Thanksgiving

We drove to my parents' house in Arkansas to spend Thanksgiving.  The drive went well; it was our longest road trip to date with Lydia (soon to be trumped by a drive to Florida for Christmas), and she handled it very well.  We had a great time hanging out in Searcy, despite the cold, wet weather.  We did the usual things: walked around Harding's campus, visited our three favorite parks, and even checked out the newly-renovated indoor PlayPlace at McDonald's.  

Even with all that, we spent most of our time at Nanna & Papa's house, thoroughly enjoying all the goodies Nanna had in store for the boys: half-a-dozen brand new activity books (all their favorites like color-by-number, connect-the-dot, word search, etc.), as well as her very well-stocked play room, complete with creatively organized storage bins (now I know where I got that!).  The kids also enjoyed the back yard for the first time on this trip.  Nanna & Papa have added a small back deck since we were in town last, and it really made the backyard a lot more appealing.  Plus, the boys are finally old enough to play outside with less supervision, so us grown-ups didn't have to match their cold tolerance :).  

As always on Campbell holidays & vacations, our evenings were full of poker.  All three kids were asleep every night right around 7:00 pm, so we spent several hours of every night at the card table.  All in all, it was a great visit, and we are already looking forward to having Nanna & Papa here for Christmas.

 It's hard to get a picture of Lydia alone because Caleb always jumps in :)

Everybody hanging out in the living room at N&P's house.

 

 Caleb & Ethan enjoying the craft table that Nanna bought just before our visit.

Lydia taking one of many bottles in Nanna's arms :)

Daddy & the boys hanging out in Papa's new recliner.

Grandparents' Day

Yesterday was Grandparent's Day at Caleb's school, and we were very happy to have my mom (Nanna) in town for the event.  When I was growing up, my grandparents lived out of town and didn't come to anything like this.  My mom said that she always felt bad for my brother and I about that, so she decided to make it a priority to be at Caleb's first Grandparents Day.  Even though she'd had bronchitis the week before, had been having trouble walking for weeks, and was in the middle of her final week at work (she is retiring this Friday), she flew out for a quick visit to enjoy this event with Caleb.  

And as if she wasn't going against enough to make this happen, she came down with food poisoning or a stomach bug the night after she arrived!  It's very good we had a doctor in the house, because at one point she was throwing up every 10 minutes.  Marcus got her some meds and she was finally able to fall asleep.  And then she was back up at 6:00 am to get ready for the grandparents' day festivities.  From there things went well.  Caleb was happy to have her by his side during the program, and Ethan even got to enjoy a surprise visit from Nanna in his classroom (since it happened to be one of the days he was in preschool).  I apologize for this terrible picture of Caleb, but between shuffling Lydia around and manning my volunteer post, it is the only one that I got.

Fall Festival and Halloween

This year, we were so happy to have Marcus home for Halloween.  The last few years, we've had to juggle Halloween festivities around the national radiation oncology conference that Marcus has to travel to.  This year they moved the conference to early October, so Daddy got to come to the Halloween Party at our BFF's house, the Fall Festival at church, and Trick-or-Treating on Monday night.  

This was the best year ever for trick-or-treating.  Caleb dressed up as Spiderman and Ethan went to Fall Festival as a pirate and Trick-or-Treating as Superman.  The kids are finally big enough to run up to the houses on their own, so the process went much faster and was much more relaxed for the adults.  We went with several other families from church.  Even with 20+ preschool and elementary aged kids walking the neighborhood together, it was still a lot of fun.  Caleb and Ethan were ecstatic about all the candy they collected.  I think this is the first year that Daddy and I are not going to be able to get away with pilphering what we'd like from their stash.  Everything was studied and organized so thoroughly that I think even a piece or two will be missed.  At least we can still confiscate candy for bad behavior :)

Fall Festival at church was great this year as well.  The church brought in real horses instead of ponies, and this is the first year that we could kind of let Ethan go on the bounce houses without worrying too much that he would get hurt.  Of course, our LifeWalk group was in charge of monitoring the bounce houses, so we spent most of our time there anyway.

The whole family, just before heading out trick-or-treating.

 Caleb and Ethan on a bounce-house slide at Fall Festival.

 Caleb throwing a dart at the balloon-popping booth.

 Lydia was so chill the whole evening in her stroller.  We are so thankful that she is such an easy-going baby!