"Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song." --Konrad von Gesner--

I was a bit sad last week that I wasn't able to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with any of my family (LOVE and miss you all SOOOO much!!!) but overall it was still a wonderful holiday! I enjoyed spending the time home with my little family and really enjoyed spending Thanksgiving day with my "military family" the Korpi's! :) We feel so blessed to have shared our military journey with them for the past 3 years or so. They are a wonderful family and we love them a lot! :) 

Anyway, we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. It all turned out really yummy. I had a bit of fun making it too :) I turned to my favorite cooks, Our Best Bites ( I recently got their newest cook book which had quite a few Thanksgiving recipes in it), and tried out their Turkey brining recipe, their sweet potato recipe, their green bean casserole recipe, which used fresh green beans and it was so yummy! I also made their roll recipe, which I've made many times and it's also super yummy :) My "crowning glory" though was my super amazing and delicious pumpkin cheesecake which seriously was PERFECT! I haven't made a cheesecake in so long but love this one and was excited to make it again and was so glad it turned out so well! No crack, cooked perfectly, the crust was so yummy, and it was pumpkin so of course it was delicious! :) Sorry for my enthusiasm over a cheesecake but it really was the best one I've made so I was pretty proud of it :) Amazing to the last bite!

So for the rest of the holiday I did a little Black Friday shopping and then we went to get our Christmas tree! We found a tree farm a few miles away from the base, picked out a pretty tree, went home and decorated it! I was excited to finally decorate! I really love having a tree in the house, it's just so warm and inviting and happy and I love sitting in the living room at night with just it's light on. :)

Some other holiday decorations included a felt Christmas tree I made for Evelyn, our advent calendar that I made last year, a beautiful tree wall hanging that my Grandma Fredrick made, my nativity, and my awesome stocking holder that I made! I bought some letters for the NOEL, covered them in some pretty holiday paper, attached the letters to a base that had the stocking holders. :) then I placed it on my faux mantel shelf and wa-la! I really love hour it turned out and love my stockings on it :) 

I did start to decorate the front porch a little bit but ran out of lights so I have to get those before I show that. Nothing too fancy though but it's fun to have a little bit of lights outside! :)

Our next holiday goodness is our Elf! We got an Elf on the Shelf this year and I'm excited for the fun we're going to have with it! Our Elf arrived on Saturday and Evelyn named her Tinker Bell. Here's what she's been up to so far.

(I did have another Elf pic but haven't downloaded it so I'll post it later :)

Lastly for some holiday cuteness! :) I have been wanting to take some pictures with holiday lights in the background and I finally did it! I took a few pics of my cute kiddos and absolutely love them.

Andrew {3 Months}

Can you believe my little guy is 3 months already? He's changed so much in this past month! Everywhere I go people comment on what a big boy he is, and he is! He's so tall and a happy little eater :) He's such a happy little guy (well 95% of the time, he has his moments...like last night..ugh! worst night ever with him! I'm exhausted and don't know why I chose to write a blog post cuz last time I tried and had to stop...we'll see how far I get today!)

Ha! what do you know? As soon as I typed that the little guy of mine woke up from his nap...now I"m back :)

Anywho...let's finish talking about my boy :) He still adores his big sister and thinks she's So funny. He's laughing more and starting to get ticklish whihc is so fun! :) Evelyn is starting to play with him more and he loves that. He likes to sit in his exersaucer and watch her play too...which is nice for me when I'm trying to get stuff done around the house! He's starting to grab things too and is grabbing at his toys and wanting to play a lot more. He wants to play so bad! He still loves watching kids and is super content sitting there, chewing on his hands (he is such a chewer/slobberer! he loves to chew on his fingers, our fingers..so lovely :), watching the kiddos!

