Friendsgiving 2016

We had a ton of fun at our Friendsgiving this year!  A small group of friends gathered over fried turkey, delicious sides, and yummy non-homemade desserts.  My friend, Julie just started Card My Yard Shreveport and gave us a free yard greeting!  Love it!

Obligatory self-timer pic!

Thankful for Daniel and Amy!

Bennett, Amelie, Maddie, Anna Kate, and SK!

Catherine and Amy

A shop Thanksgiving!  Don't look at all the junk in the background.

Bryce be loving that pie!  Catherine the little pilgrim girl.

Have I ever mentioned my love of pilgrims? I was a pilgrim 2 years in a row for Halloween so that I could wear my costume to Thanksgiving!  We used to have Thanksgiving in Oneonta, AL in this big mountainside cabin. My uncle Chris took us one year and I said "Do you think I should bring my pilgrim costume?"  Not one for anything regular clothes, he of course said YES!  So we have pictures of me "serving" at the meal in my costume. The only one in costume.  Wish I knew where those pictures were.

Harvest Festival with my Rowdy Raccoon

Harvest Festival is so much fun.  Henry got to experience it last year for the first time.  This year Henry's Indian name was Rowdy Raccoon.  This fits our boy.  There were many sweet names like "Dancing Deer," "Calm River," "Laughing Eyes," and "Rainbow Princess."  We have Rowdy Raccoon.  We love our Rowdy Raccoon!

Since Henry is in the oldest class (Bridging), his class gets lots of fun things.  They get to have special fields trips, act out the nativity, and tie-dyed Indian shirts!  If that's not authentic I don't know what is!

Here they are walking out to have chapel.

Sweet Rowdy Raccoon

Our first station was painting teepees and totem poles.  Jill and I actually made our totem pole and all 6 teepees.  

This is such a fun station!

Another station is making Indian Corn magnets.  Henry loves blue so he used only blue beads for his magnet.

Here we are in the photo station.  He made a matte board for his individual photo.

Henry loves the copper punching.  It is so much fun!

Pops stopped by for a minute at the clay pot making station. Henry made a clay snake.

Mrs. Rogers' Rainbows!

More Fall!

We have been having fun this fall.  Here are some random pictures from my phone.

They are total twins. 

This little beauty learned the art of getting her nails done!

Bennett's gateway teacher sent these.  He made an Indian belt.

All the little smarties!

I got to attend the 40 under 40 Forum cover unveiling for Amy!  I'm so proud of her!

We voted to Make America Great Again.

We attended the Whole Foods Shreveport Preview party!  Yes, I was half crazy to take them, but, hey, I'm crazy! I posted this picture on Instagram and I won a $50 Whole Foods giftcard!  Boom!    

Santa's Workshop

Henry's little school has a fun fundraiser called Santa's Workshop.  It is Christmas themed a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  They have pictures with Santa, a fun preview party, and a Christmas program and silent auction.  This year I was in charge of the Wine Pull and Sweet Shoppe with Jill.  We make awesome co-chairs mainly because Jill is so awesome.  I dropped the ball so many times due to other kids having stuff, the BREWtifiul Bash, or hair appointment. Thanks, Jill for being awesome!

My babies looked so darn cute for their Santa pics!

Neil said : did they lose some sort of bet to have to wear those vests?" They look so cute!

Who is it???

Sister was not impressed.

Here are the only pics I have of us from the Preview Party.

We got all dressed up and headed to the school on Saturday morning for Henry's performance.  He sang so sweetly!

Fake snow out front!

Jingle Bells with our little sweet!  He and the kid next to him kept pushing each other.  sigh.

He was really into it!

Santa's helper with my boys

Neil and Kenneth were the Polar Express conductors.  We had one issue with that because our kids were singing at the same time.  We had to track someone down who could drive the train!  Luckily after asking several guys, someone volunteered.

Sister loved the decorations!

Gammy and SK

My girl and me

BREWtifiul Bash

Rebecca and I were talking one day about having a fun bash with lots of "beautiful" things.  We basically brainstormed and the Holiday BREWtifiul Bash was born!  While getting a pedicure, I started texting people to see if they'd be interested in having a booth at the bash.  Literally everyone said yes!  We had a few randoms write me off the Facebook event, word of mouth from other vendors, and pretty soon I had 17 vendors!  I was worried leading up to it if anyone would come and we ended up having over 150 people attend!  How cool is that!?  I was so proud of the success of the event! Leigh started screaming when she pulled in the parking lot and it was FULL! :)

What is really wonderful is seeing true friends who want you to succeed walk through the door.  Friends who asked what they could do to help without expecting a thing in return.  I just love our community and how it supports locals and their businesses.

Our flyer was so cool!  We added several vendors after it was made.

We were even featured in the new Lola Magazine.

I felt like a movie star getting my hair and brows done the day of the event.

So proud of my table!  As Don pointed out, I had my booth in the middle of the room.

Amy checked everyone in and made sure we were timely with our door prizes.  It was funny that mostly men  or vendors won the door prizes!

So glad my SIL set up her R+F!

Trying to get a picture of Neil and me and Dad got in.  

Here's a picture of most of the vendors.  Some left before we got to the picture.

Fair Fun 2016

Pops and Gammy love the fair.  They went on their first date to the fair (how romantic) so they love seeing the grandkids enjoy it. All 5 of us, Gammy, Pops, Carolyn, and Reid all went out to the fair.  We rode horses, slides, rides, played games, and ate!  It was fun!  We arrived during the afternoon so we could see the animals and stayed so that we could see all the pretty lights!  How fun!

Pony rides for all the kids!

Giraffe feeding

Picture on the Midway

Sister LOVED the rides.  I mean LOVED!  She wanted to ride everything.

We even saw the Coxes there!  There were thousands of people at the fair and the only people we knew were the Coxes.  Crazy.  I can't even go to the grocery store without seeing 5 people I know.

Bennett was so sweet to sit with SK on the rides where she needed a chaperone.

All these cuties!

Henry and SK loved these little swings

Neil had to sit on the ride while she rode the car.

Boats!  SK decided she was done while the ride was still moving so they had to stop the ride so we could get her off.

This game was disgusting. I mean UGH!  The water was brown and had so much stuff in the bottom.  Ick. I am gagging just typing this.

These are people I love.