So 2016 has really turned into the year of the Road Trip for us. We have driven everywhere, all across the country both ways this year.

My cousin Christi and I had started putting the bug in our families’ ears back in the beginning of the year for us to all do Thanksgiving together, so when fall finally rolled around, I think everyone was so tired of us constantly bringing it up that they agreed to it just to make us be quiet. Ha! So, we got three families together – my Aunt Jill and her family couldn’t make it from Oklahoma and we dearly missed them. But it was so fun to see everyone else!

We decided to leave Tuesday right after Jon got out of work, hoping that we could get to Dallas around 1AM and that the kids would end up just sleeping for the majority of the drive.

So, obviously, Eisley woke up Tuesday morning with a super nasty diaper and proceeded to have diarrhea the rest of the morning.

I swear, we cannot just take three healthy children on a road trip. It’s just not in the cards for us. I called everyone freaking out and everyone agreed that we should just go ahead and come and they’d take their chances that maybe Eisley was just teething or something.

Little Miss looks so sweet and cute here but oy. We went through about five outfits on the way to Dallas. We had to stop multiple times just for complete outfit changes. And I was smart and lined her carseat with a plastic bag and then an old, thin but absorbent rag on top of that so she never exploded out onto the carseat. So nasty.

We drove through pounding rain and then saw some really beautiful rainbows. I personally was hoping this was a sign that the worst of the trip was over and we were in for an easy rest of it.

Or not. We got the kids into their pajamas around 8PM, got Eisley into yet another set of clothes and we were doing okay. Jon and I were doing a good job of staying alert and Christi was texting me games to keep us talking and awake. The rain and wardrobe changes had delayed us a little bit so at 1AM we were about an hour away from my Aunt Julie’s house still.

Then Nathan woke up and at the same time, threw up all over the backseat.

ALL OVER the backseat.

We immediately pulled over in the absolute middle of nowhere and it took us a good thirty minutes (in the freezing cold prairie wind) to get everything cleaned as much as we could clean with a box of baby wipes. Which, of course, woke everyone up. So Eisley just kept yelling, “DAD! DAD!” every time she saw Jon’s head pop up in the backseat.

We bagged up everything we could, I dug another pair of jammies out for Nathan and the poor guy. He was shaking so bad from the cold by this point. We bundled him up and sat him in the front seat with the heater going full blast while we finished cleaning.

We finally got back on the road around 1:45AM and tried to convince ourselves that he was just car sick from sitting in the very back for twelve hours. We had just pulled off the exit for my aunt’s house when Nathan told us he had to use the bathroom, so we pulled into a gas station that was still open and Jon ran him in. The people told them the bathrooms were closed after midnight, which is when Nathan threw up all over the floor. 🙁

We got to Julie and Clay’s house, carried Nathan in and spent the next four hours jumping out of bed every 30 minutes to get him to the bathroom in time to throw up. By 5AM, he was done dry-heaving and finally sleeping and this one started:

So, I just moved me and Parker into the bathroom. He threw up every few minutes until 9AM.

Guys, I think I cried at least three times, probably more out of exhaustion than anything by that morning. We hadn’t slept more than 20 minutes and I was just so sad for the boys. Once Parker finally stopped throwing up, Jon and I showered, washed the giant pile of sheets and towels started them a show while we went out to finally see the family.

The family was super sweet and basically just said, “If we are going to catch it, we’re going to catch it,” so we made the kids stay in the room until late Wednesday afternoon.

I was so excited – all the cousins made turkey shirts together this year! We set up giant tables in the backyard and then there were just shirts everywhere on all the patio furniture drying.

Happy Thanksgiving!! All of these cuties are kids of all of my first cousins – so I have no idea what that makes them to each other. We’re family. 😉

Three little turkeys – love this so much!

Sweet little first cousins – we missed Hudson so much!

My cousin Christi and me! I loved seeing her so much! We have done so much of life together – we grew up together, both started dating our husbands at the same time, got married around the same time, Nathan and her oldest, Trenton, are ten days apart and her younger two and mine are also super close in age. I am so thankful for her!

Silly heads at Thanksgiving lunch. Love this. Poor Jon was starting to feel bad by this point, so he spent most of Thanksgiving sleeping and not eating anything. Poor guy.

Aunt Julie and Uncle Clay live on the most idyllic property ever. We spent half of our time there just trying to figure out how we could put a house on the back pasture and just live there with them. 😉 The boys were up early every morning to go “pick the eggs” from the chickens and they basically lived outside the entire time.

