So Thankful

Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful this year.  The kiddos were off school on Wednesday and we spent all day preparing for our traditional Thanksgiving Eve dinner with Lawrence's family.  Our turkey turned out perfect and we had a nice relaxing night after enjoying a wonderful meal with everyone.  On Thanksgiving Day we had no where to be - that's a first!  We spent the rainy day in our cozy house, putting up Christmas decorations while the kids watched the final season on DVD of their all time favorite show - 7th Heaven.  Friday morning Lawrence and I rose at 3:30 am to head out for "Black Friday."  We had never been to any of the Black Friday sales, so we decided this would be the year we saw what all the hype is about.  We arrived at the St. Matthews Target at 4:00 am to find a line of people stretched around the building - it was crazy!  We shopped until 5:00 and came home and went back to bed.  Did we get any good deals?  Who knows, but we made a memory and crossed that activity off our "bucket list."  Later that morning we headed to Russell Springs for Thanksgiving lunch with the Lacy family.  This was the first year all my cousins and their children were there at the same time.  We had lunch for 39 people!  We had a great afternoon visiting and being together.  God bless my mom for how much cooking she did!  On Saturday night, after a busy day of basketball games and a swim meet, we gathered at Lawrence's dad's house for one final Thanksgiving dinner.  Dinner was delicious, but by the end of the night we were stuffed - three dinners in four days (plus some leftovers!) was plenty.  We are turkeyed out!  We have much to be thankful for, on Thanksgiving and every other day of the year.  

John helps prepare the turkey

Sarah chopped a million cups of onion and celery!

Holiday Table

Lawrence, Mary Taylor and Lori add the finishing touches to the meal

Nana gets a hug from Sarah, Tanner and Sydney

What I should remember to do each day

Four generations of the Lacy Family

Grandmother and the Lacy cousins

Grandmother and the Lacy great grandchildren

Fall Fun

This week was a busy one, and we kicked it off with Christmas at CAL (our annual holiday boutique and silent auction).  This is one of my favorite school events at Rock Creek, and my mom and dad always love to come too.  John's favorite part is to bid on silent auction items, and this year he ended up with a basket of UK goodies and a mini-fridge for the kids' "lounge" in our basement.  My mom and dad got in on the action also and walked away with this pretty Christmas wreath.  

This week was also "Spirit Week" at the middle school, and Sarah had fun dressing up all week.  On Tuesday she was a true "Fashion Disaster", complete with a faux ponytail that she used to seriously wear when she was younger!  Here she is with Kasey before school (Kasey's looking pretty disastrous too!)  Sarah was bummed because the seventh grade didn't win the spirit stick (they were beat out by the sixth grade class), but she still had fun dressing up for the different themes each day.

We are now barreling full steam ahead into Thanksgiving week.  Where has the time gone this fall?  Busy life, happy life...it's going by fast.

Bieber Fever

Last night I took Sarah and three of her friends to the Justin Bieber concert.  This was teeny bopper mania!  There were little girls everywhere, screaming at the tops of their lungs with Bieber Fever!  We were so lucky to have seats in the Carmichael's suite.  Of course the girls would have rather been in the thick of things down on the floor, but for this mom, the comfort and semi-quiet of the suite was welcomed!  The girls had so much fun dancing and singing (and scoring the always coveted concert t-shirt).  The new KFC Yum! Arena was fantastic - what a fabulous addition to our city.  We didn't get home until 11:00, but I would say the lack of sleep was well worth the chance to go to school today and say they were at the concert.  With all the ups and downs of middle school, this was definitely an "up." 

Sarah, Kasey Wilmsmeyer, Sarah Embry and Caroline Embry

Too Much Too Soon

So on Monday (which was the day after HALLOWEEN!) they came and put this Christmas tree up in the lobby of my office building.  Seriously?  November 1st?  Later that evening I was driving down Shelbyville Road and noticed that Von Maur had their Christmas lights up (maybe they stay up all year long, I'm not sure, but now they are LIT).  I can't believe how early people are trying to celebrate Christmas, and what I really don't understand is why.  I have to be honest and admit that Christmas is not my favorite time of year.  I get really anxious and stressed and by the end of the season I'm physically, mentally and emotionally drained.  To try to combat this annual let down, my sister and I decided to tackle a good deal of the holiday preparations (mainly gift buying!) early this year.  We plan to spend all day Saturday Christmas shopping with the hope of actually enjoying the experience because we are beating the crowds... and then we'll have the entire month of December free to spend with friends and family.  But then this tree showed up.  And Von Maur's lights came on. And now I don't feel so on the ball.  I feel behind, I feel stressed, I feel anxious!  Maybe if everyone else is pushing Christmas so soon, Starbucks will start offering their seasonal Gingerbread Latte soon too.  That would make me feel a lot better.  

Trick or Treat!

 

We had another fantastic Halloween this year, with some new little goblins on the scene!  Our family tradition is to host Halloween at our house...of all our brothers and sisters, we are the only ones in a neighborhood so it has always made sense to trick or treat in Hurstbourne.  The kids are getting older which has made me a bit sad that we may be in the sunset of our trick or treating days, but with the addition of new cousins and friends over the last few years, the spirit of Halloween continues to thrive!  My sister and brother-in-law's sweet grand-pumpkins came by (Reese as a fairy and Maverick as a dinosaur), and my friend Katie brought her little Sophie (who ended up being Sarah's shadow since they were both witches).  The little ones being there, along with all our parents, made the night fun and the kids had a great time trick or treating and hanging out.

Our fabulous five cousins - Bruce (Avatar), Claire (Taco), Sarah (Elphaba), Sydney (The Great Pumpkin) and John (Giant Baby)


 Sarah and Sophie

 Sarah and me as Elphaba and Glinda from Wicked

The Young Family of Jack-O-Lanterns



Joe and Dino Maverick

Joe Jr. and Fairy Reese

Shannon and Dino Maverick