Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving being just a few days ago, I have so much to be thankful for:

* My husband:  He works so hard to take care of us.  He is an amazing man and I'm so lucky to have him in my life.
* My daughter:  Bella is the light of my life.  She keeps me busy and always makes me smile.  I love to watch her grow and change everyday.
* My parents:  They have been there for me through so much.  They are both such strong individuals.  They have shaped me into a wonderful person.
* My sister:  She is my best friend.  She is there for me when I need her.  We laugh and have so much fun together.  I'm glad to be stuck with her!!
* My family (Longaneckers and Standefords):  It is great to know you have so many people to support you and help you through whatever life brings.  I have been blessed with such a large family!!  It's great to know I have so many people to count on.  I'm also thankful for the fact that you all will help to shape Bella into an amazing person.
* My job and my co-workers:  With the way the economy is today, I'm so thankful to have my job.  Not only is it just any job, it's one that I love!!  I also love the people I work with.  This makes is nice to go to work everyday.  I know I could count on these individuals for anything!!
* My home:  I am thankful to have such a beautiful home!  We have a home that we feel safe and secure in.  A place we can make wonderful memories together as a family!!
* God:  Above everything, I am so thankful to have God in my heart!!  We have been through a lot in the last couple years and knowing that God is there to guide us through everything has given us peace!!  It is Him that has blessed us with all that we are thankful for!!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Hope you were all able to take a few moments to reflect on what you are thankful for.

Catching the Christmas Spirit

I love the Christmas season and getting the house all decked out!!  I spent the last two days getting the trees put up and all decorated...

This is the tree downstairs in the family room.  This tree holds all the ornaments we collect over the years.

This is the tree upstairs in the living room, in front of the bay window.  I loved how this one turned out!!

I wanted to decorate the table without doing a "center piece."  Got a similar idea off of pinterest for this.  It looks better in person than in the picture. 

Here is the cabinet in the dining room.

The fireplace with the stockings, garland, and other decorations.

The inside of the house is complete.  Now all I have left to do is make the wreath for the front door and convince Jason to hang the lights outside.  Hope we get a few more nice days so that is possible.  Hope everyone else is getting into the Christmas spirit!!

Our Little Shopper

One of Bella's favorite things to do is play store.  She has a cash register, but she also likes to use her little laptop as a register as well.  We give her those fake credit cards you get in the mail to play with but she also has debit cards that came with her cash register.  In her purses, you will find coupons and she likes to write checks too.  I had to give her one of my reusable shopping bags to use to put all her purchases in because she was going through all our plastic bags.  The other day, I came downstairs to find her and daddy playing.  I had to snap some pictures.

As Bella tells her "customers," thank you and have a good day!! (Maybe we spend too much time shopping)

Pillow Fort

I remember growing up and creating forts from blankets.  We always drapped them over the couch or chairs and had fun climbing into them and hiding out.  Well not too long ago, I was in the kitchen doing the dishes.  When I walked into the living room this is what I found...

Bella had taken the pillows and placed them between the couch and ottoman, creating a tunnel for her to crawl through.  She spent an hour playing in her tunnel!!  It brought me back to my childhood.  She definately has an amazing imagination!!  I hope she never looses it!

A Style all her Own

A couple weeks ago, we were getting ready to go shopping.  My sister decided to let Bella choose what she wanted to wear.  Of course, she had to wear leggings (she's been obsessed with them lately).  She also had to wear her shiney red shoes and clip on earings and necklace from her dress up box.  She is definately gonna be a little fashionista!!

Daddy's Little Helper

The other day Jason thought it would be a good idea to teach Bella how to do dishes.  Suprisingly, she actually enjoyed it.  I had to grab my camera and get a picture.  Now hopefully when she is 13, she will still love to help out.

Happy Halloween

This year I didn't get all creative and make Bella's costume.  Although, her costume was completely FREE, which is my type of costume.  A friend of mine from work is a coach for the Bremen junior league cheerleaders so she let me borrow one of their uniforms and pom poms.  She looked so stinkin cute in the uniform!!  We had a blast trick or treating.  My cousin, her fiance, and kids came with us.  Boy did she make out on the candy.  We went through our subdivision, then when we finished, we went through another subdivision where one of Bella's friends lives.  Think we'll have plenty of candy for awhile!!

Happy Halloween (a little late) from the Standefords!!

Hensler's Nursery

This post should have actually been before the pumpkin carving, but when you don't keep up with your blog regularly, you loose track of things like that.  Anyway, this year we went back to Hensler's nursery to get our pumpkins for Halloween carving.  This was our third year going.  It's not a huge place but we manage to have a great time and usually end of spending a couple hours there.  Bella had a great time playing on the wooden train and tractor they have there, plus the huge hay fort and slide.  We also had a blast watching the animals in the petting zoo area they have.  We probably stood for 15 minutes watching these two little goats attacking and head butted each other.  It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!!  We also took a horse drawn hay ride back to the pumpkin patch.  Every year we try to encourage Bella to pick a big pumpkin, but NO, she goes for the little ones.  She likes them her size!!  They also sell Christmas trees in the winter and they have a barn full of Christmas decorations and ornaments.  So Bella was able to get her new ornament for the year (we started a tradition the year she was born, getting her a new ornament to represent the year).  This year she got a ballerina!! 

Pumpkin Carving

This year we had our second annual Longanecker family pumpkin carve at our house.  Unfortunately, it was just me, Jason, Bella, and my mom and dad.  We had so much fun digging into our pumpkins and creating our designs.  Earlier in October, I found these cute little face things you just push into the pumpkin, so Bella picked one of those out for hers.  She chose a witch and it turned out cute.  It was too hard for her to push them in by herself so she had to tell me where she wanted the pieces and I pushed them in for her.

My dad always has a cracking up because for some reason he is obsessed with his pumpkins having ears.  He did this last year too!!  It's funny though when the pumpkin starts to rot.  The ears start to shrivel up and fall off.  Overall, we had a great time and I think our pumpkins turned out pretty good.  Can't wait to do it again next year!!

Halloween Party Performance

Every year the Plymouth Parks Department has a Boo in the Park Halloween party.  This is something free that is offered to the community.  Boy do the people turn out for this!!  Anyway, Bella's dance instructor had them perform at this outdoor event.  Bella's class danced to Casper the Friendly Ghost and they were all dressed like little ghost.  They looked so adorable!!  Of course, the rain held out until RIGHT as they were getting ready to perform.  Then the speaker/sound system wasn't working right so you could hardly hear the music.  For having all these issues, the girls still did a really great job!!  Unfortunately now, Bella doesn't have dance again until March...but next year is the BIG recital year so Bella will get to be all dressed up and look fabulous.  Can't wait!!  Here are some pics from the performance: