Gobble, gobble!

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and a fun time with family! We don't have another game until tomorrow so Chad had NO practice on Thursday, so we had a great day all together. I'm sure that this is typical of all kids, but ours' don't seem to get sick until weekends and holidays. Our pediatrician's office was closed from Thursday until tomorrow (Monday), so it was not a surprise that poor Aly woke up with a fever Wednesday night!! She was just miserable all day Thursday and Friday; we took her to Urgent Care on Friday morning to find out that she had pneumonia, bless her heart. The upside to being sick on Thanksgiving (at least for a little girl) is that it is the perfect excuse to watch 2 hours of Macy's Parade! Antibiotics work wonders, and she is back to old Aly. Caroline woke up with a fever this morning...OFFICE STILL CLOSED! I'm sure that to our doctor this break has flown by, but it seems like that office has been closed forever!

I think that the lesson that we work on DAILY at our house since Caroline has gotten old enough to play is "Taking Turns". I can see why it's so tempting for parents to buy two of everything! The latest is both girls wanting to dress up as a princess (we only have ONE dress!) This has been Aly's daily uniform for the past month, and now Caroline wants to wear it too! The other pictures are just a few from the past few days. Oddly enough, I did not take ANY pictures on Thanksgiving! We had Chad's parents, sister, brother-in-law and our niece and nephew over, along with a few players...I guess that with Aly being sick and having a house-full, I completely forgot about pictures!

My parents are coming December 24th, so the countdown has officially begun! We have an Advent calendar to count days in December...I can't decide if we're counting the days until Christmas or Nana and Papa! Can't wait to see y'all!!

Just your EVERYDAY princess...

...and Caroline's turn

Playing in the leaves (pre-pneumonia!)

Caroline getting to play with Play-doh

What kind of mom takes a picture of her sick, miserable child?!

Good Morning!

A Blogging Vacation

I want to say that I'm sorry to all of you family members (and even some friends!) who check up on us from time to time on this blog. We have been busy these past few weeks, and I can honestly say that I have forgotten about this thing! I don't think that I've built in time for sharing pictures since the season has started! But we're good here, and trying to emphasize the importance of Thanksgiving with the excitement of Christmas getting closer and closer! I have to laugh, though, because Aly's absolute excitement about Christmas right now has nothing to do with receiving gifts-- (I don't think she even knows that she gets gifts!)-- it's all about the decorations. She loves going inside of Walgreens, Kroger, and Michaels because of all of the snowman, Santas, and lights!

Below are a few random pictures that do a poor job of summing up our past few weeks...but it's a start!

Morning "Dance Parties" in the kitchen

The "Thanksgiving Feast" at Aly's school

The last few pictures are from Saturday. Chad had a game and a great win against a 10-ten team! I was supposed to go to the wedding of a girl who I had in a small group as a middle-schooler! (yikes, I'm getting old!!) while Chad had a special date planned for the girls. But by the time that the game was over and interviews were done, I still hadn't changed and I was going to be late for the wedding...so I accompanied my family on a celebratory carriage ride and dinner in Rome.

Caroline and Frosty, waiting for the carriage
A family shot...about as good as it gets these days!

Dancing Caroline

I told my mom on the phone a couple of nights ago that Caroline was dancing, so I wanted to post a video for her. Caroline is very proud that she can now 'twirl' just like her sister (though a card gets her totally distracted mid-dance!) I apologize in advance for the singing!

Off to Iraq (again!)

My older brother, Matt (older by only 8 months!) is being re-deployed to Iraq today. He was over there several years ago, and is going back for approximately 12 months. Please keep him, along with his wife, Jackie, and 15-month-old, Ava, in your prayers. Please pray for his safety and strength. Please pray that Jackie will have an abundance of patience and strength during this time. Thanks so much, and (at the risk of sounding corny...) God Bless America!

Happy Halloween, Biscuit!

As I mentioned in the previous post, my parents sent the girls a Halloween package which included the book, Happy Halloween, Biscuit. As is typical of all 2-year-olds, we have read that book repeatedly, probably 100-reads-per-day. Yesterday, Aly announced all day long to anyone in earshot, "Happy Halloween Biscuit!" I'm not sure if she thinks that this is the actual name of the 'holiday' or not! As we were telling Chad about the night this morning, I asked Aly, "When you walked up to somebody's door, what would you say?" (meaning 'trick-or-treat') and she responded with "I said, 'thank you'." Ahh--maybe repetition does pay off!

As for the basketball front, we lost in a very close game on Thursday night, but then had a BIG win last night. That shouldn't matter, but it's made our weekend a little happier! Nothing like sports to bring out the best in us all...

Here are a few pictures from last night. I'm not sure if we are EVER going to get a good picture of both girls together...I may have to start cutting and pasting! Regardless, we hope that you all had a very 'Happy Halloween Biscuit'

Are we having fun yet?

My sweet Bug, Caroline

Aly and BFF, Lizzy

Star-Gazing