O Christmas Tree... O Christmas Tree!

We had a wonderful first Thanksgiving at our own home this year.  However, Grayson had started getting a cold and was a little out of sorts.  Due to his clinginess and getting busy with finishing preparations for dinner, I realized at the end of the night I didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving or our feast! :(  Oh well!  Will insisted on a 20 lb turkey for 4 adults and 2 kids to eat.  Not to mention all the sides we had!  Mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, mac n' cheese, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and 2 different salads our friends brought over!  Needless to say, we probably had enough to feed an entire platoon!  We managed to give half the left over turkey to our friends and tried to give them as much sides as we could before they stopped us from packing their take home containers with any more food. :)  Then we forced some pie down them before they left for the evening.  We made our first pumpkin and apple pie.  Both turned out wonderful!  It was our first Thanksgiving as a family at home.  The first year Will was deployed, then last years Thanksgiving was eaten at Hooters since we were moving to Arizona and it was the only place we could find open that night.  It was nice to be at home and cook our very first turkey.  We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

Friday we went to find a Christmas tree!  Will loves to put up the tree right after Christmas and we found a u-cut farm where Will got to cut down his very first tree!  

Grayson found the perfect little tree for him, but we kept on hunting amongst the trees to find the one that was "just right" for us!

Grayson was still a little out of sorts Friday and wasn't too happy at first walking way out into the trees.  But pretty soon he started running around the trees and peeking out at me.

Will cut down his very first tree.  An 8 ft Leyland Cypress! 

Once we got it up front, Grayson found it interesting to watch them put it on the machine that would shake the tree to get any loose needles to fall and then through the bundler to wrap up the tree in netting.  

Once at home, Will wasted little time getting the tree in the house and the decorations out!  He was ready to get our house in the Christmas spirit!  Grayson loved looking at all the ornaments as we pulled them out of the boxes, as well as helping mommy and daddy put ornaments on the tree.

He would try to get the little red balls on the tree, but found it rather difficult to get the string on a branch.  However, when it came to the pinecone ornaments they sat perfectly on the branches and he was very proud of himself getting some ornaments on!  He'd place it on the tree, clap, and say "good job!".  

Will grew up with an elf in his house named "Elmer" that would watch over them and report to Santa if he and his brother were good or bad.  He always threatened his parents that we was going to steal Elmer one day so they sent us an elf one Christmas and now "Elmer" is sitting on our piano to watch over Grayson.

Grayson "helped" Daddy put the star on the top of the tree. 

Once the star was on and we stepped back to take at look at our finished tree, Grayson was very happy, held up his arms to the star, and said "Whoa!".  He's doing pretty good at not touching the tree, except for when he was left alone in the living room yesterday he decided to try and rearrange the ball ornaments that were within reach.  Daddy and had figure out where the bare spots were and put them back.

While setting up the camera on his stacked toy boxes to get a family picture, Grayson kept peeking up at Will.  Due to the setting of the camera and Grayson moving, when Will took a picture it blurred Grayson in the picture to the point it looks like he's transparent!  

Grayson wanted to "beep" his nose in the picture so we tried a second time which got great smiles from him, but then Daddy wasn't smiling!  Oh well!  We managed to get a couple pictures in front of our tree!  Now we look forward to making Christmas cookies and buckeyes before Christmas! :)  

Playtime with Brooklyn

We got home from Charleston, SC Wednesday evening.  Both kids were happy to be at the house and able to just run around and play.  We had packed a lot in the last couple days and were ready to be "free".  The Mettler family had their flight out Thursday afternoon so the kids got one last chance to play that morning.  For two kids that are almost 2, they played quite well together and both have been talking about the other in the last day or two wishing they could play again.  Brooklyn does well calling Grayson "Grey", but Grayson refers to her as "Baby".  As he's seen me post pictures he'll point to her picture and say "baby!".  I'm not sure why he keeps calling her that, but I have a feeling it may be because she loves her pacifier and had it with her everywhere we went.  We got rid of Grayson's when he had surgery a year ago and when he sees pictures in a book or other kids with one, I always tell him "binkies are for babies.... you're a big boy so you don't have one".  So when he would see Brooklyn's "binkie" he'd say "baby".  Next time we see them I think we'll have better luck getting him to call her "Brookie" rather than "baby". :)  Here are some pictures of the kids playing during their last day together.  

