There will NOT be a Flashback Friday post tomorrow! I am FINALLY biting the bullet and setting up my new computer 🙂 I mean I’ve had the thing for almost a month now…it’s about time to make the switch, right???
You can read Part 1 of our Thanksgiving celebration here!
After the kids got up from their naps at Mema’s we decided to go by and visit with Little Mama and Big Daddy. All the Parker clan would be gathering there that evening for dinner but Zach had such a sweet idea about us starting up a little tradition with just our family that night! Since we’d be missing the dinner, we still wanted to get to visit with them and really it couldn’t have worked out better. We stayed over there for about two hours just getting quality time with Big Daddy and Little Mama (which, btw, ALWAYS call people before stopping by…poor Little Mama was straight up in the SHOWER when we got there. I felt horrible for just showing up!).
Big Daddy has a horse and Kye got the chance to ride her!!!
I love these of Big Daddy 🙂
He’s talking to Kye about the horse
Bareback!
We just let Britt pet the horse…I was a little uneasy about Kye riding it…I wasn’t about to stick Britt up there!
Big Daddy was so proud of Kye 🙂
I have ALWAYS had a special place in my heart for Big Daddy but that day he was ALL about the picture taking which only made me love him more. He kept saying “Ok Mommy this is a good spot for a picture” It was adorable 🙂 Zach and Kye get their love of attention honest for sure!
After we put her away Kye even got to help feed her!
And he wanted to ride back in the golf cart with his Big Daddy…tell me this isn’t so precious?
It was such a blessing to us to get to visit with them. I LOVE when the big group is together but so often Big Daddy ends up sitting in his chair and Little Mama is busy in the kitchen that we don’t get to take the time to REALLY talk and our children don’t get as much one-on-one time with them. It was an afternoon that Kye is STILL talking about and one that will always warm my heart 🙂
After our visit we headed home to start our new tradition for thanksgiving dinner…
ICE CREAM FOR DINNER!!!
Wasn’t that an awesome idea?!?! When I told my dad about it he said it’s a good idea to help settle your stomach after eating so much all day…I just liked the idea because it meant I didn’t have to cook and we got to eat ICE CREAM 🙂 Y’all know how we are pretty hardcore about our kids eating healthy…so it’s a fun tradition to have one day a year where we just pig out on ice cream for our supper 🙂 It’s fun for a three year old and it’s fun for the almost thirty year olds so I def think this will be a tradition that is around for a long time to come in our household 😉
When we walked in the door from Little Mama’s and Big Daddy’s Zach took the kids to play and I got out our spread (and fixed Britt some dinner since she would not be partaking this year!). Zach took this video before we dug in! Btw…Kye is in this phase where he races in the house and immediately runs to his room, takes off his clothes, and changes into pjs. I guess he likes to be in chill mode 😉
I was pretty excited about our new tradition so I went all out at the store!
Gotta have a pink ice cream cone!
We gave Britt a huge glop of vanilla yogurt as her “ice cream”
(PS: I know what you’re thinking: “get that hair out of her eyes!” We were too eager to eat our ice cream to notice haha)
I bought an entire box of waffle cones and Zach is the only one who ate one!
It was a SUPER fun dinner together! Once the kids went to bed Zach enjoyed some football watching and I hit the computer to do online shopping! I was pretty worn out from the busy day and my foot was throbbing so I propped that sucker up and shopped away. 🙂 At about 8:30 Mrs. Charlotte called me on her way to do her traditional Black Friday shopping. She invited me along but I let her know that it’s just not my thing. I’ve never gone out on Black Friday. I’m pretty much a PRO when it comes to finding the deals and I do just fine online…why deal with the crowds?
I told her just to call me if they weren’t sure if something was a good deal or not and I could price check for them online 🙂 I continued with my shopping and she called me again around 9:30 to price check something for her. I just kinda got this feeling that I should go with her shopping…Mrs. Charlotte is NOT the type to ask anyone to do anything as she never wants to put someone out in anyway. I checked Facebook and the first thing that popped up on my newsfeed was a picture of Courtney and Casey Black Friday shopping together up in Atlanta. That’s when it hit me…they usually go with Mrs. Charlotte every year. Now it’s my turn to carry on the shopping tradition! I called her back and said I’d meet them at Sears! I just threw on some comfy clothes and downed a Spark (yes, at 10 pm haha!) and headed out the door 🙂
I jotted a quick list of stuff to keep an eye out for during this adventure and on it was a new vacuum. We have Zach’s from when he first moved out of his parents house…ten years ago. And we have another cheap one I bought from a garage sale. Neither work very well and we have a LOT of carpet in our house. I ended up getting a good deal on a Eureka one and it is AWESOME! Jolee and I pushed this junk to my car through the parking lot 😉
After Sears we went to Target. It was SO INSANE that we had to park in a different store’s parking area and walk. The line for the check out was wrapped up and down the aisles throughout the store. Aunt Meryl was on the hunt for a fake Christmas tree and she found one for only $30! Totally a steal! I didn’t need to buy anything but, of course, ended up with stuff in my cart. I learned that night that Black Friday shopping is MORE about the experience than about the deals. The deals weren’t impressive. But I still found myself buying stuff simply because it was “Black Friday” haha
Belk was going to open at midnight so we stayed in the car until the doors opened (none of us thought it was worth waiting in the actual line that wrapped around the outside of the mall!). It was a MAD HOUSE. They had all their boots on sale for $20 so it was chaos at the boot section. I was straight up in the middle of it grabbing everything I could in a certain size Aunt Meryl was looking for. I didn’t even need any boots but somehow couldn’t resist buying some…and they are even a size too big for me haha. I’m telling you…I totally got caught up in the moment!
