What do you do after Thanksgiving dinner? Get ready for Christmas, of course!!
Lillie and I visited a flower shop/nursery here in Maryland months ago, that is quite famous in the area. I told Keola we should stop by and see what's happening for Christmas and this is what we saw.

First, there were countless theme decorated Christmas trees, with all the decorations for sale. There was also a cute Christmas village and hundreds of poinsettias in various colors. Then, what Lillie was most interested in, the elaborate train set up.

We also found a wintery Christmas scene to take pictures in front of.

And after the wintery scene...

Santa!!! This was the FIRST time Lillie took a picture with Old St. Nick, all by herself!! All be it was for a split minute, it was enough time for her to blurt out what she wanted for Christmas and for me to take a quick picture. I'm so proud of our little girl!

After such a fun morning with Santa, we had to come home and decorate the house.

This is our "Childhood Tree" The majority of the ornaments are ones that Keola's mom saved from when Keola was younger, and sent to us years ago.
Here's the front of our fireplace with our stockings and these cool glittery, red trees we found earlier that day.

This is our "Red and Gold Tree" Over the years we have found various red and gold decorations to add to it.

This is Lillie's advent calendar. We filled each of the pockets with her favorite candies - milky way, Reeses peanut butter cups, lollipops, and Swedish fish.

This is our "Homemade Tree". Years ago, I was really into making crochet thread snowflakes. We decided to decorate a little tree with my creations. So there are snowflakes, garland, and a tree skirt that I crocheted, some wooden spoon snowmen that I made at a Relief Society activity, and a crocheted snowflake to top it all off.

This is the top of our bookshelf. Keola and I sometimes laugh at the fact that the "greenery" stays up there all year long and we just switch out the "holiday" color - fall leaves, holly berries - I wonder what will go up in January?? ha ha

This is our little "Rustic Tree". We filled it with ornaments that are all a little worn and distressed.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

For the big Turkey Day, we went to a friends house (the other counselor in the stake presidency), and ate to our hearts content. It was so delicious and Lillie had a grand time playing with some of the grandkids.

Of all the years we have been married, we have never made a REAL Thanksgiving dinner ourselves. We were either in Las Vegas, at a restaurant, or at a friends home. This year we decided to take the plunge and actually try the whole deal. For years we had all the sides under our belt - mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, and green bean casserole - but we NEVER tried a whole turkey. Like I said, we spent Thanksgiving at a friends house, so we were not brave enough to try the real deal on the actual day, but we did make Thanksgiving Part II on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

So here's the BIG BIRD!!

I have to say, we were pretty impressed with ourselves. I think we may actually be able to have people over to OUR house next year!!

Here's the rest of our feast.

Special Visitor

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, we received a phone call from the church office building in Salt Lake City. We were told that Elder William R. Walker of the First Quorum of the Seventy would be visiting our mission. That alone would be an exciting and special visit, but what made this occasion even more wonderful is that Elder Walker was Keola's mission president from Japan!

We were very excited to hear he would be touring the Washington D.C. missions and wanted to visit with us. We were able to set aside Sunday to meet with Elder Walker and his wife as they attended our ward and came to our home after to relax and later have dinner. We made them sukiyaki which was fun and delicious. With all the excitement (and nervous-ness) of having our special guest, this is the only picture we took.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

I'm going to apologize now for not having a lot of pictures of our Halloween festivities. We took as many pictures as we could, but I don't think we really captured the REAL fun Lillie had this week.

We started the week by going to another ward's trunk-or-treat. Of course, I didn't take any pictures there. Lillie got a lot of candy and had fun dressing up.

Then, it was off to our own ward's party on Friday night. We started with games in the cultural hall. Lillie was too quick for me to take a picture of her throwing the beanbags into a large wood pumpkin cutout, but I happened to get a picture of her getting her prize.

Here's Lillie with the neighborhood spider - her friend Sam.
Lillie got blindfolded, spun around, and...

tried to pin the nose on the witch. Pretty accurate huh?!?

