Friday, November 23, 2012

THANKSGIVING!!!

It's amazing that so much fun could happen in under 48 hours, but it did.  Steve's brother, his wife, and their two girls come down from PA for the Thanksgiving holiday.  This was kind of a momentous event because all three girls could play together for the first time.  And boy did they play together.  

The first greatest moment was ring around the rosie.  I've never seen Cadance play it with someone besides me.  She loved it.  Mabel kept sitting down early, not really sure what was going on.

Here are the girls watching Charlie Brown on Wednesday.  Coralee was very impressed that they were sharing a couch.  


Thanksgiving morning started off right with pumpkin coffee cake.  I know the dinner is the main event, but I have this crazy need to have delicious pastries Thanksgiving morning.  


Dressing the turkey

Should I reveal what they were doing?  Either way it was brother time

The dads took the girls to the park, which they loved.

Swinging

Slide time

Some cousin love.  Isn't Cadance's hair insane
Here is the dinner round up.  We ate well.

The turkey.  Isn't she a beauty.  We were super excited.  

Rolls, stuffing, and potatoes cooking

Rolls, brussel sprouts, and stuffing waiting to fill out bellies

jello salad, green beans, cranberry sauce, and turkey.  Steve carved the turkey.  I have this crazy fear about doing it.  Maybe it just seems like a husband thing

Very proud of the dinner

Here's the gang, ready to eat


Cadance loved the food.  Especially the "sparking juice" we had.   Too  bad it gave her a crazy bad stomach ache

The clean up crew.  Got to love it.  

We finished the evening with pumpkin and pecan pie and some game.

Friday, in order to exhaust the girls before heading up to PA we went to Maymont Park to take a light walk.

Cadance heading into the Italian Garden

Some of the few flowers in bloom.  Super pretty.
The light walk turned into an adventure as we wound our way down the steps of the Italian garden into the bamboo thickets of the Japanese Garden.  

Cadance walking down the steps without any help.  She was very reluctant.  

Annie and Cadance running to the bridge.


There was this cool rock seat.

This tree was the most amazing yellow color.  I know you can't tell in the picture, but it far made up for all the bare ones around it.

The walk ended in three exhausted little girls who were in need to food.  Thank you Pizza Hut buffet.  Mabel was particularly ecstatic about mass amounts of food being brought to her.


It was a great couple of days.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Stew Festival

Last Saturday we ventured into downtown Richmond for our first "Richmond" event, the annual Brunswick stew festival.  Apparently brunswick is a type of stew.

The festival was held at the 17th street market.  We've heard they have a farmer's market every weekend and host lots of events, so it was exciting to finally go to one.


We had a really good time sampling all the different stews, especially since it was about 50 degrees outside


Just to give you an idea about how serious this is, most entries cook their stew in something beastly like this


After eating lots of stew we headed back to the doughnut food truck.  We're really glad we did


Cadance was also there, but was very happy sitting in her stroller looking around, listening to music, and eating saltine crackers.  She definitely missed out on some good food, although the doughnut got her pretty excited.  Yea! for Richmond!



Saturday, November 3, 2012

The ABC's


Just in case anyone hasn't said, "oh my gosh, she is growing up so fast!" in a long time