Westport Rivers Vineyard Open House

Westport Rivers Vineyard had a holiday open house today.  It was COLD, but everyone had a good time.

We started in the hay pit.  Who would have thought that a bunch of hay bales would be so entertaining, but the kids worked and played hard in the hay!  Collin did an awesome job lugging those hay bales and putting them in place to create a fort.

How cute is Kate?  Seriously, she's too cute for words.  I love the scenery too; it's a beautiful place for pictures.

 Reagan was fortunate to have a whole group of friends there to play with her, and Kate was happy to see the triplets.  They all helped Collin build his fort.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way Kate has her hands on Collin's arm in the above picture.  It's so sweet.  

 It was all about the hay today - the hay pit and the hayride were the highlights for the kiddos.

Someday Collin might not mind being the only boy with a bunch of girls, but today he was wishing for some buddies.  For the record, we did have a couple of boys in our group, but they were toddlers!

It was a great day of outdoor fun with friends!

Thanksgiving 2014

On the night before Thanksgiving, Tom, Collin, Tyler, and Alyssa were all at the movies and Kate was sleeping.  Reagan loves opportunities like that to have me to herself and ask me what we can possibly do with the time!!  I have wanted to do this project for years now, so I figured we would give it a try.

 We learned that of the pilgrims who came on the Mayflower, only 22 men, 4 women, 14 teenagers, and 13 children survived the first winter.  I helped Reagan make a visual representation of the survivors.

It was a great project for us, and I think it will stick with us too.

On Thanksgiving morning, Collin, Reagan, and Kate played board games, colored Thanksgiving pictures, ate cinnamon roll turkeys, and watched the parade.

When the parade ended, we went to Grandma's house.

I didn't take many pictures, but Reagan grabbed my camera and took all of these:

The Thanksgiving games were better than ever this year.  We played pin the hat on the turkey (Collin won), best name for the turkey (Reagan won with "Wishbone"), and turkey trot/gobble (Mark won; I'm still laughing at his turkey).  I don't have any pictures, but I do have some video of the turkey trots!

The best part of Thanksgiving, as always, was just being together with family and enjoying the company.

Fruity Turkeys

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

I love Charlie Brown and the Peanuts.  I remember looking forward to the seasonal specials as a kid.  I think it's kind of sad how accessible movies and television shows are today.  They are always available, so there is no great excitement in catching anything on television once a year.  Charlie Brown, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, all of the holiday specials - I remember the excitement of knowing they were going to be on tv each year.  On the other hand, today we don't have to worry about missing anything on television; everything is so accessible.  I guess I'm just a bit nostalgic.

Anyway, I can't believe we have never had our own Charlie Brown style Thanksgiving before now!  It was fun, and I hope it becomes a tradition.

Reagan, Kate and I watched the show together.

We also watched This Is America Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers, and Reagan dazzled me with all of her knowledge; she really does know a lot about this part of history.

I had planned on preparing the Charlie Brown feast for the kids, but the girls both wanted to help, and I am SO GLAD they did; their help made the whole thing so much more fun!

 Collin showed up for the food!!!

Toast, popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans, and ice cream sundaes (pictured below) just like Charlie Brown's feast.

"What blockhead cooked all this?"

 Snoopy?????  

The girls both said this was tons of fun and they hope to do it again next year.  Consider it done!