Haircut, Thanksgiving and more walking

We started off our Thanksgiving weekend with Maya cutting her own hair on Wednesday night. I was so disappointed because I want her hair to be long again, but she actually did a pretty good job. She was quite thoughtful too because she put all of the hair in the garbage can for us!





Her haircut...really, it's not that bad.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with some friends. We ate, looked at Black Friday ads, played Rockband, and just hung out. Nick did most of the cooking, which was awesome! He did a great job. Maya and I made some little place mats for all of our guests, and cleaned up the house. It's always hard being away from our family members during the holidays, I miss them all so much, but it was nice to spend time with good friends. We gave Maya the camera and she had fun taking pictures before everybody came over.


Maya was a huge help in the kitchen this year. Here she is helping Nick get the turkey ready.


Helping mom make some mini cherry pies.


The bird




This picture just makes me laugh. There are about 20 of these on my camera. She decided to set the camera up on the table to see how many pictures she could take of herself.

On Friday Nick unexpectedly got called in to work, which meant I had to change my Black Friday shopping plans. I wasn't planning on going really early but I like to head out around 8am or so. I ended up getting a babysitter for Maya while Josh and I ran to Target and Toys R Us. Josh was hilarious! Everytime I'd put a boy item in the cart he'd say, "OH WOW!!!" I also got a few good deals on Walmart's website. The next day I hit up Old Navy to get the kids some clothes. They are officially done now!

This past Saturday we finally got our front bay window replaced. The large center window has had a broken seal for over 6 years which has caused condensation to fill the inside of the two window panes. It constantly looked dirty and there was no way to clean it because it was on the inside. Anyway, it looks great!! Nick, Maya, and Josh all watched in amazement (for 2 hours straight) as the worker guys took out the old window and replaced it with the new one. Now we just need to stain the surrounding wood and get some new blinds. Merry Christmas to us! It was really cute to watch Josh walk up and stare at the guys as they worked outside on the window, he would just stand there and watch then give a little wave.



Speaking of Josh walking...oh man, he is EVERYWHERE! He constantly brings me little treasures from the different rooms he's been in, and has the biggest and proudest smile on his face as he hands it to me. I went to the portrait studio last week to get their pictures taken and went alone because Nick had class that night. (Only 2 more Monday nights to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Josh was walking everywhere and at one point got out of my sight and walked into one families' photo shoot. Whoops! It makes me laugh now though and the other family was really nice about it. Afterwards Maya was laughing so hard when we were talking about it and she said, "Did Joshy think that was his new family or what, mom?" This kid is so much happier now that he can walk! He is also picking up more words which has been exciting. He can say book, show, two,(and hold 1 finger up, haha) cheese, tease (for please), night-night, mow (for more), shoes, eyes, ears, and a couple more, but his favorite is NO! Not fun for all of us...



I love this time of year. I love remembering all of the blessings I have in my life and taking time to reflect on the year we've had. I love my beautiful children so much. They mean everything to me!! No matter how hard it can is to be a mom sometimes, I wouldn't want to do anything else with my life. I'm also very grateful for my husband. He is so amazing and perfect for me. I love that we can laugh and have a good time together but deal with serious issues too. I love watching him with the kids and seeing how much they truly love him. On Sunday we were trying to get everything ready for church and were waiting for Josh to get up from his nap so we could get him ready. Nick was filling up a water bottle so he could do J's hair and when I went to grab it so I could do Maya's hair I noticed the water was warm. Simple enough thing to do, but it just shows what a good and thoughtful daddy he is! It made me cry....I know, I'm a weirdo.

This weekend should be fun. Nick took the day off today so we put up the Christmas lights, and finally bought our Christmas tree.

I'll end this post with one final picture. This is Josh when he got up from his nap the other day. I have to say, he has amazing hair - I'll make sure Maya keeps the scissors away from it.