Thanksgiving 2012

 

Our Thanksgiving plans are always the same. We wake up have a yummy Thankgsiving breakfast at home. Then we sit in our pjs and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then we clean up and head to my parents house.  My in-laws head back east to be with our family so we call them later that night and plan our black Friday shopping.  It's a fun, quiet day where we celebrate everything that we are thankful for...which is a lot...much more than we deserve.

 

Breakfast Pancakes. Z or W removed his feet and gobble before the picture.

 Uncle Matt helping my mom carve the beautiful turkey

Here's Tom Turkey

This is my mom leaning on the counter like my Pappy did when he was alive. He would always travel to Missouri and cook our Thanksgiving turkey. He would let my sister and I sit on the counter and watch. Meanwhile he would be wearing a V-neck cotton undershirt and would lean on the counter...not sure why I remember that so much but I do.

Our little JerJer is one happy turkey!

 Zachary loves his cousin!

 We try to do an automatic timed photo at every holiday. We take about 20 of them and this was the first one with everone looking. The only bad part is the camera was sitting on a book and when the flash went of a reflection of the book caused this glow in the corner.  O'well!  It was a great day!

Flying Bat: Thanksgiving Feast

The Kindergarteners at Zachary's school had a Thankgiving Feast. Zachary's Teacher, Mrs. A spent about two weeks teaching about the Pilgrims, Indians, The First Thanksgiving, and The Mayflower.  Zach would come home every day telling me new details and facts. His art teacher spent about 2-3 weeks of art making custom clay necklaces. Zachary could hardly wait until his art class on Monday when the clay had been fired.  He loves stuff like that. 

 

Each student picked an Indian name. Zachary's was FLYING BAT.  It was funny because all the kids knew each others name and in the classroom they were called their Indian name. When I was up there volunteering I had to giggle because Mrs. A would say, "Shy Deer" I need you to come do your word ring at my desk. Or I heard, "Dancing Zebra" can you bring me your paper".  It got to be where Zachary wanted us to refer to him as "Flying Bat" at dinner.  Too funny!

 

Mrs. A's Kindergarten Class at the Feast

Flying Bat's vest

Zachary's Thanksgiving Feast Plate...popcorn, cheese, summer sausage, turkey slice, and Lofthouse sugar cookie. YUM!

 These three boys are ADORABLE!  They are the three amigos in their class.  My prayer is that these three can remain best friends all through out their school days. Kevin is still best buds with friends from his kindergarten class so it can be done. 

 Pilgrim Bartholomew came over for a picture.  This was hilarious. I had no idea who the pilgrim was. I thought it was either a dad or the Principal's son.  I said, "Hey pilgrim can these boys get a picture with you."  Come to find out this is Dr. Kevin Kopp he's the Executive Director of Elementary Education for our district.  After finding out this information I was embarrassed that I called him "Pilgrim". It was very sweet of him to come read to the kids and dress up.

Zachary with Pilgrim Dr. Kopp

I am just in love with Zachary's school, teacher, special teachers, and the entire crew at his elementary school. The amount of time they spend inside the classroom and outside of the classroom is impressive.  He's had a great year so far! 

I'm Proud to Be An American!

Zachary's elementary hosted a very sweet Veteran's Day Assembly.  I was relieved that Zach's school hosted theirs on Monday, November 12th and my nephew Elliott's school hosted their Veteran's Day assembly was on Friday November 9th. This meant that my parents could be honored at both events and both boys were so excited to show off their granparents.  I am amazed and so blessed that my parents and father-in-law are US Veterans who served in Viet Nam. I tell my mother-in-law that she served too because she was back in West Virigina raising a one year old son while her husband was in Viet Nam fighting for our daily freedoms so really that makes all four of Zach & Will's grandparents Veterans. 

 

The morning started out with a coffee & breakfast in the Art Room of Z's school. Very sweet of the staff and students to do this.

 Will enjoyed all the attention too! Cheese ball!

 My father-in-law and Kevin were in South Dakota pheasant hunting. They had planned their hunting trip 9 months ago. We were bummed that Marv could not be at the assembly so we took lots of pictures to share with him.

 Zachary with Grams & Pops

 MaMaw with Zachary

 All of the Veteran's represented at Zachary's elementary school. Thanks for serving!

 Grams & Pops on the 2nd row

 I submitted all of their photos for a slide show to be shown at the assembly. Unfortunately they did not get put in the show. Not sure what happened but I am glad that I now have these pictures in digital form for our records. 

Here's Papaw's veterans photo. Probably one of the coolest photos I have ever seen.

 Here's Pops photo in Viet Nam. Nice mustache dad!

Here is a pic of my mom with 4 wounded soldiers.  My mom said it was never this quiet or peaceful in Viet Nam. But this was the day before Christmas and these soldiers were supposed to be back with their group in the jungle. However one of the doctors couldn't send them back out their on Christmas so he let them get an extra day in the hospital.

I'm so proud of my family. I'm so proud of the sacrifices that they made. I'm proud of the individuals that I do not know that served and are serving. Thank You just doesn't seem like enough. 

2 boys, 1 shirt, 5 year difference!

