For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Alabama to spend the holiday with Mom's family: Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey. We also got to meet Uncle Trey's new girlfriend, Jacie. It was a whirlwind visit. We flew down on Sunday and flew out on Friday. In between, we went out to a hibachi restaurant to celebrate Kara's birthday, visited the Montgomery Zoo, visited Great Grandpa H. (who recently moved to a retirement home in Montgomery), and enjoyed some excellent home-cooking from Mimi. We were able to meet up with the McDonough family, while they we in town to visit their family.
We kept things pretty low key for November other than Kara's birthday and our visit to Alabama. We got a decent snowstorm in the middle of the month, which the girls enjoyed playing in.
As soon as we got home (and got mostly unpacked), Kara had us take out all the Christmas decorations. Kara had a great time putting up the tree and all the ornaments. Emily had fun setting stuff up, but was much more interested in playing with some of the decorations.
Recent quotes:
11/15: "I like Kara. Her my best friend." -Emily
11/15: "I love spending time with you, Dad." -Emily
Kara to Mom: "Do you know who the real Santa is? Because I do, and I'm looking at her and him (gesturing towards Dad)"
For Kara's 6th birthday, she decided to have her party at everyone's favorite childhood birthday party destination: Chuck E. Cheese. Kara's birthday happened to fall on the Friday before Thanksgiving break (the school district gives all the kids the whole week of Thanksgiving off), so Mom and Dad thought that maybe not everyone would be able to come. As it turned out, every single kid invited was able to come. It was a wild and crazy party. The pizza was just as delicious as Mom and Dad remember, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. The highlight for Kara was her turn in the Ticket Blaster, which is basically a phone booth full of game tickets that has a fan and blows tickets around as the birthday kid tries to grab as many as he or she can (see the video). Now we're going to have to top this party next year!
The month of October was a blur this year. Early in the month, we made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch (this year we went to Rock Creek). We always have a good time wandering through the fields to find the perfect pumpkin. The tricky part is to leave with just a couple of pumpkins and not 20. Rock Creek also has a play area with bouncy pumpkins and kiddie hay mazes. The girls had fun running around and checking out all the activities.
The weekend before Halloween, Mom and Dad ran a 5k race at the local Monster Dash. After that race, Kara ran a 1/4 mile race with Grandpa. Kara's first race went pretty well. She and Dad had been practicing doing windsprints in the backyard, but Kara and Grandpa decided to just jog and enjoy the actual race.
Emily was very indecisive on her costume choice for this year. She oscillated from Spiderman to Monkey Pirate. In the end, she went as Princess Anna from Frozen and Kara went as Queen Elsa, which the girls picked out early in the month. The girls, of course, were adorable.
Kara surprised Mom and Dad one Saturday morning by informing us, very matter-of-factly, that there was no Santa and that the presents she got were from Mom and Dad. We were kind of hoping that the magic would last for a few more years. Without lying too much, we tried to convince her that Santa was real. She hasn't mentioned it since that morning, so we think she's just humoring us for now. Oh well. Though Kara has quite an imagination, she has had a pretty firm grasp of reality from a young age.
Kara tested for her green belt mid-October. She did an awesome job learning all the moves, including breaking her board on her first try. Check out the video!
