Arabella's Birthday and Thanksgiving

It's been a while since I've updated our blog. All of the kids have been sick with chest colds, Hayden has gotten an infection on his legs from his chicken pox and Tate has strep throat and a double ear infection. It just makes me wonder how does a mom work and take care of kids. It just doesn't seem possible to me. Anyways, Arabella's birthday was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and she turned 6 years old. I can't believe she's halfway through Kindergarten. So big so fast. So for her birthday she decided she wanted to go to Kiddie Vegas, a.k.a. Chuck E. Cheese. We took her and the boys there for dinner and let her open her gifts from us and our families. She did quite well being patient and waiting till the end of the day to open her gifts. It would have been killing me if I was her. She was so excited to get the Hannah Montana and High School Musical Wii games along with pajamas and some Hannah Montana crocs. Needless to say there has been a lot of singing and dancing going on at our house these days. I know it's bad that I enjoy playing the games with her. But they really are so much fun. It makes me feel young again. We finished off the day with some rides and games, some birthday spankings at home and had a fun fun evening with just our little family. Happy Birthday baby girl!

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Gatlinburg, TN with 2 other families who are long time military friends of ours, Katie and Bruce Lloyd and Jody and Matt Miller. We rented a cabin in the mountains for 4 nights. There were 8 kids ranging from 4 months to almost 7 years old. All boys, except for Arabella. We packed up the kids, food and the MarioKart and enjoyed our friends for a few days of feasting and fun. Most of the time we were there someone in some part of the house was playing MarioKart on the Wii. We had a Wii upstairs and one downstairs. We had a great hottub out on the balcony overlooking the mountains. The day after Thanksgiving the girls ventured out to the outlets for a little shopping. We visited the Ripley's Aquarium and dined on some Mexican food on Saturday. By the way, anyone who ever goes to any of the Ripley's attractions-they have HUGE discounts for military families. So on our last night there we put the kids to bed early and played a little catch phrase as usual. Oh, and we put a huge hunk of leftover ham on the front porch to try to see the bear who frequently visits the area. I know, we're crazy. We jumped at every little noise we heard. But, no bear. The next morning we found out from our neighbors that he had come visiting earlier that night around dusk. Oh well, maybe next year. Here's some pictures from our excursion. This child LOVES hot tubs.