We had Thanksgiving at the Hemphill house this year and it was great to have Brandon free to come too. He's had to work most Thanksgivings so I'm usually solo with the kids, but not this year! He had to work later on Wednesday than planned so we left early Thursday morning and headed up to Montgomery.

A crazy thing happened on the way up there. Brandon called his best friend, Burt to wish him a happy Thanksgiving and to find out what they were doing. He said they were on the road down to Mobile to spend it with family and they were on I-65. We were too and looked over to the left and passed them! Seriously, how does that happen?!?!

We finally make it to Mimi and Papa John's and Brandon's sister, Ame and her family were already there and the kids couldn't wait to play together. It was incredibly warm that day and Christopher kept asking if we could bring the pool out to play. I refused even though it was probably hot enough!

 Mimi found a really cute craft for the kids to make and so we set up shop on the patio and made the cutest turkeys out of pine cones and pipe cleaners.


Camille showing off her cute turkey. Ame and I were laughing when the kids finished because her girls did beautifully colored ones while Christopher made an orange one and Sophie's was pink. Not very outside the box, I know, but what can you do?



Ame fixed Sophie's hair with left over pipe cleaners. Sophie LOVED it!!! The kids spent the rest of the afternoon coming up with different things they could make with them. It was really funny!



Sophie and a baby doll she found at the house. She named this one Papa Baby. We loved that because the baby was wearing all pink.


Sophie later came into the kitchen with all the sunglasses she could find in the toy box. She thought she was as funny as we did!


And here are the final turkeys. Aren't they cute!! I think we'll have to make these again in the future.

On Friday, Lisa, Ame and I woke up really early to go do some shopping. But from what I heard, it wasn't nearly as early as the rest of you did! We had a lot of fun and I actually got most of my shopping done. It wasn't my intention, but then I just figured, if I can get it now, why not? It will save me the trouble for later. We hit up Target first and saw the line wrapping around the inside of the store. By the time we were ready to check out the line was practically gone. I think I enjoy Black Friday b/c I can go shop without the kids and know that they are sleeping with Brandon and he's not having to watch them at their worst part of the day. Besides, they got to go to Waffle House with Papa John and Nana, so they have fun too!

That afternoon, Brandon and I were able to go out for a bit alone and it was REALLY nice!!! We hardly ever get to go on dates and lately our dates have been some event or thing that we have to get done so we haven't had time to just have fun together in a really, really long time. (Thanks John and Lisa for letting us go!!)

Saturday morning we were up and ready for our race. Lisa found a 5K that we could run to help the youth group at their church and we figured why not? Only problem, it was FREEZING!!!!!! I'm used to flat and warm Florida and though we were only 3 1/2 hours north the course just had to have some small hills and the temperature had to be 34 degrees. But we did it and had fun and we each won a medal!! Brandon and I got second for our age division and Lisa got third. (I'm still proud even if we won because there was nobody else in our age group or they won the whole thing.)

We went home to shower and Christopher and I went to visit my Grandmother for a little while and then met the gang at the Bass Pro Shop in Prattville. It was HUGE! And I couldn't help but laugh when I was walking in because I knew I was back in Alabama when I saw Coach purses and Wrangler jeans in the same place. Gotta love it!!! We had to drag Papa John out of there (it's a man's heaven) and then went out for Mexican food and home for bed.

Sunday we went out to lunch and then hit the road when the craziest thing happened again! We were about 1/3 of the way home when we decided to stop for a bathroom break. I pull into a gas station (thankfully a nice big one with a fast food restaurant and that means clean bathrooms), find a parking spot, look over at the car next to me and think, "That car is from Montgomery. And that diaper bag in the back looks really familiar." I get Brandon's attention and tell him I think it's Burt's wife, Melissa. He calls Burt and I'm convinced by now. Who else could it be? We knew she was on the road today with her mom and the baby. I go inside and get in the bathroom line and sure enough, there she is! Seriously, HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???? All we could do was laugh!

So, everyone, that was our Thanksgiving. It was great and fun and filled with family and friends.

So, if you are like me, you have read 2 or more blogs recently that have been giving a shout out to Shutterfly. Wondering why? They are giving away 50 free Chrismas cards to those who do! Now we have been HUGE fans of Shutterfly for years. We use them every Christmas and I can't tell you what we are going to pick from them this year because it's probably going to be your Christmas present! (Brandon and I love to make the photo books for our grandparents so they can see what the kids have done all year. And the great-grandparents love it!) They have great looking cards, posters, calendars, photo books and more for great prices that are easy to create.

Here is more on my favorite things from Shutterfly:

1) Photo books - These are so fun to make!! You get to go back through the year and find your favorite photos and put them all in one place. I try to do at least one page per month, but then I end up having so many memories I tend to add more pages! But at the prices and specials (right now it's buy one, get the rest at 50% off!) they offer, it's a great deal!! We made one for my in-laws for their anniversary and had photos of their kids and grand kids in it. LOVED IT!! They have a "simple path" where they create it for you or a "custom path" where you can change the backgrounds, add text, things that make it more individual. (I wish my college art project had been this easy!!)