 

 

One thing I love about having two baby's in the month of September is that I can use a lot of the same clothes that I used with Zachary for Will. I also love that it is very easy to "compare" the two of them.  I know it is not good to always compare your children to each other because they are two very separate and different individuals but I like to compare their size and milestones at a certain level just because its neat to see how similar they really are.  However I don't dwell or live in comparing my boys. 

 

 

Here is Zachary at 11.5 months in September 2006

 

I love this sequence of him pulling himself up on our coffee table.

5 years later...here is Will doing the same thing, in the same outfit, around the same time. September 2012

You can definitely tell these two brothers do not look alike but they are related :) 

I just took Will to his 1 year old well child check up. The stats were almost the exact same.
Both boys weighed the same. Zachary was 1/2 inch longer whereas Will's head was 1/2 inch bigger. 

Too funny!  So thankful that God blessed me with these two very sweet boys!

Let's Go Hillsboro Hawks!

This fall we had a once-and-a-lifetime thing occur in our city. Kevin's high school alma mater's football team came to our current city to play one of the area high school teams. You might not think this is a big deal but to Kevin and his football friends this was HUGE.  We have been blessed so much by Kevin's Highschool friends.  Six of Kevin's closest friends that were in his graduating class (or the class or two ahead of him) remain "besties".  The coolest part of these 6 amazing guys is they are married to amazing ladies whom I love and adore.  We all get a long and have so much in common. We try to get together will our Hillsboro friends at least twice a year however since we have had children we see each other a lot more.  Never thought that would happen!  So in September the Hawks came to town and so did Erick, Mary, Sara, & Coach Bill and their children to spend the night! 

 

Of course I had to decorate in blue & white and have some type of football decor everywhere.   

 

 

Hillsboro Hawks Cupcakes

 

 

Prior to the game the kiddos played forever in Z's costumes:

 

Group Photo while we are waiting for the rain to stop so we can go to the game

(Left-Right)

Hil, Kev, Will, Erick, Mary, Noah, Grant, Sara (and Baby Emma inutero)

Chase, Carter, Riley, and Zachary

 Riley's big thing after every photo was to say SILLY FACE...heres our silly faces.

 At the game. Kevin had a perma-grin on his face all night!

 Halftime! Kevin and Z on the sidelines! Can you tell Kevin is in Hawk Heaven!

 Silly Face!  It was awesome how great the kids got along. Zachary was sad when everyone left on Saturday afternoon.

 Erick #85 and Kevin #72

Bill is the offensive line coach for the Hawks.  When they played football Bill was the quarterback.

 Coach Bill #12, Erick (and Grant sleeping), and Kevin post win!

 Chase and Zachary LOVED running the field after the game. Chase was teaching Zachary all kinds of plays.

 

 

It was a FUN, FUN, weekend filled with lots of memories, laughter, and food! 

A Big surprise!

Zachary's school is really big on parent/family involvement. They encourage and welcome parents to come and eat with your child(ren). I love this! I wanted to go eat with Z the first week of school but I was hesitant because I didn't want him to rely on me coming to eat with him and I didn't want to be that hovering mom that prevents him from making friends so I waited 2 LONG weeks to go eat lunch with him. I invited my parents to come along and of course they were just as excited as I was. I did not tell Zachary that I was coming. In fact I sent his lunch box in his backpack and put a note inside that said, "SURPRISE!". When his class came down the hallway for lunch Grams, Pops, Will, and I were waiting with Wendy's. Zachary spotted us and turned bright red. He waved and you could tell he was SO EXCITED! The P.E. teacher was on lunch duty and she set us up at the end of the table so we could have a nice lunch.

The kids meal had Where's. Waldo? glasses in them.  Pops and Zachary LOVED this.  All the kids in Z's class thought my dad was the best grandpa ever....oh wait he is!

 Group picture!

 Pops...Aka Jerry Potter

 Zachary was in Heaven!

Even though we were only with Zachary 25 minutes it was a great time to love on him, encourage him, and eat lunch with him. It was the highlight of his day, week, or probably year.  Thanks Grams & Pops for coming out to lunch with Z.  Zachary has informed me that he would love another "surprise lunch" whenever we want to come back. 

Friday Night Lights!

This summer Zachary and our nephew, Elliott played coach pitch baseball on Friday nights.  They were on the same team, with the same boys as they were on last year.  It was a great experience to watch all of the boys mature and start to LOVE the game.  Of course our family (my parents, Kevin's parents, my sister & brother-in-law, and his parents) filled the stands to cheer on these kids.  We even got teams shirts and had them personalized.  I can't even think what we will be like if the boys chose to play sports in high school or college.  We are NUTS!

 

Here's Pops shirt!

 And of course Grams shirt!

 And mine.....Z always picks the wierdest number. Last year he was 66.

 Zachary's favorite position is catcher.  To be honest he LOVEs all the garb that goes with being a catcher. 

 Here's the boys on Team Picture night. Elliott is on the far left 2nd row. Zachary is 2 down from Elliott on the 2nd row. Matt is on the coaches row far Left, Then Kevin, Then our good friend Bryan who was the HEAD coach. 

 Here's Z showing off his smile. 

I was really proud of both boys and the team. They really learned a lot and had a lot of fun!