Best Long Weekend

Thanksgiving Weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the year...Eating good food, family time, Black Friday shopping, and chopping down a Christmas tree! Here is a taste of our weekend:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sophia made an APPLE PIE at her preschool. She picked the apples off the tree, peeled them, and rolled the dough out. She has one up on me because I've never made a pie! We had TJ's family over to our house and ate at 2pm and then we went over to my parents house at 4pm, so yes we ate twice!

Black Friday Shopping is next...

It actually started Thanksgiving night. We spent the night at my parent's house, along with my brother, Nate and his family so we wouldn't have to wake up the kids. So at 8:00pm we went to Michael's because they had their Cricuit cartridges (scrap booking) on a great deal. The plan was to go to bed and wake up at 2:30am to head to ToysRUs (who opened at Midnight). As TJ and I laid our head on our pillows, the phone rang...It was TJ's brother. He said that he drove by ToysRUs and the line was already wrapped around the building. I sat up and said, "Let's go!" So...TJ, Nate, and I went to ToysRUs at 11:40pm. We got in and got everything we were looking for. The store was CRAZY and the worst one all day! An hour and a half later we got out of the store alive...phew! We went back to my parents house to pick up my dad and sister-n-law. Instead of going to sleep we were just going to head to Old Navy who opened at 3am, but the line was crazy and we didn't need clothes that bad...Next was JcPenney. We were the 2nd ones in line, so we grabbed everything we needed and were out in a flash! On to Target...merged in line with some friends in the very front of the line and my dad and I merged in with my sis-n-law a little farther back. Well the ladies a few people back from Christine did not like the fact that we merged. My dad, Mr. Honest got out of line and went all the way back to the end (which was around the building), but I stayed put! Once again, we grabbed our items and headed out to Home Depot (for my dad). Last stop was Fred Meyer (7am). Got to get 1/2 socks, ha! By then I was glazing over a little (mind you no sleep still)! We took a cat nap (1 hour), then continued shopping and getting ready for our next activity, which was...

CHOPPING DOWN THE TREE

Good ol' Bacon's Tree farm. I am extremely picky. My mom always steps out of the car, points to a tree and says, "that's it!" And that's always the one she gets. I am not as lucky..."too skinny, weird shape, dry inside, etc, etc." TJ is a good sport, so we hiked all over the tree farm. Sophia wasn't in the best of moods, but I wasn't going to let that slow us down.

Wa-La...This one is the winner...Perfect proportions and 10ft tall! Our tallest tree!

Last year TJ cut down 3 trees with a hand saw and was done with that. I think it was his excuse to use a manly tool! (I did have a picture of him with it, but it got deleted and I am NOT redoing it, so you can visualize it).

Great 4 1/2 days off work...very hard to go back to work today...but 3 weeks till Christmas break!:)

Unexpecting Moment

I totally celebrate all moments in Sophia's life....even the POOPING ones! I walked into Sophia's preschool and everyone was under the parachute tent they made and were having lots of fun. Little did I know that the news would get better. As I crawled into the tent, Ms. Shelby told Sophia to tell me what she did today. I was thinking she painted or made a craft or something, but NOOOO.... Sophia said, "Pooped in da potty!" I cheered, Ms. Shelby cheered, Sophia jumped up and down. Sophia then had to show me the stickers she got on her chart next to the toilet (this is new for her) and she showed me the underwear she picked out (Elmo, pink stripes, and cupcake ones). I am lucky that Ms. Shelby loves potty training, even though I'm not going to start until I can be consistent with it (maybe Christmas break or the summer)? I guess peer pressure works. I heard the best way to potty train is stay inside for 3 days, use underwear, so kids can feel it rolling down their legs, and put them on the toilet like every 20 minutes...that sounds exhausting! Any other ideas for me so I can be ready when the time is right???

The Happiest Place on Earth...well almost!

My parents got tickets for the whole family to see "Disney on Ice!" on Saturday. Sophia woke up with a cold forming (runny nose, droopy eyes, sneezing, etc), but she did not want to miss out (sounds like her daddy and I) and was quite the trooper! We took the Kingston/Edmonds ferry. As you can see it was extremely windy and the boat was rockin.

We got to the Comcast Arena in Everett. I'd never been there before.
We got there quite early so we were able to walk around and get our seats. They were selling so many light-up souvenirs, water bottles, food, etc, but it was expensive. Aunt Mindy and Aunt Christine were smart and brought glow in the dark necklaces to share and wave around. We were only 5 rows back! Perfect Seats!

I wasn't quite sure how Sophia would do, but she was ready for the show and ended up loving it...what kid wouldn't?!

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse introduced the show with their friends Goofy and Donald Duck!

First up was CARS! All the cars were very cool and a great way to start the show! TJ wants the job of driving them:)

The gang was all there (there is a lot of pictures, but I couldn't leave anybody out):

Next up was Little Mermaid...Under da Sea...

Kiss da girl!

Then, Lion King

Rafiki (spelling?)

Daddy and Simba trying to get out of the stampede...

One of my favorites...Timon and Pumba (can you imagine ice skating on all 4s?)

Intermission: Great time to change Sophia's diaper. I thought I scored because I found a "family bathroom" with no line and no one in it! yeah! Except..what family bathroom doesn't have a changing table in it???

Sophia needed to visit Gamma and read the program during the break.

Finally, Tinkerbell and the other Fairies. This was probably my least favorite, but I'm sure all the little girls loved it:) I guess I'm not up on all my fairies. Mickey and Minnie came back out to close the show...Lots of Fun!

After the show we headed for the Old Spaghetti Factory in Alderwood. It was going to be an hour and a half way, so my smart hubby called Tacoma's Spaghetti Factory and put our names on the list. So, we got back in the car and headed for Tacoma. We arrived and our table was ready for us 5 minutes later...Good thinkin' hubby!

If you ask Sophia what she wants for breakfast, lunch, or dinner she almost always says, "Noodles!" So she was diggin' dinner...YUMMY brown butter with mazithra cheese!

Classic Lady and the Tramp...Sophia thought it was hilarious and wanted to continue to do it. Probably not the best table manners!

Slurp...KISS!

We didn't make it back home until 10:30pm. It was a full day filled with good company and lots of fun:)!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Sophia woke up from her nap just in time to get dressed as a tiger and go see GG at her house. GG got Sophia and her cousins a little Halloween treat.

Here are all the Uffens side cousins...We have a pirate, mermaid, tiger, Anakin Sky-Walker (don't know how to spell) and Darthvader! Sophia was scared of Anakin's mask because it looked so real..kinda freaked me out too!
We rushed home to meet the Brown cousins at our house. Here we have muscle man, a monkey, a frog, and the cutest tiger. I think it's skill to get all the young kids to pose with a smile.
But just as fast as we could pose them, just as fast they were done with the whole picture thing...Notice muscle man is already gone....haha. Hollie and the kids went with us to "trunk of treat" at the church building. The parking lot was packed with cars and the kids got loaded up with candy. Trunk or treat was perfect for Sophia and the little guys because they didn't have to walk too far. And it didn't rain, yah! Notice Sophia is dragging her pumpkin bag because it got so heavy with candy (that TJ and I have already devoured into!)

Mommy needed a picture with the tiger too!

We were done about 7pm. Sophia had to check out her goods as soon as she got in her car seat.

We ended our night at Gamma and Papa Uffens house to eat chili and corn bread.

And yes the treats aren't over. Gamma, Papa, and Aunt Nancy gave her some more goodies!