Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  It was a busy week gearing up for the Thanksgiving festivities, made a little more difficult with me being sick and Tom having a kidney stone.  That didn't stop us too much, though!

On Wednesday, we went down to Moore to have Thanksgiving with Tom's family.  It was my first year to do the entire Thanksgiving meal, and I think it went pretty well.  I justified (some of) my time on Pinterest by trying a couple of pins.  I highly recommend the "frukey" (as Tom calls it) and the best broccoli ever....

Rob flew in for Thanksgiving, so it was nice to have the whole McGillen family there to celebrate Thanksgiving together.  We ordered a smoked turkey from Van's - definitely a new tradition.  It was so delicious that Jackson even liked it!

Before lunch, Jackson and Tom helped decorate their Christmas tree in accordance with the annual tradition.  Jackson really liked climbing the stool and had Tom deliver ornaments to him.  As I was snapping photos, Tom decided to put reindeer antlers on Jackson without him knowing....

As soon as Jackson realized this, he had to have another picture with him doing it to Daddy.

We had a nice time being together and even got to Skype with Rob's girlfriend, Olivia, in China.  We were thankful that Linda is doing better.  We had a great visit!

On Thursday night, we went down to my parents house.  Tom's kidney stone was bothering him, so he immediately went upstairs to lie down.  A few hours later as Grandma was getting ready to go to bed, she asked if we were going to let Tom come in or was he going to have to stay in the car all night!  We had a good laugh over that one.

Dad and I made plans to go to Black Friday at Lowe's (I must be getting older...).  I had planned to get up and leave with him at 4:30, but we had to make a midnight run to the ER with Tom as his kidney stone was really starting to hurt.  We love the Stillwater Medical Center!  Needless to say, I didn't end up going to Lowes the next morning, but I am impressed that Dad made it to both Lowes and Walmart!

After our Thanksgiving dinner (crab cakes - yum!), we went to the Children's Museum, which is Jackson's favorite place.  I love the dr's office - it has everything from the receptionist, the exam room, xrays and lab and operating room!

They are always changing out different exhibits to get it new and exciting.  This time they had new costumes, which Jackson really got into.  His favorite was the lion costume and he'd strut around the entire place.  He also really liked climbing high on the rock wall:

My mom had been working on a secret project with Jackson and Reese for months, and it was such a great surprise to see their work on each of our plates for Thanksgiving dinner.  Both Jackson and Reese had colored "I Am Thankful For..." for each one of us and described what they loved about us.  We will treasure them forever.

Papa's said that they loved that he was silly, funny, drinks coffee, and rakes leaves so that they could jump in them.

Pamma's said that she was important (with black hair!), funny, family and plays games and ball.

I loved Grandma Etta's in that she tries.  Mom said that when they were writing these, Jackson and Reese said that although its hard for her to get around, she always tries and does it!

Mine said that I was silly, funny, pretty, takes showers (I'd love to hear the thought process on this one!), married to Daddy (thank goodness - otherwise that might be awkward!), talks on the phone and loves them.

Tom's said that he was VERY silly, funny, and makes funny faces (I'm sensing a trend here).  They also love that he makes Jackson's house, which melted my heart.

We are so thankful for our family and our time that we are able to spend together.  We love you all!  And stay tuned - our annual Christmas ornaments will be in the next post!

Fall is Flyin' By!

November has been a busy month between soccer, birthdays, wedding celebrations, school bike-a-thons, Thanksgiving and building a house.  Whew!  I'm tired typing that!

Jackson's school had their Bike-a-thon in early November.  Seeing that notice of the bike-a-thon instantly brought back memories of the first "bike-a-thon" when Jackson was 3.  Thankfully, there was no need for a late night practice session beforehand!  However, there was one small embarrassing moment when another parent asked me if I knew that we still had the tags and instruction manual for the bike attached... Oops!

Papa and Pamma came up to watch Jackson raise money for his school.

They had a good plan this year with a path all set out.  The kids were supposed to go all the way down the parking lot before turning around and coming back.  Jackson is obviously a rule follower...note how he is the ONLY ONE riding where he is supposed to....

I am sad to say that he did succumb to peer pressure (or maybe it was just the slope of the parking lot) and started to cut corners with the rest of them.  :)  As Jackson would come around the top corner, Papa would be there to push him on in the final stretch.  He sure loved going so fast!  The Kindergarten and Pre-K classes rode for a solid hour!  Jackson had a total of 5 breaks, each lasting no more than 15 seconds.  His legs were tired at the end, but you couldn't tell from the smile on his face.

Later that afternoon, Papa and Pamma rode with us to Fayetteville to go celebrate Ryan and Christa's wedding.  Jackson has been asking for a (clip-on) tie ever since he saw one in Target, so we relented and bought him one to wear to the wedding.  He was so excited to wear it that night!