It was SUCH a fun night. We were an interesting group…Mema and Aunt Meryl are well into their 60’s…Mrs. Charlotte with her arthritis…Me and Jolee who is in high school haha. I was in a rare “hyped up Emily” mood and had fun being silly. I forced everyone to stop to get a picture together before leaving Belk!
Jolee’s awesome photography skills 😉
Mrs. Charlotte had dropped us off at Belk when the doors opened and went and parked the car SUPER far away (if you’re local…she walked from Red Lobster!!!). Ridiculous! I refused to allow her to go get the car so Jolee and I went. That means I got the honor of driving the Cadillac!!! (I know for some people this is a regular occurrence…coughRACHAELcough…but for me it was my first time driving a “fancy” car) I was SO NERVOUS. In college I somehow managed to wreck both of Zach’s cars at the same time (I was driving his truck and backed into him while he was driving his Trailblazer) and since then I don’t drive other people’s cars. Heck…I prefer not to even drive my own (hello broken side mirror…). I was SO CAREFUL!!!
Love the action shot…yes I wore my glasses just to drive across the parking lot!
I ended up getting home around 1:30. Not too bad! It was super super fun and I’m sure I’ll be doing it again 😉 Since Zach and I had decided to invest in a new computer for me I set my alarm to get up at 2:50 am and slept on the couch as to not wake Zach up. Apple has only ONE sale a year and it’s on Black Friday. It started at midnight central time so that meant 3 am my time. I rolled out of bed at 2:50 and the site didn’t load until 3:30 then, of course, the thing I wanted to order wasn’t even part of the sale 🙁 Bummer! I still had to get up at the regular 7 am the next morning! I did finish up ALL my shopping on Black Friday (online) and got some AWESOME deals!!! 🙂
What has become a tradition over the years is Zach and his dad play an annual Father/Son golf game. They even have a trophy! This year Kye went to play with them for the first 9 holes then I met them and picked him up so they could finish. Uncle Steven played with them but Zach still got to have the trophy as he was the winner yet again 😉 Kye had THE BEST time and Zach said he paid such great attention and could have totally made it the entire 18 (he was heartbroken that he had to come home). He is quite the little golfer and totally impressed Uncle Steven and Big Papa 😉
He wanted a picture of him chewing on the grass
I sent my camera with Zach to take pics while they played…and of course he left it in his car the whole time so this is the only picture I have of the event!
As you can tell we had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving! Lots of memories made and lots of fun times had by all 🙂
My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.
You can read more about our family on my About Me page. Also be sure to follow along with me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!
- What I’m Gifting My Family: 2024 - November 21, 2024
- Effective Parenting Tips to Discipline a 5 Year Old Child - September 24, 2024
- Happy 9th Birthday to My Daughter – Letter to Tess from Mom - August 26, 2024
Just wanted to tell you, Im not sure how i come upon your blog but I love it. I read it ever day and I find my self checking it several times a day to see if a new blog post has been made. Its also cool that only live 2 hours from each other ( im in Warner Robins) and we both grew up in Lawrenceville Ga! 🙂
l143yea9 trahizbt f39s020t9d m1o9eox8 v2dcbgr1
coughEMILYcough your car costs at least twice what mine does. Maybe even three times?! Good night this post was long… where to start?! LOL you love Big Daddy because at first he was the only one who liked you! (snort) Who gave you that silver charger?! It is awesome, why didn't I think of that? So she just puts her hand in the yogurt and licks it off? Greg would absolutely die. Puke and then die actually. That was so sweet (and observant!) of you to realize Mrs. Charlotte was missing her daughters! Aunt Meryl is 60?!? Holy crap, she looks awesome. You can tell her I said that since I doubt they have internet (HA- kidding)