Skip to Content

THANKFUL + SURPRISED

I’ve never been more thankful at Thanksgiving than this year. We spent another 5 days down in Florida and crammed so much into the trip…

First festive things first — Thanksgiving! We flew home bright and early on Thanksgiving morning in our best athleisure and ready to party. Per usual, mom whipped up the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner feast for about 125 people (even though we only invited 17 people). Also noteworthy, this year Matt was delegated the most important task — carving the turkey. Thomas supervised, only threatening to sacrifice a few fingers along the way.

Thanks to my friends at Fruit Bouquets we had one heck of a centerpiece too — an adorable and festive fresh fruit bouquet. And there was only a brief argument over who got to eat the chocolate turkey head apple.

Friday morning we went on a family adventure to Santa’s Tree Farm. Yes, even my sunshine state offers a cut your own Christmas tree experience. The kids had the very best time chasing goats, petting horses, wandering the jolly acres forest of trees and more. Caroline said her favorite part of the trip was the bag of kettle corn and Thomas said his least favorite part of the trip was definitely Santa.

Lucky for us, we got to knock out our 2017 Santa visit while we were there.

Caroline was a little bashful this year, but not enough to prevent her from asking for the Doc McStuffins Hospital Cart she’s been obsessing over. I love Christmas. Every time she gets into trouble she’ll give the most
sincere apology and then ask us if we think Santa will still bring her cart. Maybe, Caroline. Or maybe you’ve walked past that cart 15 times in the garage already and still haven’t noticed it.

Thomas was just…nope.

There were no amount of candy canes that would keep Thomas on Santa’s lap for even a second.

Later that afternoon we decorated gingerbread houses which was fun for about 3 minutes before Thomas realized we wouldn’t be eating the candy, but instead decorating with it. The temptation was too strong and he ended up eating it by the handful while Caroline screamed and bawled over him eating all of her house decorations.

Once the kiddos were sound asleep, Matt and I snuck out of the house for a drink at M Bar before meeting two of my girlfriends and their husbands for drinks at M Lounge. It was a super fun night.

Saturday morning mom and I “went Christmas shopping,” aka we ran a bunch of errands (filled balloons, picked up cake, etc.) and then went to Uncle Nick’s house to set up a surprise birthday party for dad! How freaking crazy that we got to celebrate dad’s 60th birthday (technically 11/30, but still)?!?! All of us were just SO thankful and happy to celebrate him and he never saw it coming. He thought we were all headed to Uncle Nick’s house for a BBQ…

SURPRISE!!!! Also, ALL THE PRAISE HANDS that dad was able to get out of his wheelchair and WALK into his surprise party? Blessings. Blessings. Blessings. There were 25+ party goers cheering loudly for him when he walked in.

Uncle Nick!!

My best friend since elementary school, Ashley, and my bestie since high school, Shannon, also came to the party to celebrate dad. Both of them have known and loved my dad for a very, very, very long time and he was SO happy to see them there.

Sunday morning we went to church where Thomas spilled communion juice all over himself (and me) and started screaming and crying for “juice” during the silent prayer. It was awesome and not embarrassing at all as I was frantically trying to remove him from the service as fast as possible. Afterwards we all went to lunch and then lounged around the rest of the day eating lots of leftover birthday cake.

On Monday we flew back home!

You'll also love

Brandi

Tuesday 5th of December 2017

What an amazing trip!!

rox

Sunday 3rd of December 2017

OH! What blessings for sure!! So happy for this sweet, sweet time with your dad and fam!

Bekah Walsh

Friday 1st of December 2017

It made me so happy to see you all celebrating your dad's birthday - what an amazing holiday break you had!

Caley-Jade Rosenberg

Friday 1st of December 2017

This post has had me in the happiest tears ever!!What an incredible Thanksgiving x

Pam

Wednesday 29th of November 2017

I love your authenticity in this post almost as much as I love that y'all got so much sweet family time!♥️