Thanksgiving 2017 and Peyton's 9th Birthday

Unbelievable, but Peyton turned 9 years old on November 20, 2017!!!!  She had a friend sleepover birthday party at home the weekend before  her birthday, but we had her Clinton birthday on Thanksgiving evening!  She had requested a swimming pool birthday cake with Girl Scout thin mints crust, so that is what I attempted to create!  She had fun blowing out her 9 candle and opening her presents.

On Friday, we had our 13th Annual Christmas Baking Day, and it was a blast.  We made 20 pint jars of homemade hot chocolate mix, Garrison and Amanda unwrapped all the mini-peanut butter cups and different kinds of Hersey kisses, Peyton did a great job measuring and mixing up the cookie dough, etc.  Peyton had chosen a couple of new recipes off Pinterest.  Peyton was ready to start at 8 a.m., and I think we finished around 2 p.m. Fun, fun, fun.

Ron and Chad traveled to Warrensburg to play golf at UCM golf course and had a great day for it - warm - Ron even wore shorts!  In November!

We all went to Square 109 for dinner before attending the Lighted Christmas Parade on the square.  After the parade, the kids visited with Santa and Mrs. Claus in the courthouse.

We woke up to no power on Saturday - the day of our Thanksgiving celebration!  I was a bit panicked at first, because the chicken dish we were having had to bake for 3 hours, but no worries, it came back on a little after 8 a.m.  We worked in dipping pretzel rods in the morning, and the kids had a great time playing beauty shop in the front room.  We all had new hairstyles!  We, of course, used our family autographed tablecloth.  I had a few tears putting it on the table - seeing Mom and Daddy's signatures - but, it is a treasure!  Mary has done such a wonderful job embroidering it each and every year.  The kids loved seeing their signatures and their handprints from when they were babies and too small to sign their own name.  Luckily, Mary has agreed to embroider it again this year even though they were unable to attend due to being on vacation on the East Coast.  Our meal was delicious, and we enjoyed family time around the table.

It was wonderful to take a moment to count our many, many blessings.  God is good!

End of October 2017

The kids were still out of school on Monday, October 30, so I drove up to OP very early and stayed with them while the parents went to work.  We had a fun day!  We went to Scheel's and rode the ferris wheel and also they bowled.  We made a trip to Target to get a replacement Captain America T-Shirt for Peyton and also found a few other things - a gymnastic's leotard for Peyton, a candy making kit for Peyton and a cap gun and caps for Garrison - complete with a sheriff's badge.  There's a new Sheriff in town - he loves his cap gun - a very inexpensive toy that provided him so much joy.  He loved that it had a flicker of "real fire" and smelled like gunpowder when he shot it.  Peyton enjoyed doing her splits and other gymnastics moves with her new leotard on.  We had lunch at Burger King - of course - and when we got back home, Peyton made us hot chocolate, complete with marshmallows, and we watched a movie to have some quiet time.  A wonderful day with my little sweethearts.

On Halloween, the Todds went to a friend's house for pizza, and 25 of them went trick-or-treating together.  They all looked great.  The kids had Halloween parties at school and had a great time at those too.

ON Friday, I went with Debbie Sieger to the West Bottoms antique/flea market shopping.   We ate at Freddy's and also did a little shopping in Belton before returning home.  A fun day.

On Sunday, November 5 - we went to church, had Holy Rosary turkey dinners for lunch and then had the football group over to watch the Chief's at our house.

Another blessed week.