Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving!

For the first time ever since we've been married, we've had family come to our house for Thanksgiving-or any holiday for that matter! I got to cook everything and get everything all ready for the big meal. My mother-in-law helped me with my first turkey! And Mom Mom made Eastern shore dumplin's - those were yummy!

Aaron's Mom, Dad and Grandma came on Wednesday, and we had our Thanksgiving meal that day. They had to leave the next day to bring our old car to Aaron's sister Erica in Utah that she bought from us - she was supposed to come too but she had to work :( We missed you!

But we had a fun day with them! Here's some pictures:

Brady helping me mash the sweet potatoes for the candied sweet potato casserole

Brady with Grandma

Brady with his Pop Pop

Brady and his "Mom Mom Joyce"

Aaron with his Grandma

And since we were done with "Thanksgiving" on Wednesday, my MIL Teresa helped me get my Christmas tree up. We got it up and lights on before she left. And then since we had nothing to do on Thanksgiving I got to finish the tree and decorations. It was actually really nice to just sit at home all day and relax. Aaron hasn't had any time to do that since he got back from Arkansas.
So back to the story.......I was saying how I needed a new tree topper because the old one I had didn't really match my new ornaments and I gave it to my friend. So I need a new one. I was finishing putting on the ornaments when Aaron had a GREAT idea for a tree topper (being sarcastic here!). This is what he came in the room with:

Yeah, it's a St Louis Cardinals hat on the top of my tree. NOT happening buddy! He said "but it matches the colors!"

Ha ha, thanks but NO THANKS! I'm still looking for a topper...........

Bored on a Friday night

Well, we were sitting around last night after dinner. Brady and I decided to read some books and listen to some kids CDs. Aaron was on the computer catching up on some things he needed to get done.
So after that, we went out to the living room and were going to play the Wii. Both controllers had dead batteries so we put them on the charger and waited.
So Aaron had the great idea to put on some Wiggles music from the Ipod (yes I have wiggles on my ipod for Brady). And this is what happened for the next 1/2 hour!

Then it was bedtime! Let's just say he slept well last night! :)

Last day in Little Rock

I know you are all just dying to see how our trip ended right?
We had been wanting to ride the down town trolley ever since we got here, but the weather and Aaron's schedule kind of kept us from doing it all together. So we finally did it on the last day we were there. Cheap, fun entertainment!

They're replicas of the old street cars that used to go downtown and now they only have like 3 or something and they do a pretty small route but it was fun to ride it across the bridge over the river and through the downtown. The inside is all wooden and so it was very fun to feel like we were in the old trolley cars.

Our little driver man was cute and was telling us some facts as we went by some things downtown. He even told us about how when Mike Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas that the governor's mansion was being renovated and he had to live in a double-wide for a while! :) Then the driver said "Only in Arkansas right?" It was funny.

Another thing he told us was about Bill Clinton. He has a penthouse suite on the top floor of his presidential library (he was telling us this when we were right by the library). When the curtains are open he's there. If the curtains are closed, he is not there. The curtains were closed that day so he wasn't in Little Rock. Supposedly he does stay there every time he comes back to Little Rock. The interesting thing is that Hillary has never stayed there ever!

Here's some pics:

See how cool the insides are?

Going over the river

This was right after we left the Clinton Presidential Library. I love this picture because Brady wanted to be a big boy and hold on to the pole all by himself. I also love it because you can see the beautiful fall trees outside. That is one thing I really enjoyed about Arkansas-the fall trees and colors.

Exciting Evening

So we are getting sick of eating out all the time, so I have bought some meals that are easy to make without too much trouble. The kitchen here has a simple collection of pots and pans, measuring cups, salt and pepper, a cutting board, knives, and plates, cups, bowls, silverware. There is no cooking spray or oil or butter or anything like that to put in the pan to keep the food from sticking to the anti non-stick pans. I've tried cooking chicken and pork chops and I end up having to peel/scrape them off the bottom of the pan.

So here's an example of the meals I've been making: a bag of the frozen vegetables you can either steam in the bag in the microwave or heat in the pan, instant mashed potatoes in the pouch, gravy from a can, heat and serve rolls and rotisserie chicken. That was our dinner last night. I had just started heating the broccoli and cheese in the pan, boiling water for the potatoes and preheating the oven for the rolls.

Then the fire alarm started going off...............flashing lights and a very loud screeching sound. We looked in the hall and this was the case all down the hallway. I turned off the burners and oven and we got our shoes on and went outside.

It's such an emergency as you can see here! These guys are hard at work! :)

They finally gave us the all clear to go back in once they had checked out all 50 rooms and cleared them.

This guy was right across from our room in the panel trying to shut off the alarms and lights. Brady wanted me to take his picture and he is laughing as I am doing it! Sorry, it's kind of blurry, it was already kind of embarrassing so I just snapped it really quick and didn't realize it was blurry.

Anyway, I was telling him as we were coming back in that I had just started dinner and I was afraid it was my cooking that had set off the alarm.

He laughed at me then and said "Nope, someone else's cooking."

Phew!

A joke from my dad: How do you know when dinner's done? The smoke alarm is going off!

Pumpkins

So before we left Arizona I promised Brady that we would go to a pumpkin patch once we got to Arkansas with Daddy. But since it had been raining every day since we got there, we had to put that on hold. So finally we had a break in the weather last week and went. We went to this little farm stand with a pumpkin patch right by the side of the highway here. Their big crop is strawberries but they do pumpkins this time of year.

The fields were too muddy to go out and pick one for ourselves but Brady had just as fun staying at the stand and playing with the goats and on the old farm truck.

So since we are staying in these apartments on base we didn't really have the tools to carve the pumpkins, so instead we just drew on them with a marker. I gave him choices for shapes for the eyes, nose and mouth and he chose which one for each and I drew it. He asked me to draw the hair and cheeks. Funny kid!

Halloween pictures will be following soon as soon as get them downloaded!