Crazy Cousins

The first weekend in December, we had a little family holiday gathering here in State College for my family. My parents, and my middle sister, plus her husband and son (my nephew) all came to visit. It was great! The weather was nice and chilly for their visit which made it seem extra "Christmas-y" since they were all coming from the South (NC and GA). We took lots of pictures of course, but mostly of the kids, because after all, kids are always cute in pictures - grownups, not so much. And since I should probably be packing for our trip to Portland (tomorrow!) rather than blogging, I'll try to keep it on the shorter side and focus on the cousins - Hayden and Jay.

The crew arrived late at night, the car-driving NC crew having picked up the plane-flying GA crew in Harrisburg, so the cousins didn't meet till the morning. They immediately went for the same toy - the airplane - which proved to be a VERY popular toy for the weekend. I hear Santa might even be bringing Jay his very own airplane for Christmas! (shhhh - don't tell him!) Luckily, the kids managed to take turns quite civilly with Hayden pushing Jay (notice his grin and her effort) and Jay pushing Hayden.

When we could finally pull the kids away from the plane, we tried to take in some of the State College highlights. We went here for lunch, one of our favorite places, and managed a nice with lunch with only a couple kid breakdowns. Then after naptime and playtime, we packed everyone into the car(s) and headed to campus. We sampled the deliciousness that is the Creamery, and then went to watch the Penn State women play in the first round of the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.

Hayden and Jay REALLY liked sitting next to Poppop in the Creamery because he was very good about sharing his ice cream with them. It was hard for him to get a bite since every time he picked up the spoon, two little mouths opened and four little eyes gazed at him expectedly.

Hayden and Jay weren't much into the volleyball game. Hayden really liked wandering around the arena while Jay liked hanging with dad and munching on snacks. (Needless to say, Hayden was not interested in (or even awake) for the final two tournament games this past weekend but her mommy and daddy watched intently and cheered loudly when the PSU women repeated as National Champions! We are - PENN STATE!)

Saturday morning was especially fun because the whole crew came to music class. We took tons of pictures but they were mostly wacky action shots. And since you can't add sound effects that really capture the harmonious caucauphony that is music class, I'll just share one picture of Hayden and Jay checking out the big drums. But both kids (and even all the adults!) had a great time playing instruments, running under the parachute, chasing after balls, rocking teddy bears and trying to play a guitar. Music class rocks! (literally!)


The rest of the weekend was filled with other fun shenanigans. There was tickling in a laundry basket, rolling a ball back and forth, book-reading, and even a super fun bath time.

Bathtime was definitely necessary due to the way these two eat. Not only did the kids get dirty by themselves (check out Jay's mac and cheese face below!) but since high-fives were a big hit this weekend, they liked to pass the grunge back and forth too.

The final excitement of the weekend was that, as promised, it did indeed snow so the Thomasville, GA folks could experience a little winter. Sure they had to borrow some clothes, or do with what they had, but they had a great time, knowing they were headed back to warm south Georgia and didn't have months of cold and snow ahead of them! (I'm only a little jealous...) They were able to get a cute family snow picture...

Plus we took one of the cousins as snow bunnies (check out Hayden's new snowsuit - thanks Grandma and Poppop!).....

And of course, since it was my sister visiting, there was the obligatory babies and sisters shot. We've got lots more layers on this time around!

Okay, enough with the editing, no more pictures. It's time to pack! Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving started out pretty quiet. I'd done my baking the day before - Parkerhouse rolls and a chocolate bourbon pecan pie - so I didn't have too much to do in the morning. We had a low-key breakfast, walked the dog and then turned on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade for Hayden to watch. She watched it some, especially when there was singing and dancing. (Did anyone else think the performances were awfully short this year?) I liked that she talked about the things she recognized - like pointing out an apple at the top of a float and saying doggie over and over when the Beethoven balloon appeared! But the parade didn't keep her attention too long - she kept shifting seats!


And no, we were not feeding her la choy rice noodles! (that was last night at dinner - ha!) That's just a cleaned out can that we use to keep treasures in. Makes a great instrument too!

