Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a pretty, cold day in Kentucky, and we loved it.  Little Sage woke up so excited.  She LOVES the holidays, and it reminds me so much of myself when I was a child.  I remembered how I felt when I woke up on these days by seeing her.  We watched the Macy's parade...actually, I made my kids watch it.  That was always a big deal to me, but back then, the stars on there seemed to be actual stars.  Now it's like 2nd and 3rd rate people that you've never even heard of mixed with Broadway musical numbers.  I guess since Beyonce charges $300 per concert ticket (true story), then she can sit at home with Blue Ivy on Thanksgiving rather than ride a float and lip sync.  Anyway, they enjoyed it and after that, we headed to Mema's for Thanksgiving dinner.  I did a terrible job taking pictures except for Costner's party.

 Bleu's first Thanksgiving.  I think that this was his favorite holiday to date, as much as this kid eats.

 My plate.  I opted for country ham over turkey.  They got that with Travis in mind, but I love it just as much, and he didn't even get to come. 

 Some of the pretty pies

 Mom and Mema with us at the end of the day.  (Bleu's party was in here, and I have a lot of pics from that, but I wanted to keep it separate.)

 Me and my cousin, Amber.  We looked through ads and planned our Thanksgiving day attack.  I LOVE looking at Black Friday ads..which is now on Thursday.

 Speaking of that....I was there...in the midst of it...TWO hours before the doors of Target opened.  Now, I'm not really that kind of girl that goes out in that, but the Target by my mom's house is amazing.  It's the one mom and I went to years ago, and they run it like a well oiled machine. There are police officers everywhere.  There's no cutting.  There's no ambushing.  It's an organized chaos, if you will.  And who came with me, but Andrea?  We had a ball.  I stood in the cold before they opened the doors literally wishing myself 15 lbs heavier to have some warmth.  My toes hurt.  I wished for my Uggs.  I wished for heat.  Andrea got there after me because I ended up leaving an hour earlier than I originally planned to get in line, and then she couldn't cut to get up there, but we met up once inside.  It was like a mental test to get through that time in the cold.  I thought about using the money I saved for my hospital bill for hypothermia.  :)  Once inside I had a specific plan to get the things I wanted for sure, and I was so glad that I got every one and then I could enjoy my time and find some extras.  We stayed in there for hours and had so much fun.  As we waited in the LOOONG lines, we ate found a bag of mini Milano candy cane cookies and ate them and whatever else we wanted.  (Of course we paid for it up front)  I also found my favorite Hickory Farms turkey sausage, and I said, "If I had a knife, I'd cut this too."  Then the man in front of me whipped out his pocket knife and handed it to me. lol.  I politely declined...after some thought. ;)

 My favorite thing that I bought at Black Friday was my shirt.  :)  it was the only thing I bought for myself (that night).  I originally saw it a few days prior and texted it to a few of my girl friends saying that I found them a shirt, and then I ended up getting it for myself.  I hear Michael Scott from the office at the Christmas party pointing to the girls at the party and saying, "HO! HO! HO!...(then pointing to a guy) PIMP!"  Never gets old.  Anyway, we had a great Thanksgiving, but my Bleu did not appreciate me shopping without him. Sage worked herself  into exhaustion trying to help mom with him.  She is such a good girl, and I have a feeling Santa is going to do her right this year.

Christmas and Thanksgiving in Kentucky

Because I wasn't days from giving birth this year, we did our usual tradition of driving to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and doing that and Christmas in one week.  The schools were only out Wednesday through Sunday, but I emailed the principal and they excused Sage's absence for the entire week.  We left the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and we made awesome time.  I have to say that the trip coming and going was great as far as the kids were concerned.  I even only hit minor traffic on the way back.  However, I was EXHAUSTED on the way back and fought sleep, which was nerve wracking.  Anyway, back to leaving.  We left some pretty warm temps here and went straight into the cold.  We even got snow while there, but it didn't cover the ground so Jaggar said, "That's not snow!  That's rain!"

