Go- vember

November 11 – 14

We had a visit from Opa and Val.  They flew in Friday morning and we started the trip by a visit to the Georgia Aquarium.  This was the first trip there for Emily and Taylor.  We decided to get annual passes again since we knew we’d be having a few visitors in the next few months.  It’s a good thing we did because Emily LOVED it!  She was so interested in all the exhibits and if you got her close enough to the tanks, she’d reach out and try to grab at the fish.  I’m so excited for my experiences with her, because she is definitely my nature girl.  She loves to be outside and is so enthralled with animals and living things. 

Frank and Emily, fish gazing

Saturday was spent slowly getting up and hanging around the house in the morning, just enjoying time with the girls.  Opa and Val would have been more than happy to spend the entire weekend in the house, just playing with them.  In the afternoon, we took a trip to the mall and were there for a few hours.  The girls were champs at hanging out and shopping.  It was so long ago now that I honestly can’t remember what we did the rest of the weekend!  I want to say that we stuck around the house, went out to dinner Sunday night.  Oh yeah!  We went to O’Charlie’s for dinner…one of our favorite places, and someplace we always go when Frank is in town.  They left Monday morning.  Not to fret though, they are supposed to be coming back for Christmas! 

Thanksgiving Week Visitors

Scott’s parents Sue and Steve, brother Kevin and cousins Tia and Megan came to visit for a week on November 18.  What a fun filled, packed week it was!  I’m sure they all needed a vacation when they got home to recover from their vacation!  They all drove down together from New York (in a Ford Escape) and arrived Friday evening.  Which, I might add, is the first and only time I’ve gone to Happy Hour since the girls were born, so I got home well after they got there.  We started out the activities Saturday by going to Amicalola Falls in Dawsonville, GA.  We climbed up 700 feet of stairs to the top of the beautiful waterfall, where Sue and Steve met us in their car!  Scott and I had the girls strapped to our fronts so needless to say, it was quite the workout.  Luckily, I had called Emily when we got out of the vehicle since Taylor has a good 2.5 pounds on her.  Unfortunately, the girls were done with their outdoor adventure so Sue had to drive me and Scott back to the bottom with them so we could feed them in the car.  I had forgotten to bring the bottled water up to the top, for their bottles!

On our way back from Amicalola, we stopped at the outlet mall.  I think all of us hit up some great deals!!  That night “the kids” went bowling while Grandma and Grandpa Cook watched the babies.  Of course, the girl with the kids was the most crazy one ;) and of course lost miserably after I talked crap that I was going to kick everyone’s ass!  We took advantage of the arcade games after our two rounds and Tia hit the jackpot in tickets.  Only one game gave you the option to earn more than maybe 500 tickets and that was the game she played.  On one hit, she won 1000 tickets!  She got bored from waiting for them to print out.  Of course, the prizes are maybe $5.00 a piece if you were to buy them, so it took a while for her to figure out what she’d spend all those tickets on.  She ended up getting a Georgia coffee mug and shot glass.  Perfect, free souvenirs for her parents! 

Sunday was filled with lots of Words With Friends playing and the “kids” again went to the park where we took the dogs to the dog park and then played basketball.  That day was finished up by a spaghetti dinner.  Monday, I had the great fortune of going to work for the day, but while I was gone, Scott took Kevin, Tia and Megan to the shooting range.  I can’t remember what else they did.  That night, we went to the movies.  The girls saw The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and the guys saw some other movie.

Tuesday was our Stone Mountain day.  This was fun.  We hiked up to the top of the mountain.  Again, I called Emily since she’s the light one and somehow Scott talked Kyle into carrying Taylor.  It was a quite ride home from there as everyone was SO tired.  

What a treck!

Nice hair...

Way to ruin the perfect shot, Kyle!

My parents were coming in that day so we got home and ate and were waiting for them.  Wednesday was grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner.  This was the girls' first grocery store trip where they were in the front of the cart!   

Emily improvised on using the cart seat covers!

This was also the day to take the visitors to the Georgia Aquarium.  I REALLY needed a break, so Taylor, me, Kyle and my parents stayed home and hung out (the original Rixfords were back together!!).  It’s a good thing Scott took Emily to the aquarium because she LOVED it!  He said she just stared and stared at everything the whole time and was talking to the fish and yelling at the penguins!  What a cutie!!

Grandma Sue got Emily her very own Aquarium!

Thursday of course was Thanksigiving day, so that was spent getting the house and food ready.  Which, me and Scott, our brothers and the cousins got out of, by going to the park to run, play basketball and mess around on the playground.  There were 17 of us for Thanksgiving Dinner!  Of course, I waited too long in the day to try to get a picture of the girls in their Thanksgiving outfits, so by the time it was picture time, Emily had blasted through hers and was sleeping.  But, we got a picture with my dad’s side of the family, so at least you have proof of one cute outfit!

Thursday night, a few of us participated in Black Friday!  It started at 9:00 pm on Thursday with Toys R Us and BrandsMart.  What an experience!  We got home around Midnight, took naps, and went back at it at 4:00 am!  Sue and her clan left around 4:00/4:30 to head back to NY so me, Scott, Kyle, Aunt Kathy and Uncle John headed out to the stores.  Most of the things we were looking for, we got, and it was an experience.  Later, the girls, me, my mom and Aunt Kathy headed to Kohls for some sales.

The rest of the weekend was spent recuperating from all the activities!  My parents got the tired end of our week, so we didn’t really do a whole lot.  Our biggest activities were on Saturday.  Noodle (my mom’s name for Grandma), Grampy, Misty, and I took the girls to the park for some cute Christmassy pictures and then to see Santa! 

I went back to work on Monday, my parents left Tuesday, and here we are!

This past weekend, Taylor and I went on a play date to see our friends Lauren (3 weeks old) and Eva (8 weeks old).  Eva’s mom invited her friend, who has a 9 month old and an almost 2 year old.  I am SO mad I didn’t at least get a picture of Taylor and the 9 month old.  He is three months older than her, but 3 pounds smaller!  It was SO cute!  I’m still getting yelled at by Taylor that we forgot to get pictures of all the girls together!!  Oh well, I guess that just means we’ll have to do it again!

I’m so glad I finally got this updated!  Now on to trying to start my project of Photo Books!  For all of you that read and made it through to the end, thanks for reading!!

Mrs. J