A Bury Cute Thanksgiving - 2010

Last Tuesday David and I loaded up the girls and drove out to St. Louis to spend Thanksgiving with some of my family. It was a special week because my grandparents met Kate. David reminded me on the drive up how fortunate I am to have 3 of my grandparents still living and that Kate and Maddy have 3 great-grandparents. Now that we are back home and I am looking at the pictures I am truly amazed at how blessed I am to have my grandparents in my life today. 

It goes without saying that it was wonderful to spend a few days with them. Grandmother and Grandaddy live in a beautiful senior apartment community. The entire time we visited Maddy kept saying "this is such a nice hotel I wish I could live there." I think Maddy was particularly impressed by the popcorn machine and the best chocolate chip cookies.

The weather was crazy. We arrived to beautiful sunny skies on Tuesday but woke up Wednesday to rain and fog. That didn't stop us from going to the famous Gateway Arch. David, myself, and my Dad took both girls up to the top of the Arch. Maddy loved the Arch. She loved the little "egg" elevators to the top, she loved looking out the windows, and she even wanted to slide down it. Then she got to the top and realized it would be dangerous. After the Arch and cookies with Great Grandmother we had a nice pizza dinner with Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rob.

Thanksgiving morning we woke up to more rain and fog. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and watched the Macy's parade. By 11am we were stir crazy, so Grandaddy (my dad) took us to see Tangled. Maddy loved it and for Kate's first movie experience she did great (thanks to David). When we left the theater we were greeted with SNOW! I still can't believe it snowed on Thanksgiving. Maddy was so excited, she kept saying "St. Louis is the best because they have snow." Well it didn't last long, by the time we went to Aunt Cindy's house for Thanksgiving dinner it was over.

Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rob hosted a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. According to David it was the best Thanksgiving meal he's had in a long time. We had everything from turkey and ham to homemade biscuits and oyster stuffing. It really was the best. Aunt Cindy if you are reading; please, please type out your recipes and share with me. Especially the olive balls and biscuits. :-) And thank you for hosting all of us.

Friday morning came quickly and we started our trip back to Macon. We had arranged it so that we could stop and spend Friday night in Nashville with our best friends Ben and Elizabeth. They were kind enough to put us up Friday night and make us chili on Saturday after their busy Thanksgiving. We arrived safely home Saturday night just in time to watch our Georgia Bulldogs beat the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the final football game of the season. It was the perfect way to end Thanksgiving week. :-) Now on to Christmas.... Maddy woke up this morning asking "is it time to celebrate Christmas and when will Santa come?" It's going to be an exciting Christmas season.... :-)




Click on the picture for all of our Thanksgiving pictures



Kate - 11 months old

Kate, I am a little late in getting this up today... but today (11/28) you are 11 months old. This picture perfectly sums up your little personality. You are cute, sweet, cuddly, funny, and mischievous all rolled into one beautiful little girl....

The week before Thanksgiving....

Maddy's Thanksgiving Party

It's been a very busy week here in the Bury house. We spent a lot of the week preparing for Maddy's Thanksgiving party at preschool. It was Friday morning and it was a blast. The class dined on turkey sandwiches, popcorn and cranberry trail mix, pumpkin pudding, apple juice, and rice krispy turkey treats. Yummy stuff! All the girls got a pilgrim hat and they made Indian headbands.  They were so cute!

The other part of our week was spent with David's Aunt Cindy who flew into Atlanta Thursday to surprise David's, Aunt Pam. Aunt Pam's birthday was Saturday so we had a nice "surprise" party Thursday night. After the Thanksgiving party on Friday we spent the afternoon with Cindy and had another lovely dinner with the family.

Some of you that read this blog may already know this but Aunt Cindy's son, Andrew (David's cousin), is active duty Air Force and has been serving in Afghanistan. He returned back to the states safely on Friday afternoon. Hours after landing he was walking back to his hotel in North Carolina and was hit by a car. He is stable but in critical condition awaiting transfer to another hospital for more surgery. Aunt Cindy and Poppi left Saturday morning for North Carolina to be with Andrew. Please keep Andrew and all of his family in your prayers. It's just another reminder that life is fragile!

This will be my last blog until after Thanksgiving. Early (and I mean early) Tuesday morning David, myself, and the girl's are heading out to St. Louis to be with my family for Thanksgiving. My grandparents live out there along with my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rob. It's been a couple of years since we have seen them and they have not yet met Kate. We are excited and will take lots of pictures. Maddy's only question about the trip was "do they like children and will they have turkey?" Everyone have a safe and fun Thanksgiving. Gobble Gobble.....

