Who's the Real Santa?

Christmas is definitely in the air at the Henry house! Ruby(our elf on the shelf) came back the night we got back from Thanksgiving and you better believe we are on count down. We are going to get our tree on Friday, if the rain holds off. Suppose to get really cold and rainy here. The Christmas list are growing by the minute, and the attitudes are looking up! Whew, if only it could be Christmas all year. All I have to say is --"ruby is watching you" and I immediately get "sorry mom I'll be better". My new threat is for every time someone is ugly Santa takes a toy away. That makes Gates cry, but it works! He is being really good. Gunnar needs a few reminders here and there too. But overall they are both behaving remarkably well. I have been ask by Gunnar if their really is a Santa--didn't want to deal with that quite yet, but we just told her in this house if you don't believe you don't receive! I think that's a great motto. HOHOHO- -only 21 days to go.....

Preschool Christmas Fun

Gates had his first big show today! So cute he was. He got up this morning not feeling like a star but by the end of the day he was beaming from ear to ear. He was tired and grumpy and very upset with me for putting him in an under shirt. He said "these R jammies I'm NOT wearing this to school!!!". I tried to explain it was an under shirt as he crawled back in bed, but he wasn't buying it. Finally, after I told him he was wearing his "work" shirt over it he decided it would be ok. We put his dress shoes on him for the big show and he informed me they were his "dancin" shoes. Don't know where that came from, but OK. Then I asked him to sing his song for me to practice one last time---Jingle Bells never sounded soooo funny. According to Gates as Santa is riding in his sleigh he is also going PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Thankfully it didn't come out that way on stage. Actually nothing came out at all, from any of them. They just shook their bells and smiled. His class went last and even without voices they stole the show. They waved and yelled "hey mom", and just did their own thing. Got to just love those sweet little faces. Gates spotted Gunnar and stood up and said "hey Gunna" and showed his muscles! Of course we all chuckled and that made him act out more. He was shooting spider man webs and giving everyone a thumbs up. I love that little guy. He makes us laugh all the time, his peronality is almost always uplifting:) Notice I say almost--we all have our moments! I'm going to try to add a video we will see how that goes--

A Beachy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving at the beach is well, what more could you ask for, besides all of the family to be there of course. It was awesome though. The weather was a little cool but no one seemed to mind. The kids were in the ocean and didn't even notice how coooolllldddd it was. I stuck my feet in and instantly they were numb. Maybe that's why the kids stay in so long, their bodies go numb and they just don't feel it anymore.

We took 30 pounds of crab legs with us, yes, you read that right 30 pounds! And you better believe that all 30 pounds were gone, and quickly. We actually did have a little left and had planned to make crab legs on Friday night, but some crazy men decided after eating a huge Thanksgiving feast on Thursday, they would just finish off the crab meat too. That was after a nice cigar on the beach--must give you the munchies, because I can say that I could not fit another bite in my mouth after our huge turkey feast. (and all the women had gone to bed, so they snuck it only to leave us blind sighted on Friday when it came crab time):) MEN!!
I cooked the turkey and let me give myself a little kudos---it was fabulous!! Yummo!! We had enough food to feed an army, so we had left overs for days, which is always my favorite. I won't even get into the long list of goodies we ate, just trust me when I say it was a lot and it was great.
We had football wars on the beach. Family against family. The Hen's didn't score so well---YUP we are 7 and 0. Have you seen the size of the Walters!!!! We have little people on our side and those guys are Giants!! And their legs, well Shayne can walk over me without me bending down, and Tiff she's got the ghetto boodie which equivalates to POWER!! OK so really we aren't great ball players but we sure can do some flips.. Gunnar did back handsprings(by herself) all day long down the beach. She's good, yes I'm bragging. And Gates well he's just down right crazy!! They are both great at everything they attempt.
We didn't shop on Friday, just too far to go and really nothing on sale that we wanted, but on our way home Saturday we did stop by the outlets and grab a few goodies. The men grumbled because we left them to deal with the kids, it was only fair seeing that we did put them to bed every night so they could have MAN time which means cigar smoking...
It was a great trip, so much fun, so many great memories. The kids love the beach and well, so do we. There is just nothing like playing outside, being completely carefree for five days during November. We played games, saw dolphins, ran races, told stories around the fire, made smores and just enjoyed one anothers company. That just doesn't happen all the time, so you gotta take it when you can.