November - The Month of Thankfulness

This month of Fall, Thanksgiving and the start of the holidays for the rest of the year started out with a really fun trip to Biloxi, MS for my cousin's wedding.  It's always SO great to spend time with extended family, especially those on my Mom's side.  Her and her 3 siblings are the reason I want a big family.  They have always been so close, and to this day will back each other up, support each other, and love one another no matter what.  I can only wish for my kids to have this relationship with each other when they're adults - staying in touch, getting together as much as possible, spending holidays together and making sure their kids are close friends.  I've been like this for a while now, but that weekend in MS really highlighted for me how much I've changed in the past few years.  All I wanted to do was spend time with the "adults" (our parents), talking, reminiscing, hearing stories of their childhood, rather than going out on to bars, clubs and casinos with the "kids" my age.  We stayed at the wedding until the very end, and then my cousin invited me and Nicole (my best friend/cousin) out to a bar/nightclub to hang out with all the bridal party and her other cousins.  I didn't even hesitate to say No, because I just wanted to go back to the house, snack, and chitchat with everyone.  That can't be done with all the loud music, drinking and too many people.  Man, I sound old!!  The best part of the trip was when Nicole and I were sitting around with our parents, hearing their stories and reading letters to/from each other when they were in high school and in their 20's.  My aunt had saved many of these letters.  There were A LOT of laughs and tears, hearing the hilarious stories of their relationships at that age, and also ready letters from their youngest brother, just months before his death at the age of 15.  I really felt closer to all of them through this.  I am so thankful to have such a big, close and loving family to share these times, memories and laughs with!

As for the actually wedding, it was a great time and the girls had SOOOO much fun!  I had no idea they loved to dance so much!  The wedding didn't end until about 11 or 11:30pm and those girls danced all night long!  Matthew was even dancing!  He would actually pull me out of my chair, to the dance floor and then start stomping his feet!  SO cute!  Scott even requested the girls' favorite song and danced with Rosie.  They had such a blast!  As soon as I get the pictures from my dad, I will have to post them!  I only had a couple on my phone:

Yes, Emily pretending to choke herself was the best family photo we got!

After the wedding, my parents rode back to GA with us for the week.  I am definitely thankful to have had additional help on our 7 hour ride back home.

While Noodle and Poppy were in town, we made sure to keep them busy.  The first day back, all three kids had a dentist appointment.  This was Matthew's first one, and he was perfect!

This was also the first time the girls had x-rays taken.  I just thought they looked so grown up getting pictures of their teeth taken.  Of course, the hygienist kept saying to Rosie "Keep super still.  Still as can be." I told her that 'super still' is not in Rosie's vocabulary!  We got strict orders from the Dentist to start brushing Matthew's teeth every day and make sure we're flossing the girls' teeth every night.  I'm so thankful we found a dentist that the kids automatically felt comfortable with and who seems to really enjoy what he does!

We also got to take Noodle and Poppy to the Suwanee Library for Story Time.  This was our first time going too, so I had no idea how it would go.  Rosie sat through the whole thing (surprisingly!), Emily lasted about half of it, and Matthew didn't stay in the room at all.  He was running around the library the whole time, with Poppy following behind.  We definitely need some practice on how to behave at the library!  I'm thankful to have such a wonderful library, with plenty of selection, and plenty of kids' activities for us to take advantage of.  I'm also thankful of the library's Internet service, because it becomes my office sometimes during the week! :)

The week Noodle was here, there was a Book Fair going on at the girls' school, so we got to go in and shop around, then pick the girls up from their classroom.  Noodle got to see their class and their teacher.

The following weekend, I was able to get away on a moms' only retreat in a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains.  BOY, did I need that!!  It was all moms from my Mothers of Multiples group, so of course we mostly talked about our kids!  I got a lot of reading done on a new book that I've been dying to read, and a lot of sitting around and relaxing.  It was JUST what I needed!  A couple of us went on a quick hike to a waterfall, but weren't out long because the temperature was in the 30s.  I am so thankful for excellent babysitters and the opportunity to get away and have some ME time!!!

How appropriate and meant to be that I cracked an egg with twin yolks on a Mothers of Multiples trip??

The last fun activity we got to do before Noodle left was take the girls to the Lanier Under the Lights 5k, to see the Christmas lights.  It was drizzly and cold, but we still enjoyed ourselves and the girls loved looking at the lights.  I was a little disappointed about some of the way they handled things, like cars driving through all the walkers and runners, but I guess the girls didn't really notice, so maybe it didn't matter!

All tucked away in their stroller shelter!

The week before Thanksgiving, the girls had their first ever school pageant!  It was a Thanksgiving Feast, starting out with the kids singing songs.  I'm sure they practiced the songs quite a bit beforehand, but most of the kids I don't think sang very much.  They just stood on the stage and stared at the audience.  When Emily saw us, she started waving frantically and yelling "Hi Mommy!  Hi Daddy!  Hi Matthew!  Hi Grandma!"  Rosie was waving too, but stared everyone quite a bit!  It was really cute.  After the performance, we had a wonderful lunch, prepared by the staff at the school.  I couldn't believe how good it was and how much food they gave us!  It was a great event, and I can't wait until the next one!  I am so thankful that we found such a wonderful school for the girls to attend, and start their education (Thanks, Erin!!)!  The teachers they have are so amazing, loving communicative and attentive, the school takes so much pride in what they do, and they seem to have a fairly good amount of events to keep the parents involved.  I can't wait for Matthew to start there next year!  It's wonderful to have people looking after our children who care so much about them.

The girls love their teacher, Ms. Beth!

And of course, to end this month of Thankfulness, we celebrated Thanksgiving!  It was definitely a quite one this year.  Last year, we had 40 people at the house for dinner, with 8 of those guests staying at the house.  This year, there were just 9 for dinner, with no one staying at the house.  Since my parents had just been here earlier in the month, they couldn't come back for Thanksgiving.  This is the first time in probably 8 years that they haven't been here for Thanksgiving, but the trade off is that their coming for Christmas, which hasn't happened in a few years.  I'm actually glad for this switch, because it's going to be SO fun to have them here for all the fun Christmas activities!  Even though it was quite, Thanksgiving was nice, all the food was great, and it was relaxing and reflective.

Love These Little Turkeys!

I feel I may have overused the word 'thankful' in this post, but isn't it better than overusing words like 'sad, dislike, wanting, greedy, hateful'?  There are so many things in my life to be thankful for, that it would actually take less time to list out the things that I have to complain about.  That list would be empty right now!  Parents, grandparents, family members, friends, the opportunity to spend so much time with my young children, my husband's efforts at ALL of his jobs so I have this opportunity, teachers, babysitters, activities, pageants, yummy feasts, and the smiles on my kids' faces are all things that I am SO thankful for this year!  I know that the rest of this year, and next year will bring even more blessings and things to be thankful and grateful for!

HAPPY THANKFUL MONTH!!

Mrs. J