Next, we moved on to some ring tossing on the witch's hat.

Next was the age old favorite...the cake walk.

Random picture some BEEhives and their leader. So cute!

Here's our little Princess...or Cinderella, as she likes to be called.

No trick or treating pictures - too dark. We ended up making 3 dozen candy and caramel apples that we passed out to some families in the ward. While we drove to their homes, Lillie was able to do some trick or treating at their homes. Then we came home and did a little trick or treating in our neighborhood. We only have 10 homes in our subdivision, and 4 of them passed candy out. We noticed a lot of people drive to other subdivisions to get candy, either because their neighborhood is a little small (like ours) or because the homes are a little far apart so they find a neighborhood where the homes are really close together. All in all, it was a fun night. This was Lillie's first time going home to home and she LOVED it!!

Merry Christmas!!

Yes, I know, it's October! I just went through the pictures on the camera, and I'm not sure how these got ousted, but we never uploaded these pictures from this past Christmas. So here's a look down memory lane

Eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant with Jared, Kalei, Jaeden, and Na'i

How cute is this boy!?!?

So the wait time was a little long for the kiddies. Jaeden decided to check out Lillie's camera.

WASUUUP!

"Mom, I KNOW you're sharing that with me, RIGHT!!!"

What a loving uncle and niece!

"That's right, I got some of that ice cream!"

Lillie has ALWAYS been so lucky to have a family that showers her with gifts...especially at Christmas! Here's SOME of the goods.

"Look at my new pretty dress!" Which, by the way, is up to her knees already!

"I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Nana! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

(Notice the pointed toes - such a ballerina!)

Me and my mom on Christmas morning

Check out my new wheels! Well, it's really Neiman Marcus' wheels, but a girl can dream right?

I know I look scared, but I really love my Aunty Nani!

Smile!

I LOVE my mommy and my mommy LOVES me!!

Here are some pictures - some old, some new

One day as Lillie was playing, I needed to go upstairs for something. When I turned the corner, this is what I saw...

Welcome to Lillie's...store!

Since moving to Southern Maryland, Lillie and I found this FANTASTIC park. Actually, we found it before we even moved here.

Introducing Dunkirk District Park!! Where the merry-go-round has made a comeback!

When we first moved here, Lillie would not even WALK by this slide. Those days are gone, and this is the slide of choice, as of late. Not sure if the picture does is justice, but this slide is pretty steep and Lillie goes flying.

Not a great picture, but Lillie also loves Mr. Crocodile. He has large steps in back of him and a little tunnel underneath him.

This "ladder" is also a new found joy of Lillie's. There are lots of different modes of climbling onto the equipment. None of which Lillie is usually interested in (that's our cautious little one). However, she saw some kids climbing this ladder and it is probably one of the least "scary", so Lillie tried her hand at it, and now likes it (sort of).

Lillie loves this driving contraption. She is often found driving her way to somewhere! Here's a semi-full view of the park. This playground equipment is FANTASTIC!!! Lillie loves running up and down all the ramps, going down all the slides, and climbing most of the "ladders".

Can't go without some CHEESE!

Loving the merry-go-round

So, I know this is an old picture, but what you don't know is that it is REALLY an old picture. This is the OLD Lillie, and...

this is the NEW LILLIE!!Sort of on a whim, we decided to cut Lillie's hair. This past weekend, we decided to take a trip to a mall a little ways away. We knew of a cute kids salon there, and thought, let's take the leap and get a "drastic" cut. Once there, we actually didn't go to the kids salon, saved a few bucks, and went to a regular salon. Cute cut all around!!

Right after the cut, we went to a play area inside the mall. Lillie had a GREAT time running around and swishing her new short do.

Taking a little break to pull up those socksSuch a cute little girl!

Yes, the fireplace has made it's debut! The season and weather has definitely changed. All week the forecast is showing temperatures in the 40's and rain!! Cold and wet, never a good combination. You know what that means...Lillie and I are homebound!!