On Saturday morning, we toured the University of Arkansas' campus.  First stop: the University of Arkansas football stadium.  It was huge!  And it was really nice that we could stop outside and still see in.  It was fun to watch the Arkansas/LSU game on TV knowing that we had been there.

Jackson was itching to run after being cooped up in the car the previous day.  He made my heart stop several times running down this hill way too fast.  I was sure he was going to end up in a crumbled heap at the concrete wall!

Jackson also decided that he wanted to become a photographer and started taking pictures with my camera.  Papa was ready for his close-up:

While we were on campus, Casey wanted to a Razorbacks hat, so we stopped at the campus store.  Jackson found a Razorbacks "helmut hat" that he really wanted.  When we realized that it was $25, we had him pick out something else.  He found a great small football to play with.  However, when he realized that getting the football meant he couldn't get the the helmut hat, he got really sad.  His lower lip and chin started quivering holding back the tears when I told him to go put the helmut hat back.  He did put it back but was putting all of his effort into not crying.  When Pamma saw that, her heart broke and ended up getting both the hat and the football.  We love you, Pamma!

After a great lunch at Hugo's, we went to a park where Jackson got to try out his new football.  Casey was teaching him some plays until Jackson's motor went a little too fast and he went tumbling.  After a few minutes, he decided he wanted to play again.  Jenna was playing great defense, but Jackson got the ball off just in time:

After beating Jenna, he decided he needed a new opponent:

Later that afternoon, we went back to Christa's house for their wedding reception and pig roast.  When we arrived, the living room was filled with guys watching SEC football.  Once that game ended, we changed it to the OSU football game.  It was amazing how fast that room cleared out!  It was so great to  be able to celebrate Ryan and Christa and their new life together.  They are perfect for each other!  It was so great to be able to see "Unc" (Uncle John) and Aunt "Buddy".  They are such wonderful people.  We are so lucky to have them in our family!

The past week has been a blur of activity.  Dad went to pick up Grandma Etta and bring her back to Oklahoma for the Thanksgiving holiday.  After driving 14 hours on Friday back to Stillwater, they drove another 1.5 hours on Saturday morning to see our house and watch Jackson play in his last football game.  She is such a trooper!  Especially when you consider she'll be 90 in two weeks!

We found a great spot to sit and watch Jackson.  Jackson loved having such a big cheering section!

It's hard to believe that another soccer season has already ended.  Jackson has improved so much over where he started 2 years ago!  We were fortunate to have such a great team this year with 1/2 the team being teammates from previous seasons.  We loved having Coach Andy as our coach again this year along with the other parents from seasons past.  It was great to see how many of the parents were out there playing with their kids during practice this year.  Hopefully basketball will be just as good!

After the game, Mom, Dad and Grandma had to hurry back to Stillwater for the OSU game.  The next morning, everyone got back into the car and drove to Edmond to celebrate Reese's birthday.  Happy 4th Birthday, Reese!  Jenna had done such a great job with a dress-up party for Reese and her friends earlier in the week, and they saved a goodie bag for Jackson - complete with a pirate's hat, eye patch and beard.  He looked so cute in it.  Reese was the ultimate hostess and kept asking everyone if they needed more lemonade or food to eat.

Reese got a big girl bike for her birthday, so throughout the day, Reese and Jackson would go outside to ride bikes.  They had a great time together!

In house news, we are making great progress.  In two weeks, we went from this:

to this:

to this:

Each time we visit our new house, we are both struck with how much we love our new neighborhood. One of Jackson's old classmates lives right next door, and he always asks if he can go play anytime we are there.  It warms our heart to hear them shriek with laughter as they play together.  The last time we went, we stayed for over 2 hours as we were measuring all of the rooms and double checking it with our plans.  When it was time to leave, both Jackson and Claire were sad that it was over.  Claire even asked if we could come back tomorrow, and when we said we wouldn't be there, she asked "well, how about Monday?"  We can't wait to be there permanently!  All of the stress with our past homes seems worth it now that we are almost here.

Family Fun Days

So glad it is fall!  We had an awesome night for Halloween.  After several weeks of making our costumes, it was finally time for the Super Family to go out on the town.  Jackson loved that we dressed up!

Although Jackson was hesitant at first to go out with a larger group of kids, he quickly got into it and lead the group from one house to the next.  His swagger was in full effect!   He absolutely loved ringing the doorbells this year and could hardly keep from running to the next house.  The kids also got a great kick out of Tom, who was playing up his role as Hulk - he'd bound from house to house in true Hulk fashion and then pretend to roar at the kids.  As you can see below.....I think they liked it.  

Our schedules have been so busy that we decided we needed to take a family day just for the three of us.  It was such a wonderful day!  We started out with what was supposed to be a really quick visit to our house.  Our slab had been poured (more on that in a later post), so we wanted to take a look.  Jackson's friend and new next-door neighbor, Claire, was home and so Jackson jumped the fence and they were playing together.  So, Tom and I took the opportunity to walk through all of the new houses around our house.  Almost 2 hours later, we realized that we needed to go on with our family fun day plans.  

