November

The girls & I were supposed to go to Richmond the first weekend in November to visit the Germains, but the van was acting up, so we put it off a couple of weeks. We had Adrienne's 2nd birthday party at the house. Her friend McKenna came over. Adrienne didn't quite know what to do about blowing out the candles, so McKenna helped.

Everyone loved the cake. It was in the shape of Pablo the Penguin from the Backyardigans. Everyone had a blue mouth after eating cake. But, I don't think they minded to much.

I forget how busy of a month November can be. With all the birthdays (3 in my house alone) and Thanksgiving, plus it's a VERY busy time for me at work.

We went to Nancy's for Thanksgiving since Thomas, Mandy & the girls were in town. I realized this is the first time in 36 years that I wasn't going to spend Thanksgiving with mom & Amy. Jeff, Kelli, Adrienne & I did go over to mom's for a little while, just to spend some time with her. It was still weird not being with mom's whole family on Thanksgiving day. But it was easier on everyone since some of us had to work the next day.

After work on Black Friday, I loaded the girls up in the truck (my van still wasn't working right) and we headed to Richmond to see the Germains, and to celebrate Zach & Adrienne's birthdays. We got up there about 10pm Friday night. We all went right to bed. Sat was a fun day. First we got up and went to the Children's Museum. OH WOW! that place is great! There wasn't a line for Santa, so we took the kids to get thier picture made. Well, the pictures would have turned out great if Kelli would have smiled, but she wouldn't do it. No matter how much I bribed or threatened.

Then we went and the kids played in the museum for a couple of hours. They painted pictures and "picked" apples. It was a lot of fun. I wish we had something like that here in Roanoke.

Then back to the Germains for naps for the little ones. While Adrienne & Zach took a nap, Kelli & Sami watched a movie and Drew (Carrie's husband) watched all 4 kids while she and I ran to a scrapbook store. It was great. they were having a big sale, and I got a few things. I found some great paper for the pictures we took at SeaWorld when we were in FL. I can't wait to get back to working on scrapbooks. It will be easier once the holidays are over and things settle back down a little bit.

After nap, we had dinner and then had a mini party for Zach & Adrienne.

They opened their presents to each other.

Then they had cupcakes and thought they were YUM.

We headed home Sunday morning. Sami wasn't too happy that we were leaving. But her mom reminded her that they are coming to Roanoke in 2 weeks. YEAH!!