Parker kept telling me, “I really wike this farm. I really wike it.” Ha! The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time we were there too.

Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner – my favorite part of Thanksgiving!

On Saturday, our last night there, we let Nathan stay up really late and play with all the older cousins. He was SO proud to be up so far past his bedtime. We had a big fire since all the babies were in bed and everyone roasted s’mores.

This was my favorite part of the trip – every night we would get the kids in bed and everyone would just sit on the porch with blankets under the heat lamp next to the fire and visit. We had the best time! On the last night, it was just the girls and I just loved it. I love all of these women so much!

Our trip went too fast and we were heading back home way before any of us were ready to go. Can’t wait to see our family again soon!

I know I say this every month, but oh my goodness.

My Eisley girl is eleven months old and I just cannot even believe it!

She is so sweet and sassy. Her little personality is starting to shine through and we are just having so much fun (and navigating a few tantrums)! She’s a fiesty one, this little miss. She has ZERO problem expressing her displeasure of something or lecturing the boys when they are doing something she dislikes. She’ll sit there and wave her little hand at them and yell “NA NA NA”. Ha!

She loves to play, loves to be included in anything and everything, loves to be held and LOVES to talk and/or yell at the top of her lungs. We have given up on our hope of producing a quiet child. It’s just not in our DNA. 😉

She cruises along all the furniture and wants to hold your hands and walk all. day. long. She is silly, adorable, goofy and a tiny spitfire. I love my spirited girl!

I can’t believe the next monthly post will be her first birthday! She is growing so so so fast and it’s killing me. Oh that I could stop time!

November has been SO hectic. I keep waiting for life to slow down and it just never does!

Nathan’s class read a story about a turkey who tried to disguise himself at Thanksgiving so he wasn’t eaten and then they had to do a special project where they made their own disguised turkey. So, obviously, his turkey became a Jedi.

I updated my picture frame on my kitchen counter with one of the pictures from the pumpkin patch. I LOVE walking past this multiple times a day!

Friday night Pizza Movie Night is still going strong!! We introduced the kids to Rookie of the Year on this night and it was HYSTERICAL. Jon and I definitely quoted the entire movie back and forth to each other and it’s so much fun to watch something that was so iconic to us with our kids. 😉 The boys LOVED it.

And, of course, Nathan “fell” on his way out of the family room, bent his arm all weird and could suddenly throw 900 miles an hour. So they had to play baseball for a few minutes before nap. Love Eisley sitting there looking at them like, “What is going on?”

The next morning, the boys had their Awana Grand Prix race and Nathan’s popcorn box won for the best in the food category! Guys. He about lost his mind when he won. Ha! We were laughing so hard we were crying.

The hard workers on the popcorn car. It was not fast but it was cute. 😉

Our sweet friends have their boys at Awana and it was so fun that all three of them won!

I think this picture is so cute. Pops came to cheer on the boys and their cars. Parker’s corn dog car was adorable but since he’s in Puggles, there’s not a real category for him yet. He didn’t win in the open, but the people running the race were super sweet and let him race his little friend before we left for naps because two someones were getting quite sad. 😉

28 degrees outside and I found this when I got downstairs from nursing Eisley Tuesday morning. Baseball practice. I don’t like to brag, but I really think I have the most stylish children on the planet.

We bought this Fisher Price nativity when Nathan was about 18 months old and it’s just one of our most favorite things. Eisley was rarely more than a few inches away from it for the first week or two of it being on the fireplace hearth. It’s at exactly the right level for her right now when she pulls up and it’s just so cute to watch her play with it! I love this time of year. 🙂

We spent most of our weekends getting the house in shape enough to host the shower so once it happened, it was so SO nice to look around and see that we had already accomplished a ton! We got almost all the trim done and all the interior doors finally painted and up (yay for a little bit of privacy and the ability to do laundry without hearing it through the entire house!).

So, we decided a few chill days were in order. Which worked out because it got cold in a hurry. 😉 Fall is quickly turning into winter!

Our dear Beechems came over for dinner and then Jon and Thomas went to a Lobo game, leaving the girls here. The game (of course) went into like double overtime so they didn’t get home until after midnight. Eryn and I put all the kids down and talked and watched a movie. It was such a good girl night. 🙂

Her wrinkled nose smile is my very favorite.

