Its beginning to look a lot like...

We brought down the Christmas boxes from the attic yesterday and started unpacking things...

They found their hats and old friends

and helped Daddy and TOFfee put up the outside lights

Tree Lighting

Friday night we headed down to the square in Lancaster for the Tree Lighting and to welcome Santa!

It was a bit chilly, but we bundled up!

Not one to miss an event, of course, Cylo was there!

the tubas!

Santa on top of the old Watt & Shand building, awaiting the fire company to rescue him!

Mayor Gray and Santa light the big tree

The Family part of Thanksgiving

Turkey For You, Turkey for Me

Mommy's Thanksgiving helper... Natalie cutting bread for the stuffing

Mommy's smile of the day... She ran to the store to get a couple emergency items and came home to find Daddy watching a video by Alton Brown (her cooking idol) on how to properly dress the turkey!

And Alton didn't steer us wrong!

Look at that beautiful turkey (and Daddy's very proud smile!)

Our loved ones gathered around our Thanksgiving feast

And last but never least... Dessert!  Pie courtesy of Nonna & TOF and that cake, which has Pappy written all over it!

Happy Birthday Jill and Daddy!

November 25th is a very special day for two members of our family and we did our best to celebrate them right!

First item on the days agenda... Surprise Daddy with a cookie cake at school!

Then after dropping Natalie off at school, Mommy and Jilly had a day of fun.  They went to the mall, where Jill got her first gift... $20 to spend at Claire's on whatever she wanted!  She got a keychain, toy PDA, a necklace and new earrings.  After that, it was off to downtown...

  Mommy had given her a list of things to they could do (Build-a-Bear, visit the Science Factory, bead a necklace) and she choose to paint pottery.  She choose a two piece ice cream cone and Mommy made a gingerbread man platter.  Then they had lunch at Isaac's and visited Market to pick up our turkey.

Later that night Nonna and TOF joined us for birthday dinner (Raspberry Balsamic Chicken for the birthday girl and Chicken Parmesan for the boy), presents and cookie cake!

Jill's School Birthday

Since there is no school tomorrow at St. Anne's, Jillian celebrated her birthday at school a day early!

Ice cream cone cupcakes.

Jilly was in charge of the sprinkles!

Sitting at her desk

Jillian and Miss Brown

The special birthday card on her desk!

Jill's self portrait with her friend Isabella

Random

Natalie being all cute outside the Ball Store.

She and Mommy were buddies on a super secret present shopping trip for the birthday kids in our house.

The girls 'helping' in the yard.

Our toothless wonder and the apple/marshmallow/candy corn turkey she made at school.

Our Jack-o-lantern, a wee bit late

Jillian and Natalie were happily sharing the big chair this evening watching a Dr. Seuss video. Daddy was relaxing upstairs while Mommy was doing some laundry. When all the sudden, they girls weren't getting along so well... Mommy rushes to see what's going on and finds a tear streaked face complete with a bloody hole where that kind-of loose tooth used to be! She's angrily blubbering that Natalie pushed her off the chair, she hit her mouth on something and that she swallowed her tooth!!!

After lots of hugs and cuddling, a wet washcloth and some apologies, she seems much happier with the developments of the day. We figure all will be forgiven tomorrow morning after the Tooth Fairy comes... (We told her the Tooth Fairy gets an email when a kid loses a tooth, so even if there's not a tooth, she'll still know to come. What can we say, Mom & Dad are techies...)

Will the Tooth Fairy give Natalie credit for the assist?!??

Pizza Party

Nonna & TOF hosted a pizza party... at our house!  To be fair, we DID offer to have it here because of the double oven (and to show off the kitchen, of course!).  So the Goods and all the Fabulous Weavers, including the newest ones, came for a visit.

Jen, Baby Lily and Justin (the shoe guy)

Harper and her Mommy

Daddy, Jillian and Chad, the pizza makers, with Mrs. Weaver

Daddy teaching her to toss dough like a pro

Yummy!!!

update

Our cute little trackables!

The Sensenigs gifted the girls their very own Geocaching Travel Bug and matching tshirts. So if you see them, be sure to log your 'find' with tracking code GF5EFH!

Jill's super heroes drawn on her new dry erase fun board

Here are the girls hard at work on our family Thanksgiving art project.
We'll update with our progress in a few days...

Crafty Mommy Party Stuff

Party!

We celebrated the girls' birthdays with family and friends with a party at our house on Saturday!

Natalie's Birthday

Mommy snuck out of work Monday morning to deliver a birthday cake to a very special three year old...

Happy smiles from the girl with the special crown

Serving cake to her friends

Here's the big girl in her new big girl car seat... she LOVES it!