It was such a perfect day for the zoo.  Tom made the smart decision of riding the train to the back of the zoo and then walking back to the front.  That's the way to do it!  Jackson loved riding the train, and I was surprised how many of the animals you could see on our ride.  

Jackson really wanted to see the lions and tigers, so that was one of the first places we went.  Here Tom and Jackson are pretending to be lions....I see a resemblance.  

Here Jackson is teaching us how to be flamingos:

The new sea lion exhibit was really cool.  I could have watched the two sea lions all day.  They swam back and forth in front of us, twisting and turning all around.  One even swam up on a rock in front of us, watching us as we posed for the camera. 

Jackson was our tour guide and insisted on holding the map in his pockets.  

No trip to the zoo is complete without a monkey pic!  

After the zoo, we had a late lunch at Abuelos (their tropical salsa is wonderful!) and then caught an afternoon movie, "Wreck It Ralph".  It was really a funny movie and had all three of us laughing out loud.  It was one of the best days we have had as a family, and we are all so much more relaxed at the end.  Can't wait for our next family fun day! 

Monstober

Jackson is gearing up for Halloween this year.  The costumes have been coming out more than usual...along with some interesting combinations:

May the force be with you:

Who said Captain America couldn't fly?

Not even sure what to call this get-up:

Just a casual outfit to play Mario-Kart:

Last weekend we went to OSU Homecoming Walkaround and the football game.  It was a beautiful weekend for it.  And who can resist a camel ride?

The next morning, Dad and Reese left early to secure our parade-watching spot while Mom made an amazing breakfast feast for tailgating during the parade.  All of a sudden, 8am parades don't seem so bad - in fact, I think I prefer them!

Jackson and Reese stayed warm while waiting for the parade to start:

Reese may have a future career in modeling - as soon as she saw my camera, she started doing all sorts of poses.  Jackson tried to keep up, but he didn't have the same repertoire of moves that Reese had:

The parade was great this year.  Jackson and Reese loved all of the candy and getting to wave at everyone on the floats.  Jackson was especially excited to receive this football.  I wonder when he'll realize that he's planning with a football from a Women's Clinic? Didn't matter to Jackson - he carried it the rest of the time and even pretended like he was running with it and protecting it like a real football player.  :)

We didn't have much time after the parade to get to the game, but we made it in time.  Neither Tom nor I had been at the stadium since all of the changes, and it was so impressive!  We had great seats about 20 rows from the field.

Jackson really liked yelling "DEFENSE!"  A couple of times, he told me "I think they need some help" and then proceeded to yell "Go Pokes" and "Defense" as loud as he could.  He started to get a little tired before half-time, but sitting with Papa and Pamma at halftime seemed to help.  He stayed behind with Papa for the 3rd quarter, and by the time we joined up with them in the 4th quarter, he was wound up with new clapping moves from Papa and a newfound liking for Dipping Dots.

We had our first Parent-Teacher conference this week.  Tom and I were excited to go and hear what a great kid Jackson is.  Ms. Sara didn't disappoint!  She mentioned that Jackson is ready to do more reading and suggested we get books from the library, so later this week, Tom took Jackson to pick out some books.  Jackson even got his own library card!  It's going to be hard to explain why I can't take Jackson to the library....or maybe I can start using his card from now on!

We've been trying to have Jackson read to us more since he's been in kindergarten, and he's really getting good.  Soon after he got his new library books, I had him read one to me.  I was so impressed that I had to ask him if he had read it before.  But no - this was his first time!  I was amazed.  At night, he always asks if he can read 1-2 more by himself after we tuck him in.  Usually he's pretty good about turning off the light, but sometimes he is so tired that he falls asleep while reading....

In house news, I think we've finally finalized the plans!  We've even had the "transition" meeting with the salesman to the foreman, so I think we're almost on our way.  They should be staking the house on the lot early this week....fingers crossed!  We finally picked the brick and rock - it's the same brick and same colors of rock as the house in Nottingham that Tom and I always drove by and said how much we loved that house.  Someday we'll have our own!

The start of Halloween parties has begun.  Jackson had his Halloween Carnival at school last Friday, and he has Boo Ha Ha Williams on Tuesday and another Halloween party at school on Wednesday.  Whew!  Jackson did every single station at the Carnival.  I didn't know that Iron Man could hula hoop:

He particularly liked the tattoo station.  I still don't understand how everytime there are tattoos, that he insists on at least one directly in the middle of his forehead!

There were many superheroes in attendance: 1 Iron Man, 2-3 Batmans, 2 Green Lanterns, 2 Captain America's and several Power Rangers.

Stay tuned for pics from Halloween later this week - Jackson is excited that he's going to have his own team of superheroes going around with him trick-or-treating.....