Christmas Time Fun!

The first Saturday in December is usually when Niceville has it's Christmas parade in the morning and Santa in the Park at night.  The parade got postponed to another day due to the weather but they ended up moving Santa in the Park inside.

I was hoping to get a cute picture of the kids with Santa but by the time we stood in line forever and a day waiting for balloon swords Santa had already left!?!  I'm not exactly sure why Santa left because there was supposed to be another 30 minutes before the event ended....

I probably should have taken pictures before we got the balloons because it was pointless trying to get a decent picture with weapons in hand.  I don't generally post a million pictures of the same thing but check out the time lapse of Easton and Blair...

I attempted to get Christmas photos of the kids the next day after church but the sun was too bright for the kids.

McKinley started not feeling very well

Such a good big sister trying to comfort her sick baby sister.

Finally 2 weeks later they had the Christmas Parade.  The kids got a lot of candy and toys.

Blair's haul

Blakely

Dyer

Easton

McKinley didn't get a lot because she would only pick up one sucker at a time and put it in her mouth.  She wouldn't pick up another sucker until she was finished with the one before.

Second attempt at getting a picture for our Christmas card.

McKinley

McKinley's new ride!

I finally got around to charging Blakely's old power wheel.  McKinley LOVED it!  My floors not so much.  This was the one and only time we did it in the house because it scuffed up the wooden floors.  Oops!

Park time!

Easton was at the library next door working on his research project.  The internet at home kept cutting out (the modem wasn't working right) so I dropped him off and took the rest of them to the park.

This is McKinley's preferred method of going down the slide.

 

One of Blakely!  They started decorating for Christmas and Blakely desperately wanted her picture taken with the Grinch.

She can't help but dance when there is music on.

Singing

One of McKinley's favorite things to do is come up behind me, grab onto my back pockets, and swing between my legs.  Such a silly girl!

Blair gets a haircut!

Blair had been begging me for a while to cut her hair short.  Since soccer was finally over I decided to give in to her request.

Before picture

I forgot to take a before picture with her hair dry

After picture

Taking her own selfie!

This was the day after Thanksgiving.  We spent Thanksgiving with the Parks.  Such a nice family!  We had a couple families invite us over for Thanksgiving which was really nice since Nathan was deployed and I really didn't want to make a big dinner. The kids had a lot of fun playing games and making crafts.

Blakely's Preschool Thankful Dinner

Blakely's preschool put on a really cute presentation with dinner afterwards.  It was hard to see Blakely from the table we were sitting at.  Luckily they had screens so I could see her better but it wasn't as clear when filming.  Blair had a soccer game at the same time.  Thankfully some friends from church (Parks) were willing to help me out.  They have a daughter that was on Blair's soccer team and their son was in Blakely's preschool class.  The dad was willing to adopt Blair for the night.  This was the game that Blair scored in!  I totally called it too!  I said,"I bet Blair's going to score tonight since I'm not there to watch."

Blakely's on the top row (of course since she is so tall)!

Here's a screen shot of Blakely (4th one from the left-top row).  It's not very clear but you can see how much she got into the song!

My cute little pilgrim.

Halloween

This year we decided to do DC characters.  I thought it would have been fun for one of the boys to be Batman and the rest of us be Batman villains but I was having trouble finding the girls costumes.  Blair's was the only one I could find so she ended up being the only villian.  Easton really didn't have an opinion this year so I decided he would be superman since we already had the costume.

The whole crew

Superman

Harley Quinn

Night wing

Wonder woman

Batgirl

I found this flash shirt at Walmart for about $8 in the boys section and made this my costume.  I thought it was funny that this is the same size Easton is wearing so I actually gave Easton the shirt after Halloween.  I guess I can start stealing some of Easton's clothes if I want!

Since Nathan was gone on deployment I had to step up to the plate and carve the pumpkin this year.  I think I did fairly well for my first attempt.  I actually video chatted Nathan almost the whole time to make sure I was doing it correctly.

This is one pumpkin I just carved 3 different symbols into it.

Random picture of Blair!

Pumpkin Patch

The Parks asked us if we wanted to go to the pumpkin patch with them.  We had to travel just over an hour to get there but it was worth it to go to a real pumpkin patch on a farm.  The kids had a blast!

Blair and Ellen in the corn box

Ainsley, McKinley, Blakely and Dyer

Blakely dumping corn on McKinley's head

Easton buried

McKinley

Blair ziplining

Easton

Dyer

Blair and Ellen

Blakely, Callen, and Ainsley

Going through the maze

Tractor ride to the pumpkin patch

We ended up getting a really big pumpkin (probably bigger than the one Blakely was trying to get at her pumpkin patch) for $5.  Much better deal than $30+.  I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of it.  Probably because I was the one that had to carry it.

Boys on the spider web

Dirty face girl!  She had a blast in this playhouse.

Blair

Blair and McKinley

Train ride-Girls

Train ride-Boys + McKinley