Thankful Days 23-28

Sorry for the thankful blogging hiatus. Nate was home early on Tuesday and was off for the rest of the week so the girls and I were busy soaking up every moment with him possible!! Gosh, I love family time! Anyway, here goes the catch up!

Thankful Day #23: All Recipes

I love this site. It is my go-to site for recipes and most every recipes has turned out so good! Thanks all recipes for making our tummies oh, so happy!

Thankful Day #24: Thanksgiving

This year was my first year hosting Thanksgiving and I was SOO thankful that we pulled it off without a hitch (probably because I was NOT in charge of the turkey)! OK, well dinner was actually ready 45 minutes later than we hoped, but it was all so yummy! Everyone brought delicious food that I had been craving all week. Kevin smoked a turkey and had smoked gravy that went along with it. The turkey, along with the mashed potatoes, was my absolute favorite part of the entire spread. I seriously could have eaten it all but my friends probably would have been pretty grossed out :)

Here's the gang, minus all the kiddo's.

A very poor picture of the spread/kitchen setup.

My pretty stuffing from Allrecipes. To be honest, I think I put WAY too many craisins in it!

The tots were all so good while they happily ate their popcorn while watching Snow White.

We also busted out the ping-pong table. Tyrus was the champion of the night... and all the other nights :)

Me, Ruby, and my good friend Haley.

We had such an awesome Thanksgiving! Thanks to all of those who joined us and made it spectacular!

Thankful Day #25: My Dedicated Husband

One thing I made clear to Nate several weeks ago was that I wanted him to put Christmas lights up the day after Thanksgiving and he happily agreed. What he, and I, didn't realize was how terrifying the process was going to be.

Our house has a lower roof, and an upper roof and both of them are pretty steep. To make it even more nerve-wracking, it was super slick! Every time Nate made a move, the grit on the roof would come off and run down the sides. This made Nate a wee bit nervous.

Nate, laying on the roof to ensure his safety. He was not very happy with me taking pictures of him while he was trying not to slide off the roof but I had to preserve the memory :)

If we thought the lower roof would be difficult and scary, the upper roof was 10x worse! We borrowed our friends 15 foot ladder that just barely reached the bottom of the top roof. I held the ladder for Nate while he climbed up it and when he got to the top he was shaking. I realized then just how high and dangerous it was and told him he didn't have to do it and it wouldn't be worth it if he fell off. But he went ahead with it anyway because he knew I wanted the lights up. This man spoils me! I felt okay since I knew he was going very slowly and was mindful of all his movements.

My studly husband finishing up the upper roof...

Anyway, I found out later that day that several people have actually died trying to put up their Christmas lights and falling off the roof. After I heard this I really felt like the worlds worst wife and that I have the worlds best husband. We may just keep these lights up for the remainder of our stay here in Durham, haha! Thanks babe for risking your life on the super steep and slick roof, just to make me so happy! You're amazing!

Thankful Day #26: Christmas Decorations

I started to decorate while Nate was doing lights, but when we realized how dangerous it was, I stayed outside and saved the decorating until the next day. I was SOO excited to decorate because we bout a bunch of awesome decorations last year after Christmas at Sears that were on sale. Anyway, here are a few pics...

The train around our tree...

Our Christmas village...

Most of the inside setup...

We finished our decorating and cleaned everything up. We had friends over and had a fabulous time. After everyone left, Nate went to return a redbox and came home with pizza. We turned the lights off and all the Christmas decorations were lit up and our little family watched Elf while eating our pizza. It was complete bliss. I love the feelings of Christmas, especially with my little family and I love my family more than anything!

Thankful Day #27: Evey

My girls LOVE dogs, especially Lyla. Every week day we take our friends puppy, Evey, out to go potty while her owners are at school and work. This has been really great for my girls to get some interactions with dogs since we fully intend to get one in the future. We've been doing this for the past month and my girls have sort of developed a bond with this pup. Anyway, our friends were leaving town this past weekend and asked if we would be able to watch Evey while they were gone and we happily accepted!

We seriously had such a great time! There were a few hiccups here and there, but nothing that the 4 of us couldn't handle. Ruby has learned how to defend her face when Evey attacks her with slobbery kisses. Lyla has felt so comfortable wrestling around with "Evey Girl" and has had a blast playing with her. Evey was also very protective of the girls. When we put them to bed the first night, she sat at the top of the stairs as their "watch dog". And when we sent Lyla to timeout, Evey went and sat dutifully next to her the entire time. Lyla LOVED that!

Anyway, this has been the perfect way for us to get our "dog fix" while we aren't able to care for one ourselves at this point in our lives. And Lyla wasn't even upset when she went home because she knew we see Evey all the time. Perfect setup if you ask me!

Evey was sooo patient with Lyla!

Lyla loves this pup!

Thankful Day #28: Family Time

I just have to say how much I LOOOOOVED having Nate home for such a long time. It was all about family and the girls and I ate up every moment! Complete, Christmasy bliss! Nate seriously is the greatest father and husband and he is the calm to our emotional storms! Now, he only has 2 more weeks of crazy, I mean class, and then finals. After that he gets an entire month off!!! Oh, I can't wait!