Turkey Bowl 6

It's an annual tradition for the crazy people in our church to get together at 8 a.m. at a local park to play some flag football. This year, the entire Spaid family joined in.

Looks like Maggie is about to hike, it, doesn't she? Yep, I took that shot. I'm so glad it turned out! Here she is, appeasing Mama, for a shot with the football. Tyler didn't get to play this year, he helped man the video cameras for the highlight reel, but he still got some exercise. It was a chilly morning, so Maggie and her friend Shealy got under some blankets to keep warm.The team that won the "Smedly Cup". Smed is our old youth pastor who started Turkey Bowl in 2002. The cup is in his honor. We love you, Smed (and Janet, and kiddos)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that all our famiy and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day this year. We are headed to Seth, Dixie, and Zayli's house shortly for our big feast. We have so many things to be thankful for, today and every day of our lives, God is so good to us! But it's nice to have a day dedicated to it so we take a moment between Turkey Bowl, and football, and a big dinner, to stop and reflect. Lots of love!

Several Thursdays ago, I helped Maggie and Zayli make hand-turkeys. Maggie did the stickers like a pro, but Mama helped her press her hands and put on the feathers so I could still see her adorable hand-prints. Maggie LOVES to finger/hand paint now, and has made several more iterations of the hand-turkeys.

Play-Doh Jewelry

Here's Maggie's play-doh bracelet that I made her. she loved it for about 2 mintues. She ripped it off her arm and decided to make a whale and a fancy band-aid. I'm not sure how the band-aid was fancy, but maggie attests that it was.

Back to my regular posting

Hi everyone, I am done with weddings until January. I will try to post a little more regularly.

I Love Autumn

These pictures are from 2 weekends ago, this weekend was cold and rainy, not fun for leaves.
One thing I really love about Nashville is the abundance of maple trees, oak trees, dogwoods, etc. that provide a beautiful scene every fall. Maggie loves to crunch in the leaves, this year she really has had a lot of fun playing in them. Tyler's Indian name is "Dancing with Leaf Blowers".Sittin in the leaves is fun! (Not for Mommy, only Maggie and Daddy. It makes my skin crawl to think about how many bugs are in those leaves) They had so much fun getting buried in leaves!

A Little Victory for Mama

See those Froot Loops? Maggie didn't like them. She took one bite, declared them yucky, and asked for Rice Crispies. That is what I like to call a little victory for Mama.

I know, sounds strange coming from the girl who seriously could eat a pound of chocolate a day and not feel sick, and whose favorite cereal growing up was Coco Puffs. But, in the past several years, sickeningly sweet breakfast cereal makes me want to puke in the morning. I need something plain like corn flakes, rice crispies, raisin bran, or multigrain Cheerios in the morning. The quantity of sugar in most cereals is becoming a bigger concern for me also - added bad calories and whatnot.

I am trying really hard to teach Maggie good eating habits so she will stay skinny her whole life and not struggle (Ok, mostly fail) with her weight as she gets older like Mama does. Part of that is not eating a lot of sweets and sugary foods. Sure, she gets a sugar cookie every time we go to a certain grocery store (only 1x a week) and gets M&M's or a sucker as a treat occasionally, but I don't want those bad carbs to be a staple in her diet. So when she turned her nose up at Froot Loops it made my heart jump with gladness that at least I am doing something right for her in that area. Praise God for small victories!

Happy Halloween

This year Maggie went as a pink princess. I got this costume on clearange last year at The Children's Place Outlet, for, wait for it, $1.50. No kidding!!! I got it the first weekend in December on last year's trip to Gatlinburg. You can't s it in the pictures, but she's got on TONS of glitter in her hair, on her face, and "Sprinkle" chapstick (it had glitter in it). Maggie loved getting to have all those "sprinkles" in her hair.

We went to church for the "Fall Festival" after stopping for a quick visit to our grocery store for some candy and cookies. Here's Maggie and Daddy. When we got out of the car at the store she would not let go of lamb, so Daddy had to carry the princess wand. Maggie as the pink princess, Zayli as a fairy (pronounced Berry, according to Zayli). Decorating our own pumpkin cookie.Maggie enjoying a wonderful homemade Shirley Haskins donut at the fall festival. Seriously, we tried and tried to get her to look at Daddy while he took the picture. I went as my alter-ego, Super Flower Girl. =) Bouncing on the ramp into the bouncy castle. Maggie did not want to actually go into it. Facepainting. She did a great job holding still for the girl that did the painting. She got a litle red butterfly, and didn't touch it or rub it the rest of the evening. Trying yet again to get Maggie to look at the camera. Eating her favorite candy, a sucker. The duckie pool was her favorite booth again this year. She loves that pool of water. She had a great time at the festival - pitched a HUGE fit on the way out the door, which continued on the 10-minute drive home and into the house. Despite that, it was a really fun night, it's so fun to see her enjoy getting dressed up and understand the fun a little more.

Jack-O-Lanterns 2008

Here are my pumpkin creations this year. Halloween totally snuck up on me this year. Gaga and Papa got Maggie a pumpkin at the pumpkin farm when we were in Mexico, but I didn't get any other pumpkins until Monday. Yesterday, after I picked up Maggie from Mother's Day Out, I brought the pumpkins in the house and carved all three. I love all these this year, the ones with eyes are a kit that comes with plastic eyes you insert so they glow. Pretty cool.
I'll post pictures of Maggie's costume Halloween night if I can, otherwise Saturday night.

Gatlinburg 2008

The fall trip to Gatlinburg is becoming an annual tradition. This year we went with Anthony & Meredith Brooks & Riley, Jamin & Christie Dunn & Nyah & Aubrey. This is the first year we've brought our kids. Maggie LOVED having Nyah to play with.

We did have one unhappy surprise there - SCORPIONS!!! There was a dead one in our bedroom, which we found pretty early on the first night we got there. Then, about 10 or so, Meredith found a live one in their bathroom. Then, since we all had our precious babies with us, we started searching our rooms for them. That, of course, required waking up all the soundly sleeping kiddos so we could search their beds. Jamin & Christie found a live one in their bedroom, then we found a 2nd in our bedroom, another in the game room, and 3 more in the laundry room. EEK!!! 8 scorpions. We were NOT happy. Maggie didn't go back to bed until 1 a.m. But, it turns out the scorpions in the Great Smoky Mountains are relatively harmless and fairly rare (8 out of the remaining 10 were in our cabin). I will not be posting any pictures of scorpions here, they are too gross.

On to the fun:
The older girls, Nyah and Maggie, were getting restless Saturday after breakfast, so I took them on a walk outside. We walked to 2 neighboring cabins and gathered leaves. I made them into a centerpiece for the table.
Tyler and Jamin took the girls in the hot tub while the ladies were shopping at the outlet mall on Saturday. I didn't pack Maggie's swimsuit, so she got to go in the tub in her panties. Good thing she's not even 3.

Saturday afternoon project: caramel apples. The girls had lots of fun helping me unwrap the caramels, and then decorating their apples with sprinkles.
The girls (and adults) got to enjoy caramel apples after dinner.

Waiting for brunch on Sunday. We thought about going to the Apple Barn for brunch, but the traffic in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville is enough to make anyone go insane. It's worse than Seattle rush-hour traffic. So, we took the back way out of town and ate at Cracker Barrel.
Aubrey and Nyah at brunch.
Maggie loved the biscuits!

Maggie's Souvenir

We got Maggie a little guitar in Cabo. It was better than the turtle whistles that vendors would hoot at you whenever you got within 15 feet of them. Here she is singing about her Gramma and Grampa.