It is beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food and family and enjoyed every second of it. We started off the festivities with Thursday lunch at my parents house and then Friday diner with Ward's family at our house. My sister and I did black Friday shopping Fri at 5 am and had a blast. I also got a lot of shopping done for the kids. We got our first real tree this year and set it up today and got it decorated tonight. It smells heavenly!! I had a real trees My entire life and then started using a fake tree about 6 or 7 years ago. We decided that when the kids were old enough to get it, we would go and get a real tree. Well, this was the year so we all packed up and went to the Christmas tree store. We looked around the lot and found the perfect trees for our house. Sallie was enthralled with the Santa Claus that was dancing around the lot. Anna just wanted to go and touch all the trees. We had a fun day of Christmas music and decorating the tree planned that was fun for about the first 5 ornaments. Then things starting falling and ornaments starting breaking and that was the end of that. We did get the tree decorated however with little assistance from the girls. Anna has since pulled many off that are low to the ground. We got the blow up in the front yard and I love it. Ward actually even admitted that it looked pretty cool. Maybe adding to the blow up collection next year is more in my future than I thought. Anyway, Sallie is really anxious about Santa Claus this year and not scared at all. She can not wait to sit in his lap and tell him that she wants a princess bike now and a jumpy castle. She said the one like they have at leapin lizards. Wow!!! I tried to explain to her that Santa knows what will and will not fit in our house so he may not be able to get that from the north pole. We will see how that goes over Christmas morning. We brought out the elf on the shelf this weekend as well and named him "Roddie". Not sure where this name came from but this is what Sallie wanted to call him. Anna has finally started saying Mama in the last day or two. Now we really know what she wants as she was saying Daddy for everything. She went into the church nursery today without crying at all and even hugged one of the nursery workers that she usually screams with. That was a huge success and relief to me. I always hate leaving her because she acts like that and it was so nice today to leave her happy. We are so excited about the upcoming weeks and all the fun Christmas things going on.

Finally walking

Well, I am a little behind on my posts but with good reason. Ward's computer crashed and then mine crashed shortly behind it. Lots of computer problems in the Warren household. We have also been really busy lately and I just have not had the time. But I do have lots to tell so I am going to try and remember all that has taken place since last entry. Well, Halloween of course....We had a wonderful Halloween with lots of celebrations before and one after the occasion that kept us busy. We did trunk or treat again this year in Lexington and it was lots of fun. Sallie was a "fairly princess" and Anna was a ladybug. For everyone that has now seen the ladybug three years in a row, it has officially been put away for good. Sallie loved her costume and we kind of just called it a fairy princess. It was really called a Garden fairy from k-mart for $7 but she loved it and was a fairy princess. How dare you just call her a princess. They were both adorable and had a great time. At their school Anna dressed up like a dalmatian and all the kids had a dalmatian parade around the school. Sallie's class wore their costumes and trick or treated outside around the school. Parents dressed up and gave them candy. I was a good sport this year and dressed up like a butterfly. Sallie was so proud and told all her friends as they came around that the butterfly was her Mom. It was really cute but my camera died right before she came around to my spot so I did not get pics with my camera. Sallie ate way to much candy on Friday night before Halloween and threw up at 2 am that next morning. She went back to school on Monday and the first thing that she told her teacher was that she ate too much junk and threw it all up. It was pretty funny. I guess a good lesson was learned by all. Ward and I had gone out the night before and had a couple of drinks so a wake up call at 2 am to clean up throw up everywhere was the last thing that we wanted to do. Anyway, Anna finally decided to start walking last week. She is in full swing and all over the place. She loves it and I really love it too. I felt like Anna was attached to my hip all the time and now I can put her down and let her go!!! Don't get me wrong she does still like to be held but she also loves to run and play with Sallie. We are getting in the Thanksgiving mode and looking forward to some time off with family. Sallie has been learning about the Indians at school and we had to make up Indian names for the family so that she could take it to school and talk about it. I am River, Anna is Arrowhead, Ward is Chief and Sallie is Squanto. They made picture books that she brought home to read to us. She opened the first page and said "this is King James, and he was a very mean person that wanted everyone to come to his church and he took their money. Then the next page was some pilgrims that got on the mayflower and came to America. The story went on and on and I was in awe the entire time. I could not believe what all she had learned.

It won't be long before I get to pull out all my Christmas decorations and I am really looking forward to that this year. I think that Ward forgot but I bought a blow up Santa Claus last year and I am so looking forward to putting it front and center. The kids will love it. I bought it at the end of the season last year and just put it up so I can not wait to add to my blow up collection. I really want the carousel :)

We had some friends over this past weekend to watch the game and spend the night. We had so much fun!! Sallie had lots of fun with Sienna and Piper and Anna was trying to keep up with McRea. Sweet Boone hardly made a peep but I am sure that it won't be long before he is running to keep up with all the girls. It is always fun to be able to all get together and hang out. Thanks everyone for coming over and making it so much fun!! A blimp flew over the house while the game was going on and the kids and adults thought it was so neat....

Happy Early Birthday to my Dad who turns 62 tomorrow. I love you and hope you have a wonderful day and many many many more!