Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving morning the guys headed off to the PA Gamelands to shoot clay pigeons or in honor of turkey day, we were calling them turkeys. This was Andrew's first time since he was in Tennessee last year and he was really looking forward to it. They bundled up and headed out the door early morning. As it turned out, there was no longer shotgun shooting allowed, so they were out of luck. Booooo!

The girls and I stayed home and watched the parade and stayed warm.  Lily was being silly and making funny faces at Reagan.

They ate breakfast and watched a good portion of the parade until Andrew and George got home and then they were off to play with Andrew before it was time to eat.

 

Lily is a unique soul and I'm so thankful she's mine.

 

We enjoyed a yummy traditional Thanksgiving dinner that day for which we were very thankful!

 

 

This is what two overstuffed little turkeys look like.

 

party of 3

 

my love

 

 

One thing I have learned over the last several years of my life is holidays do not always go as expected or planned.  We've had pipes burst, custodial issues with kids, missing one person in our family etc. The guys' morning didn't start out as they'd hoped and the remainder of the day kind of followed suit.  We made the best of it for our children as we always do and spent the evening home together as our family of 5. 

 

Sometimes when you don't know what to do...

 

You just throw leaves...

 

Later, I headed out to Black Friday shop with my friend Amy...which actually is less Friday and more Thursday now, but it was fun, successful and I think a new tradition is born!

 

Happy Turkey Day!

gobble gobble

 

Don't forget to enter my Shutterfly Christmas card giveaway for the chance to win $50 off order of $50 or more!







Shutterfly Christmas Card Giveaway

I'm a big fan of Christmas cards--looking at all the different designs, creating the "perfect" one for our family and my newest goal is to send them out before Christmas.  This year I've fallen in love with too many different cards and have thus decided to create a few different ones this year.  I've actually already created, ordered and received my first group! I know?! Can you believe that I'm that ahead of the game this year? Me neither.

Shutterfly has such an incredible group of Photo Christmas Cards this year that it was hard to choose just one design, thus my decision to send out several different styles. :)

Some of my favorites this year include:

As the mother of 2 year old? Yes, definitely.

 

 

I always love the multi photos.

 

 

I love the banner{ish}ness of this card!

 

 

And I simply adore the uniqueness of this sweet card!

 

Shutterfly has so many different cards to offer...with photos, no photos, Christmas or Holiday. Truly something for everyone.

 

 

I can't wait to finish my next group of cards and share them all here with you! The colors and quality of my first group far exceeded my expectations...they're gorgeous!

 

Be sure to check out Shutterfly's special offers for cards and gifts too!
http://www.shutterfly.com/special-offers

Giveaway!!

One of my readers will win:  $50 off order of $50 or more (excluding tax and shipping & cannot be combined with any other promos (expires 12/14/2012 – no extensions)


To Enter:

*Mandatory:
Visit Shutterfly and leave a comment telling me what your favorite card is!

For additional entries:

*Follow my blog via GFC, RSS or email and leave a comment telling me that you do.
*Follow me on twitter and tweet about the giveaway and leave a comment here.
*Like My Not So Little Guy & My Little Punky Pie on Facebook and leave a comment here telling me that you do.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry and be sure to include an email address if it isn't linked to your profile. Giveaway will end on Sunday, December 2nd, at 11:59 PM EST. Winner will be chosen by random.org and the winner will be notified via email and announced on this post.

Good luck!


Be sure to check out my friend Stef at Lexie Loo, Lily Boo and Dylan Too! to double your chances...she's having the same giveaway going on right now!! Wouldn't it be awesome if you won both?!?!  And yes, she's a Stef with a Lily too. ;)

Be sure to check out all of Shutterfly Social Channels:

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***Winner:

 

 

* This is a sponsored post by Shutterfly. I was given credit to Shutterfly in exchange for this post. All opinions are 100% my own! I really do love Shutterfly!

So What!

Today I've decided to link up with Life After I Dew for her weekly "So What! Wednesday" since I've got some randomness going on inside my head.

So.... I'm say So What If:

~I'm so sick of Super Why that I tell Lily they're asleep and can't come out.

~I am so far behind in blogging that I have yet to do Lily's 2nd birthday post...from July.

~Had a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast today because I'm of the generation where Bill Cosby made it ok to do it.

~I still have a residual pumpkin on my mantel and on my porch. It's November.

~Let Lily spend most days in pajammies and she's finally started asking to "get dressed, Mom".

~I'm the worst at conglomerating emails on my computer. It drives my husband crazy.

~I wish I were real life friends with Jimmy Fallon. I've loved him for years and he makes me laugh even when I don't feel like it.

