Christmas Decor, Thanksgiving Two, and Football Sunday

Since Thanksgiving was technically over, we decided it was okay to start decorating.  Vivian has been begging us to decorate in the hopes that her elf, Pixie, would come.  Jeff took Friday off, and so, while Vivian was at school, we set up the village and the snowmen.  Elena was thrilled with the snowmen.

Luckily, I have a couple stuffed ones that she can play with.  So far she's been good about not touching the breakable ones or the Christmas village, but we have a month to go, so we shall see.  Vivian wanted to hang the stockings and help with the tree, so we saved those for her.  The stockings were easy, and Elena thought it was great that her name was on one of them.  She recognized Vivian and Young, but wasn't sure about who Jeff and Nicole were.  We don't have Mommy and Daddy stockings ;-)  

We decided to save the tree for Saturday.  Vivian woke up in full Christmas spirit and put on the classic stop motion Rudolph movie.  Elena watched it happily with her, while eating her first sausage ball.  I was so proud.

After fueling up on sausage balls, we took some time to beautify ourselves before decorating.  Jeff took Vivian to get braids, and I went and got my nails done.  In honor of Elena sharing my snowman obsession, I got some extra decoration on my big toes.

Jeff and I started by putting the lights on the tree, and then Vivian had to help with the star.

While Elena was napping, Jeff, Vivian, and I got the ornaments on the tree.  Young was on roasted vegetable duty for our big Thanksgiving dinner.  That means that the end result was not only delicious, but also beautiful.

On Friday, I had made my second attempt at pumpkin pie for the big dinner.  This time, I put it on a cookie sheet before I put it in the oven.  I managed to keep the pie level, which meant no spill, no fire, and a perfect crust.  I think I've got this!

I also made fresh whipped cream, the gravy base, and some onion dip to go with sliced veggies for munching before dinner.  My friend put my simple veggies and dip to shame though with her turkey cheese ball.

We had so much fun cooking, talking, and laughing, that we didn't stop to take many pictures.  The kids are always photo worthy though.

For Thanksgiving dinner Elena ate carrots and Vivian ate broccoli.  I had a feeling that might happen, which was why I had volunteered to be in charge of the veggies.  For dessert, our hostess had kept with the turkey decor theme and gotten some over the top cupcakes.

The kids, of course, were thrilled, and wasted no time destroying them.

By the time we were done with dinner and dessert, we all had that happy, tired, full feeling.  Again, the children demonstrated it the best.

We decided it was time to call it a night and get the little people home.  We also knew that we were going to be back the next morning at 7:00am to watch college football, so an early night seemed like a good idea.

The next morning, Elena got to experience her first football Sunday.

No surprise, she didn't last long, so we set her up with some coloring supplies, and her buddy came with her for company.

Every so often they have a cute moment together,

but not two seconds after I got this picture, Elena was shoving him off of "her" bean bag.  It's about the best you can expect from toddlers.  Luckily, the big kids get along much better.  I had prepared some Thanksgiving craft projects for Saturday night, but the kids had made enough fun on their own, so we hadn't used them.  They ended up coming in handy for a lazy Sunday morning though.

Vivian likes her new dolls, but I've put away all the rest of the Thanksgiving stuff.  We are now officially decorated for Christmas.  Vivian's elf has shown up atop her tree.

We're not going to get any snow or need any hot drinks, but we've got the Christmas spirit.