Brooklyn loved pushing Grayson around on the dinosaur and of course Grayson loved to be  pushed!  However, typical boy made the girl do all the work and rarely pushed her on it.  Thankfully she had more fun pushing him and didn't get upset when he wouldn't take turns pushing her. :)

The kids had fun playing on the play set out back.  Brooklyn wasn't too sure about swinging on the regular swing and decided it was more fun to once again push Grayson.  Took her a few times to learn how to climb up the ladder as well to the slide, but pretty soon both kids were going in circles climbing up the ladder and going down the slide.  Kept them entertained for awhile!

Once they started to get bored of the slide, they decided to color with some chalk.  Needless to say, both had their pants covered in chalk by the time they were done!

We got Grayson his own little table to keep his coloring things at in the living room.  While Brooklyn's parents were finishing packing, the kids decided to sit in the storage bin and color pictures at the table for awhile.  

Overall, it was a wonderful visit with our friends and their trip went by too fast!  It was fun to see the kids play together and amazing to see what little "people" they have become!  Before we know it they'll be teenagers!  Scary thought!  Hopefully they don't grow up TOO quickly!

Boone Hall Plantation

On Wednesday, before leaving Charleston, we decided to find a plantation in the area to tour.  Boone Hall Plantation is still a working plantation to this day, but has kept many original buildings for tours.  The house and property was bought by a family in the 1950's and they open up the first floor of the house for tours. The house was something you would probably imagine a southern plantation home looking like.  However, I was surprised to find that the house that is standing there was actually built in the mid 1900's (I forget the exact date!) and the original plantation home was shown in a picture hanging in the home.  It looked much like a farm home, one that my own dad and his family had growing up!  The kids were as cooperative as to be expected in a home that was full of antiques in which you were allowed to sit on furniture or touch things.  Needless to say, we have realized that our days of tours is over for a few years until the kids are able to listen and stand quietly!  Unfortunately, all four of us only heard bits and pieces of the tours and would have loved to go through again without the kids to hear everything the guide had to say!  While walking around the property, we found a tree that was hollowed out.  Brooklyn was curious and actually went in.  However, our son was more of a sissy and wouldn't even consider going in even with Will in there!  Grayson is definitely a funny character these days on things he gets scared of and things he'll explore!  

The property was beautiful!  My favorite part was the drive leading up to the house.  On both sides it was lined with live oak trees that were planted in the 1740's when the plantation was first bought.  

Another neat feature to the plantation was that original slave quarters were still standing.  Inside each house, up to 16 slaves would live there.  I could not imagine that many people living in one space!  They have made each house a different "museum" with various information about slave life, their road to freedom, etc.  

We walked out to the original dock/storage shed.  Since a river runs right along the property heading out to sea, they would store the cotton (now they grow various vegetables/produce) to be picked up by boat.  In the pictures of Grayson and Brooklyn below you'll see them holding their hands up.  They were trying to give one another high fives out there at the dock.  It's quite humorous to watch 2 year olds doing this because they missed every time.  Soon they turned to Lareasa and me to give us high fives instead.

While there was still much to do at the plantation (i.e. tours, other places to walk around and explore) we made our last stop to the pasture to see the horses on our way back to the car.  It was well past nap time for the kids and we had a 2 hr drive home hoping to make it home for dinner rather than dragging the kids to yet another restaurant.  Grayson loved looking at the horses and was probably hoping he would get to ride one.  It took a little coaxing to get the kids to walk back to the car, but we managed!

Below are just a few more pictures that were taken that day.

Spanish moss grows all over the trees down here in the south

At the hotel hanging out before heading to the plantation

They kept entertained outside at the last part of the house tour by running circles through my legs.  Whatever keeps them happy I guess!