Ready to go.  Travis didn't make it because he had the Iron Bowl and a lot of catch up to do here from having SO many TV shoots this year.

Jaggar had one thing in mind:  presents.  And we stretched out the presents ALL week, and they didn't mind a bit.  They each got one once we arrived.  Jaggar's Captain Hook boat.  He loved that thing and played with it all week, even firing a missile across the aisle at church.  ;)

Sage was thrilled with these footed pj's.  We ran into an older friend of hers at Khols getting some, so because an older girl had them, it was okay.  She LOVES them.

The adults thought we would wait, but that turned out not to be the case.  Mom got one.

I love baby in the mix here.  Sage and I made mom an origami owl type necklace, and Mom loved it.  I did not take a pic.  We found an actual origami owl seller with stock on hand in Mom's mall, and we had a blast.  I upgraded my necklace and love it.  It makes lots of noise, which I love in jewelry. 

Then...well, we were going to wait but ended up not.  I had pics on my phone and then didn't upload to my computer, but I got a really pretty necklace that Mom thought looked like me. And it did...and then?  Gosh I really should take a pic and post it, but if you see me, you'll see it.  Mom surprised me with a beautiful Michael Kors bag that I loved at Dillards weeks ago.  What I did not love was the price tag, but she worked some magic and got it.  It is perfect, and it is mine. 

Here, she opened the new boots we got her.  They look similar to Uggs.

The day after we arrived, Costner had a moment.  I did too, actually.  My grandmother is famous for her fried fish.  And that's no lie.  However, I don't even remember the last time I had it.  I know it's been since before I got married.  Well, Travis' favorite is her meat loaf, so she makes that every time we go because HE loves it.  So guess what we were missing out on?  FISH.  Well, someone caught some and she made it. that Sunday  Sage took one bite and asked for five pieces.  It's so good.  Bleu loved it too.

Mema hand made scarves for all of the granddaughters, and I got first pick.  You can't see it, but it's covered in sequins too.  So pretty.

A few days later, the kids opened more presents.  Sage LOVES animals, and I thought these Christmas ones were adorable.  She also got a Rudolph and Clarice best friends set of necklaces.  I thought for sure she'd give me the other, but she's giving it to Lydia.  Though, she did ask me to wear it while we were there.

I love this picture.  This will sum up his Christmas, I feel sure.  It's also my screen saver.  he got lots of clothes and pjs, but this is all that he cared about.

Jaggar is thrilled BECAUSE...

He got lots of despicable me things.

INCLUDING Minion goggles.  I can't not laugh when I see him in these.

Baby opening presents.

Checking out his clothes.

Jaggar's minion car.  That thing is so crazy.  It goes so fast, and it's a fight between Jaggar driving it and Costner chasing it.

And Sage got a Lego Friends set:  the high school.  This is new this year, and we both loved it.

Costner's puppy, which was a birthday present, and which will also probably migrate to Sage's room.

We had a wonderful time, and I have some Thanksgiving pictures but not enough.  I did a horrible job of taking pictures while there.  We actually did Costner's birthday party there, so I have a lot of pictures from that.  Sage and I built her Lego house on Monday night and into Tuesday afternoon while watching Christmas shows.  It's SO cute!

Iphone Thanksgivng Pics

Here's a few Thanksgiving pics from my iphone.  Travis is in his element here.  He sets his alarm for like 3 am to put the turkey in so that the oven was free to bake other things.  Yeah...he is the best wife.  :)  He told me, "You know, this is your job, but it's my thing, so I don't mind doing it." If he let that be my job, we'd prob have lean cuisines for Thanksgiving.

 Figuring out carbs for Sage so that she could eat whatever she wanted without us having to take 30 minutes to do it while everyone else was making their plates.

 Isn't he the cutest?

