Sesame Street LIVE!!

We kicked off the New Year with a bang! Not really, it was more like - Daddy's on call, Mommy's asleep on the couch, and Barrett is sleeping (hopefully) soundly until (possibly) 7:00 a.m. on New Year's Day! However, it was still fun to see the arrival of a New Year, and get ready for another year of fun!

Our first activity of the New Year was going to our very first live performance. Sesame Street LIVE came to town with their show 1-2-3 Imagine! Our resident family girls decided that we would take the little ones to see the show. They had discount tickets for a Friday afternoon, so with some special permission from my boss, I cut out a few hours early for some fun!

Barrett has a new fondness for Elmo (thanks to the lifesaving YouTube videos on my phone), so I thought we would give it a shot! It was a HUGE success! He and his little friends loved the music, bright lights, happy characters and lots of activity. It was a very cute show and so much fun! If you are thinking of taking your little one, please GO!! Arm yourself with plenty of snacks and sit away from the stairs, but just GO!

Barrett had to enjoy a pre-show snack of graham crackers and water

Our Mommy and Barrett shot

Watching closely for Elmo

There they are!

This is the whole gang, with the little gals munching on some popcorn

More characters and "Big Duck" as Ellie calls him...

So pretty Mom!

He loved clapping along and dancing to all of the great music!

After the show, we tried to get some shots of the kids with an Elmo cutout near the merchandise, but this was as good as we could get. They were all worn out, but had a great day together! I hope we can make this one of our "family traditions!"

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? 

Turkeys, Turkeys, Turkeys

A few weeks ago, we celebrated my favorite holiday - THANKSGIVING!! I love everything about this day, from the preparation and cooking the night before to the abundance of wonderful food and football, but most importantly, that it gives us a day of reflection on all that we are blessed with throughout the year.

In our society, it is easy to get caught up in the "busy" of daily life and forget how many blessings we have. Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to do just that - and share in the blessings of family and friends too!! We have a wonderful second family here with our fellow residents - and we are SO very THANKFUL for each and every one of them.

We started off Thanksgiving Day by running The Turkey Trot as a family - even Barrett!! We dressed him up in his turkey costume to help keep him warm and put him in our jogging stroller. We met a few friends there and had a great time with our running buddies!! It was a cold morning, but a GREAT way to start off our Thanksgiving celebration!

Lynne and Ellie joined us for the race and we were SO glad they did. It was so nice to have some friends there who were running with strollers too. Barrett and Ellie have such a great time together! Over 3,500 people registered for the race and it was their biggest race yet.

All set and ready to go!

Ellie and Lynne - ready to RUN!

Look at all of those runners!

Daddy and his little turkey

We couldn't help it!

Ellie wanted to meet the Turkey too!

Mamas and their babies

A few post race snacks...

After the race, we rushed home to finish our cooking for our Thanksgiving celebration. Lynne was such a wonderful hostess and invited everyone to her home for a yummy lunch! We bought the turkey from Honeybaked Ham (it was DELICIOUS) and then everyone brought their favorite sides. I think it is always fun to see how everyone else thinks of Thanksgiving. My favorite side dishes are corn casserole and broccoli rice casserole at "home" so of course, I had to bring those along. To me, it is just not Thanksgiving dinner without those dishes!

Auntie Marianne has her hands full with these boys!

Barrett - checking out the goods

Daddy - I have no time for pictures!

Barrett and Zach

Barrett trying to find his OSU Cowboys on TV - next week buddy!! :)

Family shot

Look what I can do!

 

Sharing some snacks with Aidan

All of this playing has worn me OUT!

We had such a wonderful day! It is hard to believe that we have celebrated our fourth Thanksgiving here! Great friends, great food, great fun - GREAT day! 

Trick or Treat!

We are a little behind on this one, but wanted to share a few cute pictures of Barrett's first Halloween! With such wonderful friends, we had a weekend FULL of Halloween events! Our first stop was the costume party at Patty's house. They hosted a great party complete with a chili cookoff. I took chicken chili (our favorite) and just happened to WIN! Such a fun party!

Daddy and the Turkey

The Turkey and Ellie Ballerina

Ellie and Barrett

Miss Lynne with all of the kiddos - look at all of those sippys!!



Our little family

The next stop on Sunday was the annual Halloween Bash at The Champney's! This is a wonderful fun party with Heather's famous chili and all of the kids. They FAR outnumber the adults. Everyone comes in costume and we all have such a great time together! The fun part about our parties is that someone is usually on call, but you never feel out of place - LOVE our friends!

Barrett the turkey and Jon Michael as Mickey Mouse

Aidan and Barrett the skeleton - these are his jammies, which worked out so great!

Zach as Yoda

A cheerleader and genie performing as Taylor Swift

This skeleton needs to put some meat on his bones!

Sweet Ellie in her pumpkin dress 



For our grand finale, we went trick-or-treating with our "Resident Family" the Denhams, the Moss', and the McDonalds. All of the kiddos had a wonderful time and were SO cute!! We were quite the sight to see walking down the street with nine adults, seven kids, a wagon, and two strollers...

Getting ready for the main event

Daddy and his boy

Our sweet neighbors Fred and Brenda

C'mon Miss Brenda - I have GOT to show you something!

Barrett decided he was finished and wanted to just camp out on this man's porch 



That's all folks!