2) Calendars - This is what I want to try this year. I have see many of these in our friends home and want to have one too. It would definitely look better than the big plain white one I got at the office supply store!! They have lots of different patterns to choose from, as well as wall and desk calendars.

3) Photo Cards - Do I really need to tell you about these? Or how much trouble I got in because I didn't send any out last year? Yeah, wasn't pretty. So this year we will definitely be getting these! The problem is, deciding which one! See, we live at the beach, so do I go with a beach theme or the snow that I've never seen in December? Here are my favorites...

The kids and I did not have school or Bible study last Thursday due to Veteren's Day, but Brandon had to work and he was going to be on call on Saturday, so we decided to go out of town. I dropped them off at school Wednesday morning and then rushed home, packed the bags, ran to get my haircut, rushed home, loaded the car, picked up the kids and were there by dinner time. It was great! (Except for Christopher complaining the last hour about not being able to sit anymore because he just HAD to be there already. Why do they think that complaining will make things happen? Trust me, I wish it would!)

Sophie found all the old baby dolls and had to climb in the crib to put them to bed that night. I really wish that everyone could experience Sophie taking care of her baby dolls. It is the funniest thing you will EVER see!!!


Pop had a book about making wooden toys that he had pulled out before we got there that night. Christopher found it and the next morning he was up and asking to go build something at 6:15 in the morning. The kid LOVES to build stuff! I told him he had to get dressed and wait for Pop to wake up first. He then asked if he could go get dressed while I go wake up Pop. I told him to wait. Later I found him curled up on the couch carefully studying all the trucks that the book shows you how to make. Once Pop woke up he wanted to go. I then told him that everyone had to wake up, get dressed and eat breakfast before going into the shop to work. He immediately sat down next to Pop and asked for Cheerios (I never get specifics when it comes to breakfast) and he plopped the book in front of him and kept reading while they ate. Then he ran to get his apron on (this has to come with us every time we visit because he knows he'll be in the shop) and off the two went. This photo captures just how excited he gets about building things in the shop with his Pop. I love it!


Sophie had to put her apron on (my sister bought one for each grandchild and put "Pop's Shop" on them) and then helped Grammie vacuum. She has on the new Fancy Nancy zebra ballet shoes. She is really getting into dress up now too. I see a baby doll and dress up filled Christmas in our future.



Aunt Jenny and Anne Morgan came over for the day and we loved getting to see them. AM LOVES horses and went straight to the one that my parents have at their house. It was ours when we were kids and the protective caps have broken and fallen off and the springs are exposed (nobody cared about that stuff back then) so they have "beautifully" covered everything potentially dangerous with fabric and duct tape. (I mention that just in case anyone out there freaks out over this kind of stuff.)







 And they fight over who is going to hold on. They both put up a good fight. Don't remember who won.


Next thing we know, Pop and Christopher come back inside with a crane in hand. I seriously have no idea how they built this as fast as they did. My dad said it's much faster to build a truck from scratch when someone has the plans written out for you, than when a 4 year old walks up and asks you, "can you build a firetruck and a flatbed for me please?"

Brick cut his paw Friday morning pretty bad, but Doctor Pop took care of him. We wrapped him up real tight and let him stay inside that morning. Pop and Christopher hung out at the house while Sophie, Grammie and I went into town to do a little bit of shopping for the kids.


This is pretty much what the photos look like of the kids on this day. They would not stay still and ran and ran and ran and rode the plasma cars all over the driveway. It was great!

Living where we do we miss out on a lot of things that the rest of the country experiences. Don't get me wrong, we have loved living here, but we don't have things like leaves changing in the fall, snow on the ground or spring trees in bloom to let us know when the seasons have changed. It's all evergreen plants, so if you think you see some red/orange/brown leaves among a sea of green it's probably a dead tree. But I'm ok with that! (Not really, I've just learned to accept it.) Because though we also may not have true pumpkin patches to go to, we do have.... FARM DAY!!!!! I think we told about 30 families that they had to go to Farm Day this year and all of them came. It's that awesome!

What is Farm Day you ask? It is only the most fun you will have all year! It was started back in 1984 by a local doctor who has a farm and several of his friends from church. They had about 25 people get together the first time and it has grown to over 3300 people. They have everything you can think of to do on a farm from animals, horse rides, bbq, hot dogs, hay bales to climb on and corn to play in to bringing in a knife thrower, old cars, Home Depot workshop, cotton candy, funnel cakes, fire trucks and a helicopter lands in the front yard of the house. There is also a treasure hunt and when you get to the end they throw out more beads, candy and stuffed animals that you have ever seen, they ask if you want more and they throw just as much again. Once it gets dark they have fireworks and a bonfire. And it's all FREE. That's right! All you need to get in is to bring a covered side dish to share with everyone there. It is his church's way of showing the world that you can have fun as a Christian and hopefully show those you know who are not churched, how much God loves us.

You are probably thinking, stop talking and just show me pictures, so I'll do that.

And that's all we actually had photos of. Brandon waited in line for an hour to get a funnel cake so he missed the treasure hunt. We went home after that was over because the sun was going down and it was getting really cold by then. I hate that we only made it two of our three years here, but I think we made up for it this year.