O'Berry Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we had an O'Berry Thanksgiving... Ryan's oldest sister Kathleen and her family drove the treacherous route down from Montanta to visit and stay at our house and Ryan's dad flew in from Colorado.
Here is a picture Thanksgiving morning of the Walker family at breakfast. Ryan and I were so excited to have them stay at our house. Ed and Kathleen have a GREAT family (kids Kelly, 13, Grant, 11, Craig, 7, Grace 6, Audrey 4).
Thanksgiving morning, Kelly TOTALLY saved me on peeling and cutting up the mashed potatoes for part of my assignment. She was SO much faster than me. Even Audrey and Grace helped me wash the potatoes! My assignment was made SO much easier by the hands that helped!

Late on Friday night (the day before they left to go back to Montana), all the kids helped us put up our decorations for Christmas. Man, were they FAST! It was SO fun! I especially liked all the tinsel that Grace and Audrey helped me put up in the basement.

YEAH! More decorations! Craig was SO funny. He was a 30 year old voice and talker in a 7 year old body. He was HILARIOUS!

Grant and Kelly standing in front of our tree. Grant is one smart kid.

This is a very cute picture of the three Walker girls when we went to Ryan's grandma's house for pie on Thanksgiving night.

Who said girls couldn't play with toy guns?

But, we had SUCH a fun time with the Walkers; come back and visit us again soon!

Partying with Princesses, Part 2

This is what greeted me when I came over Thursday morning. Two ADORABLE girls in pajamas SO excited to play with me. I love, as a friend told me, being adored by these little kiddies.

Ava has the best smile ever now. You just say smile and this is the result. Sadee went to preschool the first day I was there. Ava is normally at the babysitter, so she was SO excited, as you can tell. They both had their backpacks, and Ava was SO sad when she didn't get to go out of the car to the preschool.

The biggest new thing we did is play this game in the basement that Sadee has called the "dead game". This consists of Sadee (she is now Princess Erica) and Queen Ava (which she HAS to wear the queen dress, see above picture) getting pretend drinks from Sadee and while we are drinking them, Sadee falls down dead, from poison. My embellishment of the game is I had to hunt the evil witches in the mountains (the room next door) or find the special potions to cure her. Then, Ava wanted to get into the act. I didn't take a picture, but you should have SEEN Ava trying to be dead. Too funny.
Sadee as Princess Erica in the "dead chair"

Ava LOVED the blocks... gotta love the total cheese smile.
Sadee you can tell helped us begin the "beautiful" castle. It fell a few times.

The castle is complete! Just so you know, that tall tower in front is the mailbox. These are TALL princesses Sadee told me.

Finally, of COURSE we had to have a dance party again, although Jasmin and Aladdin are now "the in thing", we danced to Prince Ali, One Jump Ahead, and a Whole New World. Can't wait to visit and babysit again!

Book reading ideas anyone?

Many of you may know I devour books and love reading. Normally, I have a bazillion books on the "need-to-read" list, but alas, I'm coming up short. Ideas, anyone, of any good books read lately?

Looking forward to babysitting

So, this week, I'm taking Thursday and Friday off to go and babysit Sadee and Ava again. I haven't really seen them since August (which is a HORRIBLY long time for me, though I know some people never get to see their nieces or nephews) so I am SO excited. I called my sister last night to find out if I need to bring anything. Apparently, Sadee has been putting together a "list" of things she wants to do with me, including, but not limited to, doing my hair, having me draw pictures of the princesses (seriously, this girl LOVES to have me draw, I don't understand it), having me take her to preschool and get a tour, watching about 6 movies with her, and having a swimming party in the bathtub. Plus, Ava now talks up a storm, or so I have heard.
Man, I can't WAIT! I'll have some fun pictures next week when I get back :)

White dresser

Ryan and I got an old, but great condition changing table, from his sister awhile ago. So, no we don't have any needs for it super soon (no, I'm not pregnant), but it's been on my list FOREVER to paint for some future little SuperBaby O'Berry. This weekend, it finally got done. Doesn't it look AWESOME? I wish I had a before picture.
Oh, and PS, we finally have a new camera, no one called us with our old one and all our Cruise the Fourth pictures... oh well :( BOO HOO!

Fiona and Little Red Riding Hood

Sadee decided to be Fiona for Halloween this year. I guess she debated between lots of princesses, but she LOVED being Fiona because she was the only Fiona. And she was NOT in a smiling mood during camera time apparently. Ava on the other hand, is the CUTEST little Red Riding hood I have seen. And she was in a smiling mood :)

Ryan and I also dressed up. Ryan went low key this year as a lumberjack and I decided 5 minutes before leaving for work basically that I wanted to dress up this year...so Ryan threw together a 5 minute "California Raisin" costume for me... which consisted of a black garbage sack and black tights with white tennis shoes. Apparently, no one got that I was a California raisin until I told them. I was "garbage", "someone waiting to get her hair done", etc. Mostly, I was a put-together-in-5-minutes- costume.

We did carve a lot of pumpkins, okay Ryan did, and we ran out of candy giving it to trick-or-treaters, so the holiday was a success!