Turkey Day.

This year my sister and her hubby hosted Thanksgiving at their new home. It was a nice, relaxing evening, with lots of yummy food and many, many laughs. It was also Carter's first Thanksgiving :)

Here's his cute face mid babble.

Braden and I made lots of Turkey crafts this month. Thanksgiving morning we made Turkey hats with feathers. One for him and of course, one for Joce.

Check me out!

This is half of our table.

Joce really wanted to blow out the candle. Her and Braden were arguing about it until finally one of them snuck up and blew it out .

Mom and Carter. My usually happy baby made this awful whiny sound most of the night, ahh.

Me and the hub.Check out that turkey, it was sooo yummy.

The Shako's pose next to their first turkey ever! With Em.
The grandma's hanging out with the kiddos. Grandma Arlene had Santa Pez' for them.

The kids coloring for a bit. And yes, that is my almost three year old boy with a paci, sigh. It's my fault.
And then the construction of the gingerbread house began.....And i'll just begin by saying that there were five adults all "helping" to put this together and none of us managed to read the directions....ahem.

The kids were helping with the construction...

Um, there was this huge blizzard...

And there was so much snow that the roof and walls of our house began to cave in....

And there were many attempts to keep this house together.

The Shako siblings did not want to quit. And that's A with her sad face.

Turns out that the house was supposed to sit and dry for an hour before the rest of the decorations went on..who knew??

No worries, our evening ended much happier than our house!

Thankful.

I had originally intended on posting something I was thankful for everyday in November..let's just say that my intentions didn't get me very far!

SO, we'll just have to make due with one post and i'll be thankful for having a spare, quiet couple of moments to do that ;)

I'm Thankful for:

-A God: Whom is loving, merciful, has a sense of humor (I think he laughs with me regularly), is always on time (even if it may not be MY time), takes care of me, is patient, forgiving, wise, too big for me to comprehend...

-My family: I have a wonderful, hard working husband of six and a half years that loves my boys and I very much. This past year has brought many surprising and unexpected turns our way- and I thank God that I have Rob to walk alongside of me through this journey. I thank God every day for my beautiful, healthy boys. Being a parent is so much work but the benefits are so great and they bring us so much joy.

-My parents: I am blessed to have such loving, giving, and supportive parents. They have opened up their home to us and haven't expected anything in return.

-My sister (and her cute little family): Love her! I am extremely thankful to be able to live just ten minutes from her. I am grateful for our relationship and our friendship- she cannot be topped :) Even though we were put in the same outfits and shared a room our whole lives- even into our freshman year of college- we made it through and still like each other! I am thankful that she found a great man that loves her and takes care of her like she should be loved and taken care of. And that he happened to be a pretty cool individual that fits into our crazy little family. And I cannot forget my Jocelyn- my niece- we've been connected since before she was born, really, i'm serious. You don't find people like this everyday.

-Close friends: I only have a couple who know me truly and entirely. Grateful for people that I can be me with.

-This journey: Knowing that there is more in store for me, for my family. Trying to learn the lessons, grow, become better, become stronger.


There's more, but for now i'll stick with these.

Grown-Up

I took these photos yesterday. I thought that Braden just looked so grown up. When I look at photos from just this summer I can see an immense difference. He's losing that baby face and that cute baby chub. He was actually pretty cooperative- well for all of five minutes- nonetheless it was long enough to get him to be goofy with me and take some photos. I did have to let him play photographer for a couple of minutes though in order for him to agree to cooperate for me and I have to say, he didn't do half bad. I'll have to post those later.
On a random note, today has been day 2 of unsuccessful afternoon naps with the boys. By this I mean them actually falling asleep, in their individual beds...While I must admit that I'm tickled when I hear them giggling with each other and finding ways to amuse themselves and each other- it has been quite frustrating. Today, when I went in to check on them for the gazillionth time (after two hours of this) I found Braden inside of Carter's crib...yes, inside of the crib. I have no idea how he got in there but its a miracle that he didn't break a limb getting himself in there. Sigh. Did I really mention a couple of weeks ago that I thought it'd be cute and fun to have THREE boys?? I must have had too much coffee that day! I am happy to have two boys and look forward to them growing up close, being friends, having fun, and all of the mischief they'll get into together.
Ok, I just rambled but back to the photos from yesterday....

Braden how old are you going to be??

How old are you now?

Above he's posing with the batman pez we got him the night before at Walmart.

And I just couldn't leave Carter out because he's just so darn cute!

8 months.

I haven't been doing a great job keeping up with my goal of taking photos everyday and have definitely been slacking with the blogging. BUT here's my baby boy for his 8 month picture. Couldn't miss this one- did it for Braden every month until he turned one and plan on doing it for Carter as well. Anyway. Here he is...he is officially crawling and into absolutely everything. Apparently crawling was not exciting enough for him because days after mastering the crawl he began working on the standing. Well, he's pretty much perfected that as well. So he stands anywhere where he can get a good enough grip to pull himself up! He does this cute thing where he looks at you, smiles, and does this shy/bashful chin to chest look- its the cutest. He is officially in his crib, sharing a room with his brother. I delayed the move for quite awhile (not sure why because i'm definitely sleeping better now that I don't wake up every time he takes a deep breath!) and although we're still working on sleeping the entire night...baby steps :)

I know I keep saying this but I seriously cannot believe how quickly time is going by, I mean for heaven's sake it's practically Thanksgiving! Love my baby boy. And in the spirit of thankfulness and thanksgiving- I am ever so thankful for this little boy.

Grandpa.

Growing up my sister and I spent almost every summer in Puerto Rico. We would leave right after school ended in June and come back to NY in August. We would stay with my mom's parents but always had visits from grandpa- my dad's dad. He would drive up in his car and his hat- he always wore a hat (those hats golfers wear- you know??). Usually really neatly dressed in his button up, linen shirt and dress slacks. He would take us for drives, usually to visit other relatives and always took us to eat our favorite foods, made us fresh lemonade with lemons from his tree and got us mangos.

I'm thinking of grandpa tonight. He was diagnosed with Alzheimers a year and a half or so ago. He's having a hard time right now. He's forgetting, he's sad, he's falling alot. I'm sad. I'm sad that he's so far away. But I'm thankful that he has gotten an opportunity to meet my boys and i'm hoping we'll get to see him again. That he'll hang out for a little longer and we'll get to make a couple more memories with him. I love my grandpa.