Thanksgiving

For the first time ever, we have been totally on top of the holidays.  We started Thanksgiving morning with our new tradition of setting up the Christmas tree.  I know that kind of removes the emphasis from Thanksgiving and puts it onto Christmas, but I really wanted to get the tree up early.  Maybe we'll modify the tradition a little bit next year so we can enjoy Thanksgiving more.

Avery loved all of the Christmas decorations and was excited to show off the decorations to Paci Baby.

We also put up Avery's little tree in her room.  She thought that since the tree was so little, it belonged to Paci Baby.  It was so cute to see her get excited about that little tree and share it with her baby.

After a small Thanksgiving lunch at our house, we headed to Clinton.  We had a great dinner with everyone at Nana and Papa's house, and Avery got another chance to hold Baby Jillian.  Jillian has grown quite a bit since the last time Avery held her, so she was a little more apprehensive this time.  Jillian wasn't quite sure what to make of it either.

Cousins eating their Thanksgiving together...as usual, the kiddos are well into their meals and the adults haven't even started.

A New Friend

Avery has recently become interested in other kids her age.  She likes to play with them and is so cute when she has little conversations with them...I love it!  We're always looking for chances to give her that interaction, so we were excited when Jackie and Jason were looking for someone to watch Lauren, their niece, for an afternoon.  Avery and Lauren hadn't met before, but they hit it off and quickly became friends.  It was also nice for Jeremy and I to have a little break, someone to pay attention to her.

After playing, we decided to make personal pizzas for lunch, a big hit with both of them.

We also did some crafting, a favorite of any girl.  We made turkey hand-print cards for Thanksgiving.

After a quick nap to refresh everyone, it was snack time interspersed with bike riding, thus Avery's helmet. All in all, it was a busy, but fun, day, and we were so happy to have Lauren for the day.  She's such a sweet girl!

Great Wolf Lodge

We had the amazing experience of traveling to the Great Wolf Lodge in KC for the weekend as a celebration of the looming, un-named birthday fast approaching for Jeremy and I, as well as Julie's whose was this past summer thanks to Nana and Papa.  It was an amazing weekend and a chance to do things as a family that we don't normally have to opportunity to experience.  The lodge was amazing, starting with our room.  The "wolf den" was actually Avery's bed.  There was an entire corner of the room that was in a "cave" with a set of bunk beds inside it.  If you look closely, you can see Avery napping in the top bunk of the bed.  She loved having her own little area in the room and was so excited to sleep in the top bunk!

There was also a little craft room in the hotel that we decided to visit on Friday afternoon while we were waiting for everyone else to arrive and get settled...yes, we were the first to arrive (crazy, I know!).  Avery made an alphabet necklace that she proudly wore all weekend.

Dinner Friday night was pizza in our room, and all the kids loved the bunk beds as much as Avery did!

We spent most of our time at the indoor water park, which didn't exactly lend itself to abundant picture-taking, so there are only a few pictures.  The number of pictures is not, however, an indication of how much fun we had.

There was a set of smaller water slides with a shallow pool and several water toys in the walk-in pool.  Avery went up and down those slides more times than I could count.

We did manage to get Avery away from the slides long enough to ride the lazy river with Chelsea and Jack.

All that play was hard work...time for some rest!

Halloween

With Avery's overwhelming obsession with horses lately, it was pretty easy to come up with a Halloween costume for her...a cowgirl of course.  The costume itself was made up of things we already had and things that we bought that would easily be reused for daily wear or otherwise.  We got her some really cute pink cowboy boots that I'm absolutely in love with!  I was so excited to show off those boots, and luckily we got a few opportunities to do so.  On Friday afternoon, there was trick or treating at the businesses downtown, so we met Jeremy at work, showed Avery off to all of his co-workers and headed downtown where Avery made off with quite the loot.

We stopped at the bank that just happened to have the teller line "dressed up" like an old west town.  Avery posed in the Saloon doors!

On Monday, Halloween day, we made our usual trip to Hyvee...have I mentioned how much I love that store!  I'm not sure that Avery appreciated it as much as I did, but I really like that it's indoors and the fact that they hand out things other than candy...like FRUIT!  Avery, however, remembered that she got loads of candy when we went out on Friday, so she was disappointed with some of the things at Hyvee.

She managed to get her cowgirl pose down with no coaching at all.  She even has a Tootsie Roll in her cheek posing as her "chew."

After Hyvee, we visited Jackie and Jason then to Terry and Teresa's.  Avery really liked to hand out the candy to the other kids, which Terry and Teresa were more than glad to have her do (they live in the best neighborhood for Halloween).

Teresa even made Avery a little goodie bag with necklaces, bracelets and vampire teeth!