky for the little boy, he had Winston's shirt nearby. I'm still grossed out.

Grandpa Dan dressed up as a turkey and picked Stanton up from school, and Grandma Mary handed out Thanksgiving cupcakes to Stanton's class.

They were a big hit, especially with Winston!

The next day Stanton's school had a turkey trot. It was so fun! Noelle and I ran it with him, but he lapped us in no time at all. Daddy and Winston cheered him on at the sidelines, and they;re cheering was so good that Stanton even did an extra lap and still finished before all of us!

After that we all went to Noelle's preschool performance and Thanksgiving feast. She was supposed to be an Indian, but she switched at the last minute to be a pilgrim. We had a lot of fun watching her sing and eating all of the yummy food a day early.

On Thanksgiving Day it was just the 5 of us this year. We got up early and took the kids to the movies and then came home and got busy cooking. Daddy and Stanton made the mashed potatoes.

Noelle loved helping with the cornbread stuffing.

We seriously feasted! It was so fun to just slowly talk and eat and talk and eat as a family.
Noelle's quote of the day was when I asked her how she liked the food. She said, "It's delicious...or maybe I actually don't like any of it, but I'm still thankful for it." (:
Then we watched a little bit of the parade and had dessert with Grandpa Dan and Grandma Mary after a long Thanksgiving walk/bike ride.

That night we went to Zoolights. Not only did Paul get us in, but he let Stanton and Noelle turn on all 2 million lights for the first time this year on live t.v.
Noelle turned them on too early, and everyone cheered, but then they had to turn them off. Nobody clapped for that part, oops, but then she and Stanton turned them on again at the right time and there was more cheering.

We had a really nice time walking around looking at the lights. (I didn't even tell Robert and Stanton to growl like lions. They did that all on their own.)
And just like last year, I made up a joke to tell Jengo the talking Giraffe.
Q: What does a long necked zoo animal float on in the pool?
A: a girRAFT.
That giraffe never laughs when I tell him, and neither do the people standing around. It's always a little awkward and semi offensive.

Then Stanton and Noelle got to go on the Polar Slide, and Winnie got to go on the merry-go-round. It was a Happy Thanksgiving!

The next day we started up with Christmas fun at Bass Pro Shop. They had fun on the merry-go-round, again, and the best part was the indoor snowball fight. They played forever.

After that we went to the free ice skating at Tempe Marketplace. It was both Stanton and Noelle's first time ice skating, and I was SO proud of them! I can barely ice skate, but they both did awesome!

Don't get me wrong, they fell like 50 times, but they kept getting back up, and by the end they were actually skating.
Noelle fell the most because she was determined to do the same tricks as the older girl who came in a leotard and brought her own skates.  Noelle just stood by her and tried to copy whatever she did.
She tried to skate backwards, and fell. She tried to jump, and fell. She tried to spin, and fell. She tried to spin on one leg, and fell.
 I was so proud of both of them for their effort though!

Then they lit up the giant Christmas tree, and turned on the snow fall. Winston loved it, and I'm happy to say that none of us got the snowy soap in our eyes or mouth like last year.

Daddy had Monday and Tuesday off too so the fun just kept coming. We hiked Hole in the Rock.

We had a little picnic lunch in the rock chairs.

Then we explored around a little bit.

Stanton and Daddy found giant rocks to climb on, and they also found a cave that smelled very strongly like pee. They said it must be where all of the homeless people go to the bathroom.
Then Robert told the kids about my friend who used to live at Hole in the Rock, and now they think I'm super weird for hanging out with people who go potty outside in mountains. We finally had to ban the topic cause they could not get over it.

We ended the day monkeying around at the zoo. It was such a perfect extended Thanksgiving weekend!