Thankstacular

Annndddd....there goes November.  Just like that, here and gone.  Once again, I'm playing blogger catch-up and I have a whole month to talk about.  I have no real excuse for my slacking, just too many nights where I've chosen to watch "Modern Family" or "The Office" instead of create this loving time capsule for my kids.  Ouch.

So, back to November.  It was a good month.  No big events at the beginning of the month, just the usual raking of leaves, jumping in said leaves and thus destroying any efforts in cleaning the yard, and enjoying the last warm days before the inevitable Armageddon of snow that is sure to come our way. 

 And lots of hanging out in our warm house, now that it is getting too cold to go outside!

 Who's that big boy sitting up at the table?  There's no way it can be my baby!

 And this pretty girl that is turning 4 next month???  Yeah, I can't even talk about it.

The highlight of the month was our trip to New York City for Thanksgiving.  Everyone was going away this year...and I really mean just about everyone.  JoJo went to Virginia to visit Uncle Neil.  Grandma and Papa had plans to go to a dog show in Maryland.  Aunt Patti, Shea, Adam, Nonny and Poppy went to the Dominican Republic.  Aunt Barb, Natalie and Ryland were headed to Ithaca while Uncle Thomas had to work.  That left an empty apartment on the Upper East Side, and the J. Dunham and M. Dunham families, ready for a NY Thanksgiving!

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?  So much more fun to see in person than on tv.  We watched it near Central Park, as it made the turn onto 7th Ave.  The crowd was pretty thick, so we were standing far away from the street.  We could see the balloons perfectly, and could not believe how massive they were.  We got to see Mickey, Shrek, SpongeBob, a basketball, football, and baseball (Jack's favorite!), Hello Kitty, Uncle Sam, and a pirate, among others.  We saw the tops of some of the floats, like the Statue of Liberty.

 Claire was a little nervous at first, but once she started seeing more balloons she loved it!

 Jack was not happy about me taking his picture.  You can almost hear him saying, "NOOOOO!"  Which he was saying.  Loudly.

 Massive, right?  So cool to see in person!

 Much happier!

 Everyone wanted Daddy!  *Insert sad Mommy here...

 Drinking out of a big-boy cup at breakfast after the parade.  Of course, minutes (seconds, maybe) later, it spilled down the front of him.  Did I have extra clothes in the diaper bag?  Of course not.  Was there a hand dryer in the teensy restaurant bathroom?  Nope.  Guess who had to wear wet pants the rest of the morning? 

 How fun to spend Thanksgiving morning hanging out in Central Park!

 Talk about massive...the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree!  The most impressive thing about it was the number of lights attached to it, strung along each branch from the trunk all the way out to the very tips.  Turns out, it is 36,000 lights.  Yes, you read that right.  Puts our little 800-light tree to shame!

 All ready to go out to dinner!  We ate at Match 65.  It was so nice to not have to spend the day in the kitchen cooking and to just let someone else do that work.  On the other hand, it was very strange to not spend the day in the kitchen cooking and just let someone else do all of that work...

All jammied up and ready for bed...or for driving home, depending on how your evening played out! 

So there it is.  November in a nutshell.  Now the countdown to Christmas has started and I could not be more excited.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I have not been this excited since I was about 7.  My goal for December is to make it special for my family and enjoy our time...no stress!  Happy Holidays!