Thanksgiving Part I

We're back!! The McLaughlin Thanksgiving festival at Aunt Poppity-Anne and Uncle Jeff's house in PA was a HUGE success. The cousins enjoyed playing together, it was great to see Joshua and Shelby and to meet their kiddos, and of course it was nice to see everyone else and spend some time with them. We're not going to talk about the 16 hour car ride that we had to endure with a two year old. (She learned that if she said that she needed to go pee that mom would fly down the interstate to the next rest stop or fast food joint and she would be able to get out of the van). We would like to share some of the pictures that were taken over the course of the week (between the families 285 pictures were taken).

Our family picture:

Coloring with Bumpa:

Having some juice:

The little cousins stayed over night together at Amanda and Jeff's. They were treated to pancakes and sausage for breakfast:

We're very thankful that Amanda and Jeff were willing to host the gathering, we had a great time!

I'll post more pictures this week.

Playing in the Leaves

Last week we decided to rake up some of the leaves that were accumalating on our lawn. We only have about a dozen trees but they must hold at least a million leaves each. It was a beautiful day, mid 70's, so we enjoyed being outside even if we were doing labor. Abigail caught on quick that I was raking the leaves into big piles and that these piles made for good places to play in.

Here's a picture of her looking for her missing crocs:


Enjoying herself:


Laying down on the job (we used a tarp to transport the leaves to the burn pile and she would catch a ride back and forth):

Here she is all dirty and with leaves stuck in her hair:

We're blessed to have found this house. Even with its flaws the big yard for her and the dogs to play in make the difference.

Family Portraits

We had our family portrait drawn up to help Abby to start to learn about spelling. Here it is:

Happy Birthday Abigail!

Our little girl is getting big! It's amazing how much she has grown. The past couple of weeks she has started to say more words and do a few more things on her own. We haven't made friends with anyone that has small children yet so we just enjoyed a little family birthday party. We had pizza for supper, Abby's favorite, with pumpkin pie for dessert. We picked up a few gifts, nothing too fancy, but some things that she would enjoy.

Balloons! She loves balloons:


I love the expression on her face:

Now she has her own water bottle, just like mommy and daddy:

She loves to color and draw.

Which we had to do right away. Needed to test it out:

We bought her a play pen for her babies:

Here she is trying to get in with her baby:

Our sweet little baby is getting older. *sniffle, sniffle. Here comes the terrible two's.

How To Decide If You Need More Shoes...

I found this on the internet and thought that it might help any one of my sisters or sister-in-laws.

Click the pictures to enlarge them:

You're Welcome.

Halloween and Things

This was Abigail's first year to do Trick or Treating (or actually, Trunk or Treating). She just loved her flower costume. She was a little apprehensive when it was time to walk up to people and ask for candy. After her she received her first piece of candy she wanted to stop and eat it. When we approached the second person she tried to give her first piece to that guy (maybe she wanted to trade for something better?). By the fifth person she started to get the hang of it. We had a good time seeing how creative people are (which we really aren't).

Here's our little flower:
And our sleeping flower: (The ward had a chili cookoff afterwards and I had volunteered to set up before the activities started. While I was helping out, Abby was running around. We even went to the commisary afterwards which she slept through. She didn't wake up until we got home.)

Today was such a beautiful day that we decided to take Sarah's bike for a spin. Here's my biker chick on her ride:

WATCH OUT DARYL!! Wild woman coming through!:

Abby was fussing that her mother was riding around and that she wasn't. I put her on the bike and we rode around the lawn and then down the driveway. She LOVED it. I guess tomorrow we're shopping for a helmet for her.

To everyone out there; Sarah did great. We're just practicing some basic riding skills until the weather turns cold. This spring Sarah is taking the Motorcycle Safety course that is offered through the Army. Once she takes the course then she can go get her permit and start getting ready for her license.

Does anyone have a sidecar for sale??