Happy Thanksgiving

In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, 2020 has made us even more thankful for our health, family and friends!  So this Thanksgiving we celebrated those blessings even more than usual!  Leading up to Thanksgiving the Covid cases skyrocketed, schools went back to full virtual learning, the government issued new restrictions, mask mandates were extended and we were encouraged to celebrate Thanksgiving with only our immediate family.  Sounds like dooms day but we had one of the BEST Thanksgivings yet!

After a week of full virtual school, we thought it would be best to kickoff Thanksgiving week with an adult night. We weren't supposed to be with a group of people BUT we have been around these people throughout the entire pandemic due to baseball.   Our baseball family means so much to us and we are so thankful to have them in our lives.  We had a sushi chef come to the house and prepare a sushi dinner for our group!  It was the most amazing sushi and even more amazing to have it prepared, served and cleaned up by someone else, and the best part was it was kid free!!  We had the best night full of laughs, amazing company, the best sushi and great wine!  Perfect start to Thanksgiving week!

The next night was our mom/kid date night!  Movie theatres had been closed for months, we hadn't seen a movie since January 2020.  They are now back open with limited seating and the ability to reserve the theatre for private parties of 20 or less.  What a fun and relaxing evening watching Elf with my favorite moms and kids!  I only snapped a quick pick of the girls, didn't make it to the boys prior to the movie starting.  Perk of a private showing is no previews!

Since families were encouraged to stay home I helped organize a Bella Terra Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We all needed a little extra special this holiday season and the parade provided just that!  Our neighbors went all out and created the best float lineup!  The parade provided an hour of fun to take our minds off the pandemic and all the craziness in the world!  Smiles and happiness filled each driveway!

We made our golf cart into a Thanksgiving turkey for the occasion!  Once the golf cart was wrapped in brown paper the only way in was using a ladder :)  Tyler got in Thanksgiving morning and didn't bust out until after the parade was over.

Love my house full of turkeys!

Loved seeing this turkey roll down the neighborhood roads!

Our neighbors put so much time and creativity into their floats.  Here are just a few that were so impressive!  They all made the morning and parade such a success!  So thankful to be part of such a great neighborhood!

Our first responders were icing on the parade cake!  We had our fire department and two sheriffs sounding their sirens throughout the parade route!   

We also had the "Rockettes" high kick their way through the parade!  

Every holiday parade must end with Santa spreading the Christmas cheer!

We ended our Thanksgiving morning with brunch with a handful of our neighbors.  I sure hope the entire morning becomes a new tradition because it sure was fun!  We wrapped up Thanksgiving day with dinner with our combined families!  I sure love that our families like spending holidays together!

One of our favorite holiday traditions is ringing the Salvation Army bells at Sams on black Friday.  This year more than ever people are struggling so it was so important to us to ring those bells.  So we put on our holiday best to raise as much money as we could!  Just like everything else, this years experience was different.  The Edmond community was still just as generous but we had to mask up and huddle with our group 6-8 feet from the kettle.  Still such a great morning raising money for a wonderful cause!

Love that my entire family is on board with Christmas onesies in public!

We always love our special visitors!

We had such a special Thanksgiving and a great start to our holiday season!

Halloween

Halloween was a little different this year, as is everything else in 2020!  We didn't have all our typical Halloween festivities leading up to big day but thankfully our neighborhood treated Halloween like any ordinary day!  We all needed a little fun and normalcy in our lives!  The kids deserved Halloween!!!  Thankfully the Miller kids all wanted to dress up in their sports gear which made it so easy!  I don't have much kid free time these days so I was happy to not shop for Halloween costumes.  Thank you kiddos!

Leading up to Halloween we had a massive ice storm for two days!  Our neighborhood looked like a tornado blew through with all the trees down.  Only in 2020 would we have the 2nd worst ice storm in OKC history and it was in October!  Thankfully, it was warm and 70 for Halloween!  Lots of cleanup ahead!  For safety purposes we decided to start trick or treating early to be done before dark.  Honestly, it was so much less stressful when you can see the mass of kids running from house to house and so much safer!

This was our big Oak Tree in our front yard!  We had to completely remove this one.

This is just a portion of the limbs down from our yard!  Piles of branches lined everyone's yards.  So sad to see all these trees down.

Never thought I would have a dumpster delivered just to haul of branches . . . only in 2020!

Love this growing neighbor crew! So glad we have each other through this pandemic!

Best view watching these kids race down the street!

Diamond Dolls

Harper had a heck of a softball season with the Diamond Dolls!  She consistently dominates playing first base and she crushes the ball when hitting!  She puts in a lot of work with her brothers and it paid off watching her at 1st!  Love this group of girls and parents!

Blitz Soccer

Mason played in his first traveling soccer tournament to Tulsa for the Blitz United tournament.  He is loving his first year playing Academy and his team is pretty impressive!  New teammates, new friends, new coach and more competitive soccer!  Looking forward to watching these boys for years to come

Typically we would be wearing crimson and cream to watch OU/TX but this year it was all black between soccer games!

Mason was my date for the weekend!  Tyler stayed in Edmond for Harper's softball tournament while I was in Tulsa.  Such a special weekend with my little man.  Tyler was the hero of the weekend and made two surprise visits for Mason's games in between softball games!  Dad of the year!!!!  It meant the world to Mason!

So proud of these boys!  They took home 2nd place!!  They played up one year and lost to a BIG 2013 team in the finals.  

Mason was so excited for this silver cup!!!  

Mason couldn't wait until his first meal with his new "cup" :)

 Love watching my boys dominate the soccer field!  Never would have imagined being a soccer mom but I sure do love it!!!