Happy Birthday Becca

Such a fun and special girl to celebrate.  It takes work to stop thinking Christmas for a bit and switch to birthday but it is always a fun-especially when it makes for a lot of smiles.  Becca wanted to go ice-skating...as usual so we had a couple friends over last weekend and hit the rink.  The girls did great for only skating once...some it was their first time.  James was excited he could tag along.  I was happy to get lace up hockey skates instead of the plastic ones that kill your feet after one time around the rink.

Mom and Dad flew in for the week to enjoy some time with the kids and help celebrate her big day.  The Fifth grade was doing a Christmas musical this year and it was on Becca's birthday.  Wednesday morning we were all up and out the door headed to see their performance.  The play was called The Power of the King.  It was such a  great performance.  Becca said it was really hard to learn because there were so many parts.  This was actually what made it so fun because everyone was able to have a special part...not just the main characters.  They had Orff instruments, dance groups, percussion and a couple singing groups.

Link For 

.Orff Instruments.

Second Link for Musical

Dance Group

Another Song

Musical

Not always does Becca get to have Grandparents around for her birthday, so wednesday she got a special shopping trip just for her, headed to her favorite store-Hobby Lobby of course!

The Birthday Day was not complete till we ended with Cake and presents.  A full day but very special.

 Blue is still her favorite color and her request for frosting color.

Brayden made sure to put some trick candles on for her to try and blow out.

 11 years old and growing up.

Thanksgiving 2016

Yikes!  We are in full Christmas mode but need to get some of these Thanksgiving pics down before I lose them in the deep abyss of computer files.  We had a full house this year-which we always love. Celebrating a couple years by ourselves makes us love visitors.  Ron's sister, my brother and parents along with their families all came.  The weather was great and we all had a fun time hanging out together.

First up was James and his NO TURKEY FOR PERKY play.  This was the third time we have seen this play and it still is super cute.  James was Perky, he loves to sing and had a lot of silly grins on his face but his dog mask made it hard to see.

Very special that Grandma and Grandpa could be there for the special performance.

Next it was on to all the thanksgiving prep work.

We had plenty bread for the stuffing!

Some fun turkey crafts with apples, thanks to mom.

A little break from the kitchen and football to watch a little Charlie Brown.

A brined turkey again this year...always takes long to cook but turned out pretty good.

Plenty food, although I think we only had leftovers enough for one lunch for everyone.  No deviled eggs left after James told us he ate four for dinner.

Thanks for wonderful weather...lots of fun outside.  Ron got the rockets up and running-so well that we shot the big one off and lost all of it.

A fun visit to Hunter Park-family soccer was a blast along with frisbee golf.

Still plenty down time with electronics-fun that they can all play mine-craft together.

Of Course time to snuggle and read.

 A nice hike to Turkey Mountain-not a drop of rain!

We made it to Moonscape and found Ok rock.

We braved the crowds to enjoy the huge light display at Rhema.  It is always a mad house but somehow the light make it work seeing every year.

We loved all the time with the cousins!  Best of all we got to skip the drive!  So much fun seeing everyone have fun together.