A Virginia Thanksgiving

We had been planning on our first Thanksgiving with just the 5 of us - something easy and low key. Then a few days before, our 'shore' friends - now Virginia friends since they've moved right by where we used to live! - called and invited us down to spend Thanksgiving with them. So we threw together some suitcases, made dressing and cookies, and traveled down.

An attempt at the three in their Thanksgiving clothes. The big 2 just really wanted to go outside and play.

Munchies for lunch - they kids definitely were hungry after their morning outside.

We pulled out the Thanksgiving paper Grandma! The kids all enjoyed using it together.

Briana & Ryan have a significant hill in their backyard, which led to great fun rolling, sliding and flying down on the scooter.

Sawyer posing with Ryan's amazing smoked turkey.

The girls doing a little art before our Thanksgiving dinner.

Boys played with legos.

Thanksgiving dinner - Sarah, Amelia & Delaney got to sit up at the island.

The boys - Austin, Jespa and Sawyer - in the kitchen.

(Austin is refusing to look at the camera.)

Got him as I pretended to walk away!

Adults (and Colleen!) in the dining room. 

As always at Briana's house, the food was amazing.

Colleen enjoyed her first Thanksgiving!

There were 3 kinds of pie for dessert! Everyone had a sliver of each!

On Friday, Briana and I took some time going shopping while the Ryan & Patrick took the kids to the Manassas Battlefield for a little hike.

Kids watching a few Christmas videos.

Baby bath in the kitchen sink! She loved it!

Before we left town on Saturday, we played hard outside.

Delaney even fed Colleen.

A round of Uno before leaving for lunch.

Sawyer loves talking about and to Colleen.

The other significant thing about this trip - I was able to finish and deliver three quilts to Briana. Back in May 2015, she showed me these three partially finished lonestars. Her grandmother had pieced them a couple of decades ago. She asked if I thought I could finish them, with the idea to share them with her 2 sisters.  It was one of the biggest challenges I've tackled; I had to deconstruct each star point to make them lie flat and be considerate of the various idiosyncrasies of the fabric and piecing. But I was just about done with the last one when Briana called and invited us down for Thanksgiving - giving me a hard deadline to surprise her. I'm so glad she and her sisters love them, and I hope her grandmother would have been pleased to see her granddaughters and their families using them now.

And since they have this fun picket fence, I had to get photos of all of them together!

What sweet friends to take on our circus at the last minute!

Solar System Fun

Sweet reading time after baths

We had pulled this book off the library shelves, not knowing it had directions on how to make "apple pigs" in the back cover. So of course, apple pigs were made.

This exersaucer is her favorite thing!

When sister is gone to school, brother convinces me to make him his own tent, via his Koala crate instructions.

We tackled Amelia's last Kiwi crate - a "solar system" theme.

The first project was to make a scaled set of planets from construction paper.

I was amazed - immediately Amelia began to ask me if she could make the big red spot on Jupiter and how would we do Saturn's rings. I know she absorbs a lot from books, but I was truly surprised at her remembrance of the planet details.

Austin is showing how big Jupiter is.

 

Austin cut out Neptune and Uranus himself.

Then we set out to display them, in their order from the sun. Again - Amelia and Austin rattled off the order to me from memory - no memory tricks or songs to go along. 

Diwali Festival

Exxon's Diwali Festival took place not to far from where we live, and we had been invited by friends to attend. The room was dark, so I didn't get too many photos. But there was a couple who had been hired to do balloon animals and face painting - they were the best I've ever seen. The guy could make anything you asked for out of balloons. He made Austin a rocket with flames coming out and even wrote on "NASA" and "USA", which Austin went around showing folks. He made Amelia a penguin, complete with tuxedo and face.  His wife was obviously an artist.

Austin flying his rocket around.

Amelia's butterfly

Austin's tiger

This girl enjoyed all the attention and her first time in a restaurant high chair!

She had so much fun with Mr. Rohit!

When the Indian dancing started, we set her up with borrowed noise-canceling headphones.  We all didn't last long because the volume was intense. But the kids enjoyed the performance before we left.

After the festival, we headed to dinner and football watching with friends.  The hosts had just moved into their home in October, back from California. (They were in our small group in 2010). We were so busy keeping up with the kids and catching up that I didn't get any photos, except this one of Colleen with another guest, Jen.

Late night frosty treat - Mrs. Martha & Mr. Jim had sent the kids junior frosty coupons!

Superheroes put away the silverware.

Big girl playing with one of her Thanksgiving cards. 

Colleen learned how to clap, but has refused to do so every time I turn on the camera.