~I deleted hundreds of pictures from my computer last night. It was cleansing. {note: I keep everything, so this was huge...see email statement above.}

~I get excited when realizing that Bot's voice on Team Umizoomi is Joe from Blue's Clues. See also: I need to get a life.


Happy Wednesday!  I have two great giveaways coming up this week!! Be sure to check back! And if you haven't yet done your Christmas cards...tune in tomorrow hint hint.

The Lily-Pop Reward

Late last week before Lily got in the tub, I put her on the potty because I could tell she was trying to poop.  I gave her my phone to do her flashcards while she sat there and we sang songs when she was bored with the flashcards.  No business completed.  She hopped down and while I was still sitting on the floor, she walked past me to get out of the bathroom, patted me on the back and said, "Get a diaper, Mom."

Ok kid. You know exactly what you are doing.

Yesterday when I woke up and decided we were going to just try to get this process moving along. I brought up the potty chair out of the basement, cleaned it up and put it in the livingroom. I gave her her new cup where the straw doesn't come out {score!} of water and set her down on it. I hyped up going potty and turned on her favorite show.  Pretty soon she peed.  Wooooo hoooo!

Upstairs we headed to wash hands and get her Minnie Mouse undies on.  We came back down and she got a "lily-pop" {lollipop}cheering, high-fiving and dancing happily around...both of us!

Minnie undies got wet pretty quickly as did the couch, so we changed them and cleaned up.  A little bit later, she started to pee in her newest Minnie undies and quickly ran over to her potty chair, pulled down her undies and sat down to pee.  Win! Another "lily-pop" for the happy girl!

I cleaned up the floor and decided to leave her undie-free for a little while.  That worked. She headed over and peed on the potty when she had to!  Lots of cheering, high-fiving, woo-hooing and dancing going on in this house yesterday morning!

We headed out to run a few errands with Daddy, so we diapered up--I'm not that brave on day one.

When we got home, it was naptime. She napped and then we were right back to it. After her nap, her diaper was dry too! She ran around sans undies and peed on the potty once again! "Lily-pops" for the win!

Clean undies back on to try that avenue once more and a little bit later I saw her making a beeline for her pooping hiding spot. I said, "Let's go on the potty!" She said, "Ok!" and headed up the stairs instead of the pottychair in the livingroom.  She didn't make it though, but happily helped me flush and wash her hands.  The attempt is a win in my book.

She peed on the pottychair one more time before bedtime while she was sans undies for a grand total of 4 times on the potty, one couch pee and one floor pee for day one. 

So far this morning, she started to pee in her undies and quickly ran to the pottychair to finish and has gone one more time in the potty.  She's super proud of herself! I'm thankful for legwarmers to make this easier!

Here's hoping that we have continued success as we navigate a new milestone for our baby girl!

...and thank God for the big bag of Dum-Dums I picked up after Halloween and I don't even care that she's having a lily-pop at 8:00am!

day one

Picking Pumpkins 2012

One of my favorite things about Fall is going to pick our pumpkins at a local farm. This year, we picked a weekend where the weather was unusually warm and off we went. My objective is to get good pictures. Andrew, Reagan and George's objective is to get good pumpkins. Lily's is to run run.

Since it was super warm it definitely was busier than it's been in the past, but worth the wait. While we waited in line, the older two climbed up a big hill while Lily looked back at me annoyed that she couldn't go with them.

The line to wait only seems long when you're trying to wrangle a two year old, right?

Finally the hayride wagon was coming for our turn! A little redfaced later since it was much warmer than even I'd expected.

Andrew and Reag always like to start out with the corn maze while we wait at the end for them. Lily had other ideas this year and took off in after them which meant George had to head in after her. :)

Next up comes the posed picture time so when I'm old and gray I'll remember where we went!

Eventually we found someone to take a picture of all of us.  But, we only got this one. ;)

It was difficult to get a picture of Lily with the pumpkins this year because all she wanted was her apple from the hayrid which was fine with me because that is exactly what this year was for her--the yummy apple to eat.







Andrew always picks his out quickly, while Reagan tends to take a little longer to find her perfect pumpkin. The rule is, however, you have to carry your own.

Trying to get a picture of my kids with their pumpkins proved to be somewhat challenging, but entertaining.

 

 

Poor Andrew gets a lot from his baby sister and this time was a headbutt. :)

Pumpkins acquired and it was time to head back on the hayride.  We were hot, hungry and tired, but we managed to remain in good moods, thankfully. 
My oft grumpy tween managed to provide my favorite quote of the day as we were leaving... "I'm glad we're not the kind of family who just gets their pumpkins from the store."

 

 

Til next year...