We had another wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Dana and I both took the whole week off this past week which was great. I got lots of snuggles in with Clara, but not a whole lot else done. Oh well!
On Tuesday night was the Holiday Lights Parade downtown. The four of us went out to to eat beforehand and then just Brynn and I headed downtown for the parade. We figured it was too cold for Clara. It was chilly and I was pretty frozen by the end. Die hard Brynn, though, wanted to wait it out until the end so she could see Mr. and Mrs. Claus on the last float. We happened to find a spot standing next to a kid Brynn knows from HopeKids. He is in the blue/black/gray coat to the right of her there. I am glad we made it there another year, and hopefully Clara will be able to join us next year.
You may have heard about the three couples who were married during the parade actually on one of the floats. I saw this one going by us (obviously, I guess, since I have a pic of it), and didn't realize that it was real with couples actually getting married. Kind of cool.
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| Brynn's face is all dirty from picking up candy in the street and then touching her face with her gloves. |
We hosted Thanksgiving again and it was a great time as usual. Thanks to my sister for some of the pics!
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| Me with Gladys |
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| The Gravy Maker showing Benjamin how it's done. |
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| So sweet. Granny Annie and Clara |
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| Grandpa and Grandma Dietz and Clara |
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| Tessa brought wonderful desserts again this year. |
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| Rosha's mom, Fataneh, and me. Rosha and her family were able to join us for dinner which was so fun. |
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| The aftermath |
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| Brynn's game she made up. You had to be blindfolded and then stick your note of what you were thankful for in the appropriate spot. Not sure who ended up winning that game. |
Tessa, Holly and I went out for early Black Friday shopping late Thursday night. Then all of us were in and out shopping for the rest of Friday. We ended up at the mall and the kids all got to visit Santa.
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| Clara's first trip to the mall wore her out. |
Clara started squealing when we were waiting for our turn to visit Santa. Brynn was busy making out her with list. I think she had finger paints and a stuffed Anna or Elsa (doll) on there.
Last night we got our tree up and decorated around the house for Christmas. On to the next holiday!
What a disaster...our tree looks so homely. Brynn and I should not be in charge of sorting and then assembling the tree. I let Brynn sort all the branches and the colored tips are gone on some of the branches, so unbeknownst to me, a few long ones got mixed up in some short ones and obviously went unnoticed until we got to using the smaller ones on the top. The tree looked like it had an arm sticking out of the top of it at one point.
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| Don't eat my baby! |
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| Brynn's ornament she received from Santa last year. |
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| My favorite! |
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| Between Dana and me we have about 15 "Baby's first Christmas 1981" ornaments. Well, maybe more like five. |
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| The excitement of putting the tree topper on. |
Last year I had bought this gingerbread house kit and for some reason didn't get around to putting it together. Brynn saw it in storage a month or so ago and asked if we could assemble it. I told her we'd wait until December. So, for the past week or more she has been badgering me...I mean, reminding me, that I told her she could put it together ON DECEMBER 1ST! So, I told her just to put it together today since she had more time to work on it versus tomorrow. She really put a lot of time into it this afternoon.
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| Scrapbooking! |
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| Clara loves the tree. |
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