The boys turned the play room into a football field and so all of their buddies had to sit in the “bleachers”. Ha!

It was a tiny bit warm one afternoon, so we hurried outside to play. The boys set up a drive through bakery, which is something I would not mind having in my backyard. 😉 Love how Eisley is watching them! She can’t wait to be big too.

Practicing. They are so cute.

And then we woke up the next morning and it was winter. Ha! Our house was FREEZING. I texted Jon this picture at work and told him it was so cold in our house that my coffee cooled on it’s way out of the coffeemaker so I was having to make iced coffee. He told me he and Pops would hook up our heater this week. 😉 Little Miss and I just sat snuggled up like this in front of the fire for a good 45 minutes.

On to winter!

It was freezing cold in our house, we had an insanely packed rest of November, so on this last Saturday morning when we woke up without a ton on our plate, we just decided to haul out the Christmas stuff and do it. 😉 I think this was possibly the earliest we have ever put up Christmas – ha!

Three little elves ready to help!

Jon is behind the tree somewhere fluffing branches but I thought this was hilarious. They did this last year too and it’s so cute to see Little Sister joining right into the mix!

Later that night, we headed over to Uptown for one of our favorite traditions – the lighting of the tree! Which was also possibly the earliest it has ever happened. Ha! I guess we were all itching for it to finally just be Christmas if it was going to be this cold!

Sarah is just one of my favorite people ever and she’s also our dear photographer friend! She and her husband and precious baby girl came with us and we had so much fun!

It was PACKED. Like, I have never ever seen it this crowded before! Jon had to hold both boys just so they could see Santa come in.

We abandoned there pretty quickly and went to dinner with the Loves and the boys were so sad we didn’t stick around in the probably three hour line that instantly formed to meet Santa. So, after dinner, we swung back by and we just happened to catch the end of the line. 😉 So that worked out perfect! The pictures I took of them meeting Santa didn’t turn out at all, which was so sad. But they loved their candy canes.

Oh this day!! Nathan has been asking questions for months – good, serious questions and one night, he told us that he was ready to ask Jesus into his heart. Oh, how I cried! We led him in a prayer and hugged him really tight and the following Sunday, I got a Children’s ESV Bible at church for him and we gave it to him as a present. He was SO excited! His reading is improving so much and he was able to even read a little bit for himself. I’m so thankful! There are no words to describe my thankfulness. God is so good!

I have known my dear friend Shannon since the seventh grade and somehow, we’ve stayed friends through her moving to Dallas, puberty, high school, college, marriage and now kids. In so many ways, she’s become more like family than a friend. She married Eric about four years ago and we now live in the same neighborhood! 🙂 I love it so much! She is expecting little baby James in February and we are so excited for them and for a new friend (and a future husband for Eisley. I’m just saying). As soon as she mentioned the word “pregnant”, I was already thinking about how to throw her a shower and I’m so thankful that we now have the space to do it! Mom, Nicole and I all did it together and it was SO much fun!

Eric is a big hunter and loves the outdoors and so it was kind of a no-brainer to throw her a woodland baby shower. 🙂

My dear friend and me!

Prepping for the party by making little acorns. These were so easy and I thought they were so cute! It’s just melted chocolate chips you use as the glue for a Nutter Butter bite and a Hershey Kiss. Then you stick a little mini chocolate chip on top! The best thing about these is I could make them the day before. 😉 The kids tested them out for me and said they were okay but maybe I shouldn’t serve them so they could have them instead. Ha!

Getting the last of everything prepared and ready to go!

The front door. 🙂 I wanted to make sure guests knew they were at the right place!

Cutest mama ever. 🙂

Love little James’ ultrasound picture up there.

We had so much delicious food!

So weird and random fact about me – when I was in high school, I went through the Wilton cake decorating school thing for a few months and actually graduated and got licensed to teach cake decorating. So random. 😉 But every so often it comes in handy! I found the little deer at Michaels and the rest just came together. I wanted it to be super undone and unfinished looking – love the way it turned out.

The hostesses and the mama of honor. 🙂

We did a little onesie decorating station. Here’s Nicole and one of the guests breaking the markers out. 😉

The moms! One of the best gifts of Shannon and I becoming friends was that it wasn’t just the two of us who became friends – our whole families did! I love Mrs. Kay so very much – she was my extra mom growing up. 🙂

I cannot wait to meet sweet little James!! He is so loved already!