He's so alert and active and wiggly but also my little cuddler/sweet boy! He's pretty easy going and easy to take care of...if he's upset it's pretty easy to take care of. He's either hungry, easy fix, dirty diaper, easy fix, or tired, fairly easy fix. During the day when he's cranky/tired I just wrap him up and hold him tight and sweet and he's off to sleep in seconds! He does love his Momma. I LOVE waking up to his smiling face or walking into the room and watching his face light up, best ever! :) He definitely is a happy little morning guy, which is nice cuz the rest of the house isn't so much :) He loves his daddy too of course :)

He hasn't rolled over much since the last time but is starting to turn from his back to his side so I'm pretty sure he'll go all the way soon. He still isn't a big fan of the car but I've been giving him his toys to look at/try to grab which helps sometimes...but it's still not too fun driving anywhere with him unless he's already asleep.He's luckily 99% gotten over his fussy time at night, he gets a smidge fussy but for the most part goes to sleep pretty quick now. He does like to be rocked more now so it's a good thing I have a rocker this time! :)

I tried to weigh Andrew yesterday cuz I finally bought a scale...the difference between my weight and my weight + Andrew was 17 but then I had Mark do the same thing and it was 16 so not quite sure how that happened...I tried it multiple times and same results but I'm just gonna say he's 16 1/2 lbs :) Not quite sure how tall he is though either and he's asleep right now so I'm not gonna bother him. :)

Well! I really don't know what else to say about the cutie pie. We are busy getting ready for Thanksgiving and next Christmas! I made the mistake of opening up my box of Christmas decor last week and really wanted to decorate but I'm putting it off til Friday :) I'm so excited to go get a Christmas tree though! I did wrap some presents yesterday just to get some of my Christmas decorating urges out :) But Thanksgiving first! :)

My big boy! :)

He is just so utterly adorable, I can't stand it sometimes :) just look at those cheeks! :)

He's sitting up so well too! Although he's gonna grow out of this Bumbo chair PRETTY quick!

Evelyn ADORES him! :)

I love how he holds his hands like this, ALL the time! 

Once again with the cheeks!

he's such a handsome little guy! And loves his blanket from Grammy! :)

sweet!

another handsome pic :)

Watching Bama football with daddy!

He's started to play with his toys on here so well the other day! He totally focuses on them so hard and grabs them and moves them, such a smartie! 

Evelyn showing him how to use one of his new toys :)

"So dull and dark are the November days. The lazy mist high up the evening curled, And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze; The place we occupy seems all the world." - John Clare, November

Can you believe it's November already??? Seems so crazy that just a year ago I was headed back to Mississippi and Mark was still on deployment....seems so much longer than a year!!!

Anywho....I've got some catching up to do :)

Not long after my last post I took the two kiddos for check ups! Evelyn needed one for preschool and Andrew needed his 2 month so they scheduled them on the same day, which was nice, especially since I spent over an hour in the stupid waiting room for the appointment to even start! So glad I didn't have to do that twice!! It was so frustrating...

Anyway...Evelyn and Andrew are both healthy, happy kiddos! Evelyn is still 31 lbs, which I swear she's been for forever, and is 3ft 3in tall. She was a little taken aback by the doctor though. He's a spunky older guy and very energetic so she didn't know how to handle his enthusiasm :) Andrew on the other hand loved him! The doc was talking to him and Andrew was very entertained by him and was talking back and wigglin' and talking :) Andrew is a whoppin' 14lbs 13oz (well as of the 26th...he's more now I'm sure!) and is 25in. long. He's getting so big so fast! I've had to start putting size 6 month jammies on him cuz he's getting too tall for his other ones! He's even started rolling over more, which I caught on video! which of course I can't put on here but it's on facebook! :)

I guess the only thing really to talk about is Halloween! Evelyn was able to wear her costume to preschool one day, gymnastics another, storytime on Halloween and of course Halloween night! She wanted to be Merida from Brave so I revamped the Merida dress I had made before, made a cloak, and a bow & arrow bag for her treats. I thought it turned out pretty darn cute! Monie made Andrew a bear hat and mittens so he was one of the brother bears off of Brave and I made a quick headband with bear ears and then put a crown on it and was the Momma bear :) I didn't get a pic with me though. We had fun trick or treating around the neighborhood though with our friends. Evelyn was super excited/hyper about the whole thing, it was pretty funny.

my baby bear!

and my beautiful Merida! :)

Evelyn and her best friend Maddie

Evelyn wasn't too happy about Maddie always running ahead of her though

but how cute is this? :)

EXCITEMENT! :)

Evelyn also liked handing out candy at our house 

Mark and I did get to carve pumpkins this year! I even roasted some pumpkin seeds from them!

and I made some apple butter another day :)