Turkey Treats

This week Maddy and I made turkey treats for her preschool Thanksgiving party.  They were so easy and delicious that I thought I would share the idea here. Basically you make a batch of rice krispy treats (we used cocoa krispies for color) and roll into 1.5 inch balls. Then take Oreo cookies pull them apart and scrape off (and eat) cream filling. When the balls are cool spread a thin layer of chocolate frosting on both Oreo halves. On one Oreo half press rice krispy ball into frosting. On the other Oreo  press three pieces of candy corn into frosting to make "tail feathers" and press cookie onto back of rice krispy ball. Finally spread a small amount of frosting to a piece of candy corn and place on rice krispy ball for a turkey beak. They were a lot of fun to make and eat. Gobble Gobble...

Final product...

Two spoons of wishful thinking....

It's a rainy, chilly day here in Georgia. The kind of day that makes me stay home with the girls and have tea parties. So this morning Maddy and I had a tea party in her playroom. I poured tea while Maddy made snacks. I poured some cream into my tea, Maddy poured cream into her tea. As I started adding sugar to my tea she stops me and says "that's not sugar, it's wishful thinking".... I admit that I laughed so hard that fake tea came out of my nose.

I asked Maddy where had she heard about "wishful thinking."  With that look only Maddy (and maybe myself) can give she said from "Alice in Wonderworld." Last week Maddy and I did watch Alice in Wonderland but I must have been on Facebook during the wishful thinking part because I don't remember it. So my lesson learned is always pay attention because Maddy always is.....



That's "wishful thinking" on Maddy's mouth



Operation Christmas Child

Maddy had her first lesson in "giving to others" Monday night. Our church as well as Mimi and Poppi's church are participating in Samaritan's Purse - Operation Christmas Child. For those of you not familiar with "OCC" visit their website: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/ for details but the basic idea is to fill up a shoe box with small toys, goodies, and personal hygiene products for children. Samaritan's Purse then collects the boxes and distributes them to needy children in war torn and third world countries. I read that over 8 million boxes in over 130 countries were distributed last year!

Poppi had the great idea that this would be something Maddy could help with that would teach her about giving. I took Maddy shopping for things to fill a box for a girl 2-4 years old.  At first Maddy wasn't too thrilled with buying things for someone else especially when we weren't buying her something too. But she caught on very quickly and loved picking out hair bows, dolls, and coloring books for "a girl just like me."

We gathered at the church last night to assemble the boxes. Maddy also included a note in her box and hopefully we will hear back from the little girl that receives Maddy's box.  I was very proud of Maddy, at the young age of 3 she caught on very quickly what it means to share and give to others. She even mentioned that she hopes the box makes the girl happy and that maybe one day she can come over to our house and play.  How sweet is that?

I checked the website today and collection of boxes doesn't end until November 22nd so there is still time for everyone to fill a box. The website tells you everything you need to know and there is even a great video to watch before you get started. 

 









Bury Cute Construction Crew....

It's been a slow blog week for me. Mainly because I suffered my first allergic reaction to a drug in 30 years. I learned the hard way that I am allergic to the antibiotic Bactrim. I started taking the drug last week for a minor skin infection and 3 days later I noticed a rash on my chest. That quickly turned into a rash on 80% of my body, which felt like 80% of my body was sunburned!  No fun at all.... It's fading now and the infection is healing (thanks to a new antibiotic) but if anyone is with me when they ask "are you allergic to any medications" please yell BACTRIM!!!!!

Anyways, onto the cute part of the blog... On Saturday we loaded up the girls and headed to Mimi and Poppi's house. Mimi and Poppi are in the middle of some house repairs/renovations and this weekend they needed to paint their house. So who better to help than the Bury Cute Construction Crew...Not sure how much help we actually offered but we had fun while we were there.

Bury Cute Crew checking out the supplies. Maddy is ready to paint.

Maddy surveying the job site.

Kate in the pack n' play. She didn't last long, I guess
babies today aren't trained to play in a playpen.

Maddy painting the house.

Trick or Treat....

You saw my baby elephant last week well here is my little Tinkerbell. My little fairy woke up at 6:30 on both Friday and Saturday mornings anxious to dress up and get Halloween started. In fact when she went potty she thought it was time to get dressed.  She told me "my pants are off so that means I better put on my costume." How could I argue with that logic?

We had a great time at her school party and lots of fun trick or treating with "Bob the Builder." By the way, Bob's flashlight came in very handy towards the end of trick or treating, it got dark quickly. Maddy was pleased with her treat bag full of candy, but if the person who handed out round peppermints is reading this please get tootsie rolls next year. They are just as cheap but taste so much better. :-)

Click on picture below to see all the pictures from trick or treating and the school party.