 We did a thankful tree this month.  I wasn't 100% consistent with it, but Sage really enjoyed it.  We just drew a tree and each day drew a leaf with what we were each thankful for.  I had to laugh when I saw "Travis--elections" on whatever day we voted.  But this made an impact on Jaggar, and he will still ask what we're thankful for.  NOW he says that.  One day he asked Chrissie, "Hey, Chrissie, what are you tangled for?"  But when you ask Jaggar, he is always thankful for his toys.  One night, he called me back in his room to tell me he was thankful for me.  He knows what to say, that's for sure.  I don't know anyone that couldn't not fall in love with him.

 Travis and I making fun of the regular self portrait takers and purposefully letting half his arm show.  My favorites are the ones that have some random song lyrics as the caption as if that had ANYTHING to do with anything other than the fact that they liked how they looked that day.  I'm going to start doing it and saying, "Aren't I pretty?"

 "Save the neck for me, Clark."  Classic Clark.

 And another family pic.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a really nice, low key day for us.  We honestly didn't know what we were doing because this is the first year since I've lived in Alabama that I haven't been in Kentucky for Thanksgiving.  So I felt out of sorts in planning.  Travis' mom had to go to work (at Walmart) at 3:30, so we just decided to have everyone here since it's closer for his mom anyway.  The kids played.  We ate a lot.  The weather was beautiful.  I was overwhelmed about figuring out carbs for Thanksgiving.  It sucked the fun out of it to me, but Travis completely did all of that.  It was actually nice making the food and it just being our immediate family because it wasn't a big deal to find out who put what in what.  Sage did great on Thanksgiving and ate whatever she wanted.  It really irritates me when people have cake or candy or whatever and say, "I know Sage can't have this."  That would be false.  Our pantry is full of Reese cups that she has pretty much every day after dinner.  Sage can eat anything you can.  We just have to know what's in it or have a pretty good idea at guessing. Jaggar couldn't remember to say "Happy Thanksgiving," so he just ran through the house saying, "Happy Birthday!" 

The weather was so perfect that the kids ate outside, which was awesome.  Way less mess to clean up especially since Jaggar thought it'd be a riot to throw food at Kylie.  A few warnings that didn't seem to matter and he got a spanking.

 Tim, who I have no clue what he's looking at, Meagan and Nevaeh.  If you could see Travis' sister's daughter, Sarah, you would think it was the same kid from when she was a baby.  It's crazy to see how much they look alike.

 Eletha in our messy kitchen.

 Meagan and Grandmother, as she's called

 Every child loves Tim.  They get so wild when he's around because he chases them, and they think it's the greatest thing in the world.

 The kids played really well together.  Jaggar loves Kylie so much.

 Meagan and her husband, Chase

 A rare actual picture from a camera of Travis and me together

 It's weird to think that this is our last holiday shot of us as just 4.

 Travis and his mom

 Travis takes pictures like this to prove a point of me "always being on my phone."

 My chocolate lover.  Sage only requested chocolate cake for dessert.  So Travis just went and got her those individual slices sold in the bakery.  One big slice had two servings, so she had one and was saving the other for later.  Only someone else got to it first.

 I don't question him most of the time.  He does what he does.

 Travis and I had been scouring the ads that morning, and I didn't see anything I was willing to go out for on Black...Thursday (now it seems apparently), but Travis LOVES to do it.  We did want a flat screen for our front living room to mount on the wall.  Target had one for $147, and Travis managed to get it.  He was SO thrilled with himself.  It was one of their main doorbusters on the front page of the ad, and he reveled in the fact that people were stopping him to see if they had anymore anywhere.  I had a lot of fun at Target with mom on Black Friday last year, and I would have liked to have gone with him since there was nothing I was desperate for (otherwise I'd prob get arrested), but we didn't have a sitter.  He did pick up the TV though and the $5 pj sets for the kids, so I'd say we were successful.  Or HE was successful.  Jaggar literally carried a Petsmart ad around the entire day because it had Rudolph dog toys, so Santa MAY be bringing the dogs some Rudolph toys that the dogs will inevitably never see because Jaggar will claim them.

 At least Jaggar is consistent

 They love each other.