The Holidays are Here!

It is my favorite time of year!! I just love autumn, the crisp air, leaves changing color (maybe not as dramatic in Texas), football starting up, and holidays! We always get into the fun at our home and make our family traditions special to distinguish this time from the others. We had a great Thanksgiving this year. As always, we watched the Macy's day parade in the morning, Caroline really got into it this year. We also watched some football games and went for a wonderful walk through our neighborhood. For the big feast, we invited friends to share the holiday with us since we are far from home and this year we celebrated with the Kerns family and the Barney family. We made the turkey, our 4th go at it, as well as the gravy, Lundgren jello salad, yams, rolls, and dessert. The Kerns and Barneys provided stuffing, potatoes, veggies, apple cider, and pies! It was a feast! We really had so much fun. We played our traditional pulling of the buttons game to share what we are thankful for as well as a new tradition this year. We made a Christmas cake to kick off the Christmas season and hid ribbons in the center of it. Everyone got to pull a ribbon out and on one ribbon there was a star ornament. That person received the first gift of Christmas, a chocolate Santa. Unfortunately, to all the big kids dissappointment, a little 1 year old boy won. We are truly thankful for friends to share this holiday with and this season of gratitude. We are very blessed in our lives.
Caroline was thrilled to go on her first field trip for preschool this year. Her class traveled to her teacher's land just east of town. Little Romney, Collin, and I also made the journey-a little crazy. But, we put on our warm clothes and strapped Collin to me and we were off. We all went on a hayride to choose a Christmas tree for Caroline's classroom. Romney III loved the tractor! It was a fun old tractor with big wheels. Caroline picked out the tree for her class as she pointed out the "perfect" tree. After, we went to a creek and ate a special treat and played in the leaves....or the kids played and I ran around scared that they would fall into the water while a baby was strapped to my body. Later, the kids played on the hay in the barn and really had a wonderful time. I was really glad when it was over and my pulse rate could fall within a normal range again.