Thanksgiving Fun

We took a 2 week Thanksgiving adventure south to visit family in Jersey and PA. Our first stop was to see Nana and Pop-Pop. They took us to the "Please Touch" Museum in Philadelphia which as a HUGE Success! There were way too many great pics to share them all, but here are a few:






What a great time!

Our next stop was the McLaughlin Family Thanksgiving festivities. Here are a few pics of the whole crew:


(Mammie in 7th Heaven with all five grandkids. She didn't quite have enough hands.) I just love this picture of Roarke - He is such a cutie!


(Grandpa - AKA Bumpa to Abby.) They have a great bond. :)

And here are snapshots of my siblings and their families:


(Although to be fair, Rugar is missing.)





While we visited Aunt Amanda and my side of the family, we rented a cabin to stay in with Sarah, Josiah and Abigail. As you can probably guess, the sleeping arrangements, while fun for the kiddos, left us with slightly less sleep than we would have ideally wanted. In the end the cabin was a lot of fun and the kids all had a blast!



(You can almost hear the giggles... :)

The three oldest cousins had a sleep-over one night at Aunt Amanda's and enjoyed a hot breakfast together in the morning. (Notice my child is the ONLY one chowing down a chocolate donut...)




We spent Thanksgiving Day at Great Grammie Tuthill's. Here is a shot of the 4 generations:



The kiddos kept things "interesting." Lexi put on a performance in her Rock'n new Tutu. (A birthday present from Aunt Jessica.) Although I'm not sure we ALL enjoyed her vocal styling equally...



... And Aunt Jessica gave Cameron A LOT of "Running Hugs"






Before we left Nana and Pop-Pop took Cameron to the Aquarium. He didn't want to get too close to the shark's teeth though...



We had a great time everywhere we went! What a fun way to spend a vacation! It was so good to see everyone again ... We miss you all already!

Happy Birthday Princess

As hard as it is to believe, Alexia turns 1 today! Here are a few shots of the birthday girl herself:



Her first car... Inspired by Aunt Amanda:



A rose from Daddy. One Rose for One year old.



Opening Presents:



NOT impressed with the party hats. Enough said.



Her favorite birthday present was actually a musical card that her "Aunt Ellie" got her. She was rocking out to the disney princess theme song. It was adorable to watch her sing and dance:



Loving her new Uggs. Turns out that they make great hand-warmers:



When it came time for the cake we could pretty much read her mind. It went something like this. "Okay, so I LOVE the tiara, but nobody said anything about fire!" Let's just say that Lexi was a little unsure about the cake...



Ever the good big brother, Cameron stepped up to the plate to help make sure she got her birthday wish:



She wasn't so sure about the cake at first... She had to poke it a few times to make sure it was wasn't going to bite her:



I guess she decided that she liked it... Even the dog got in on the action:



What was left of the cake when she was all done:



We love our little princess and are so glad she's a part of our family. We still can't believe she's been here a whole year! Happy 1st Birthday Lexi!

Halloween Adventures

On the morning of Halloween we carved pumpkins as a family. Cameron and Lexi had a blast! Here's Cameron helping Dad with the Big Knife. You know making sure that Dad didn't cut himself...



Here's Lexi after she's had a chance to look over the pumpkin "lid." She's decided that she likes this pumpkin carving stuff. :)



Cameron actually braved scooping out some of the guts this year:



Lexi was not about to be up-staged by her big brother. Here she is getting in on the action. Turns out she's actually pretty accurate with an ice-cream scoop!



As customary, Jon pulled out the power tools - just for the "finishing touches." Here's Cameron showing him how a "real man" wields power... Ah-ha-ha.



And the finished product:



After carving the pumpkin, we went to Vermont to spend Halloween with Grammie and Grandpa Blouin. The highlight of the trip for Cameron was helping Grandpa drive his tractor. He really had fun. He's still talking about it! :)