Thanksgiving!

We had a great time visiting Derick's sisters family over the break. Very eventful. Of course the pictures are all out of oil. hahahaha order. I am watching Cars2 while I type.

I thought this was the cutest! Jess would fill up the wheel barrel with leaves and the babies would get in for the while. Well I guess they really arnt babies anymore.We went to a park near their house and O'lena was enthralled with this pillar. She was just standing there for like 10 mins. Just hanging there.....She looks so little from far away.
The girls playing on the rocking horses.
How many minds does it take to move a dishwasher?
Actually they were trying to install it in to the cabinetry.
Tiggy Tighe! I love this kid. He is just the sweetest thing. So stinking cute.
The babies in the leaves...oh yeah not babies any more. It was super cute.
The first thing O'lena did when we went outside is play in the leaves. Jess made a big pile and they all had a blast.
Cooking for Thanksgiving. Man, it was the best. We ate it for three days.
Playing the leaves. That is something that we dont have down here...falling leaves. We do have falling needles.
Daddy and O'lena cooking marshmallows.
The cousins playing together on the playground. It was great watching them interacting.
My pretty Linguine.
I love these pictures of the girls dressed up. These were super cute.

Tiggy and Tank! That dog was great. He would swing from the rope. It was great.
Fire Pit!!! It was beautiful weather while we were there.
4 Kids vs. 3 adults at Publix...kids won! This was cute though. O'lena wasn't too happy, but they were contained.
O'lena learning how to play the wii. She was totally cute. She kind of got the idea.
My favorite time was meal time with all the cousin sitting at the counter. They were cute.
Lena and Tiggy were like two peas in a pod. They got along very well.
Here is the picture of what she did when she first saw the leaves. She took them and knew just what to do.

Catch-up Slideshow...so many things to share; this was the fastest way

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Jim's Surprise Birthday!!

Soooooo we had a surprise 50th birthday party!! I cant believe it but we actually pulled it off. He was surprise!! We originally wanted to do a pig roast ourselves but we figured Jimmy would want to be a part of it so we had is catered instead. Rib City actually cooked this one for us. They were awesome. They came out and set up and even brought plates!! Wasn't it beautiful?!

This is what we decorated the tables with. We originally wanted to put down table clothes but the wind was so bad they wouldn't stay on the table unless we put more tape in it than the actual table cloth. I think it looked better all natural anyways.

Pig and cake lay out. I will talk about the cake later in the pictures...yeah that is a deer.

That is the sign. We had the party out at the FGCU Buckingham Center, off of Buckingham Road. It was a great location!

Here is Jimmy coming up to his party. I think he had put it together by this time.

We made a fire in the big put just for looks at first. It did provide nice heat later on.

Some of the spread.

Yes, I have to put in pictures of O'lena.
This is the best part. Jim got to cut into his own pig. I think he kind of enjoyed it. We did have enough pig to last a good couple of meals later too. He/she was yummy.
This is the park where it too place. We thought it was quite nice. It is open to the public for parties and retreats.
Everyone digging in.
Olena playing with the puzzles.
Say cheese!
Gunkle and Lena.
Yeah, we made him serve his own pig.
The deer to tell you where to turn. Jim did say he recognized it when turning in, but wasn't sure at that point why it was out there.
The view from a far.
The second best idea that I had...i thought it was funny....
Derick smoking the hamburgers...hahaha..he was just suppose to be grilling them but for some reason it got a but smokey. You can see which way the wind was blowing.
Grandma Lee and Jeff came down from North Carolina for the party. It was a big surprise too. We had known for a couple of weeks that they were coming and it was really hard not to slip and say something. REALLY HARD
Awwww the cake. These are out of order..of course, but here is where he started cutting the cake. I'll talk more about this cake later.
O'lena's best friend. She loves Autumn.
Stuffing the face with marshmallow. mmmmmm
So the fire place was so big that even Derick could get roasted. :) I think this was my favorite picture of the evening.
Jimmy's cake! The best cake ever!! It is a deer! With a cigar! And a shot gun! And a liquiar!! So stinking cute!! And yummy too.
Me and a tuckered out Linguini. I had a better one where I was not grabbing her crotch to keep her up on my lap, but it has seemed to have disappeared.
At the end we had ran out of firewood so we sent Bryan and Ashely to round up some more. They came back with a tree. It was so long that it didn't fit in the truck so Ashley had to hold on to it while the truck pulled it around.

Round two, or was it three. They were the best firewood finders out there.Cutting the last bit of meat off the hog. We didn't want to waist any of it. Jimmy is getting carving lessons from mamma. I thought this was so cute.

Naturally this is out of order, but this is O'lena with Grandad. He is her comfort pad. When ever she see him, she goes right up into his lap. So stinking cute.
All in all, everyone had a great time. I am curtain the birthday boy did; which is the only thing that matters. We just hope this will go in history as his most favorite birthday ever! Well at least I do and think mom does too.