Once Hayden went down for a nap, it was time to get down to the business of cooking our Thanksgiving day meal. We did a brined turkey breast since it was only going to be the three of us plus our friends, Amy and Marshall. And while you might think we went low-key, with only have four adults and one toddler, we actually put together an amazing spread of food! Turkey breast, gravy, stuffing, lavendar mashed potatoes (color, not flavor), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, and Norweigen leftse (spelling?) - plus chocolate bourbon pecan pie and pumpkin pie bars with homemade whipped cream and cool whip. Everything was delicious! Here's the spread.

Of note: The pecan pie was one of the best I've made (Jason pointed this out) and even the crust looked pretty. Hayden loved the sweet potato casserole; that, and a roll, was pretty much all she ate. Amy tried stuffing for the first time and even had seconds! And we all ate so much that we couldn't think straight - we were going to play Canasta but ended up playing Uno because that was as much brain function as we had left. It's now a week later and all leftovers are gone - I just enjoyed the last bit of pumpkin pie bar last night. Yum! Thanks so much for coming over Amy and Marshall - you can come to Thanksgiving anytime!

Hayden enjoying Marshall's sweet potato casserole. Notice how well she uses the spoon!


Hayden shows us where half the casserole went. :) It really wouldn't be a Thanksgiving post without someone showing their belly!


Besides Thanksgiving, we also started setting up stuff for Christmas. I'm not normally an advocate of that, I like to wait till it's at least December 1st. But since we had some time and my family was coming the next weekend, we decided to go ahead and get a tree and put up lights. We got our tree on Saturday morning. Even though I'm trying to embrace local foods/products and such, due to reading this book, we decided give Lowe's our Christmas tree business with the reasoning that when we buy from Lowes - we just walk down the hill, using no gas and no car. Just good old manpower! Can you imagine it - me and Jason lugging a Christmas tree up the hill, with Hayden strapped to my back - quite a sight I'm sure! And really not that bad, we've done it before so we come prepared with work gloves and such.

Anyway... it's probably for the best that we didn't go out to a tree farm, because as soon as I took Hayden off my back and put her down - she took off, AWAY from the trees.

And she didn't really stop running, which made it hard to get any sort of good picture of her in the greenery. But I did like this one, except for her eyes in mid-blink.


We tried to engage her in looking at the trees - "doesn't the tree smell good?" "look at how green it is" "feel how prickly it is" - but she wasn't interested. The only tree she pointed at was the one on the BOX of a tree stand. She did like this small candy cane that she found. We decided to let her keep it...

...Because then she got to be our little Christmas elf!



She had a great time poking around with it while Jason and I puttered around outside after we brought the tree up. (can you see the tree in the background? doesn't it look nice!?!) She even managed to spill the water of the toy wheelbarrow on her toes - oh well - she didn't mind.

The crowning achievement of the weekend for me and Jason, besides roasting turkey for the very first time, was putting up our Christmas lights. We lucked into a decent day (actually made it into the 40s!) and even snow on the roof didn't slow us down. If you ask me, they look great!

Despite the excitement of a big meal and setting up for Christmas, Hayden's big excitement of the weekend was Bella, Brittany's kitten we were taking care of. She was SO enamored by this cat! Every 15 minutes it seemed, she'd sign cat and meow. We'd say, do you want to go downstairs and find Bella? And Hayden would nod emphatically and say very clearly, yes! So we'd head downstairs to find Bella. At the beginning she was usually under the bed, but sometimes she was in the plant...

and eventually she was just sleeping on top of the guest bed. Hayden would shriek and run to pet her and give her a hug if possible. She'd ask us to hold her (by pointing at Bella and then at our lap) and sometimes try to pick her up if we didn't cooperate fast enough and Bella hadn't run away yet. Bella was a little bit freaked out at first (by both Hayden and Blizzard) but by the end of her time with us, she tolerated them quite well. Even now, a week later, she still asks about the cat!

This is the kind of excitement Hayden exhibited EVERY time we went to find Bella. She just LOVED her!


And this is what she was so excited about - Bella playing...

Can you find Bella in this picture? I had to distract them from pestering Bella by pointing out a (nonexistent) squirrel outside.

"Where are you Bella? I want to play!"

Here is Hayden hugging/petting/shrieking at Bella when we brought Bella upstairs to say hi when we were making Thanksgiving dinner. I think Hayden may have a kitten on her Christmas wish list.