Royer Triplets: Thanksgiving and more

Here it is less than a week away from Christmas and I am just now updating the blog from Thanksgiving. I feel like I haven't posted a real post in forever, but we have been very busy. For Thanksgiving this year we went home to Indiana to visit with family. It is our favorite place to be! We drove again this year. This year's drive however, was a lot different than last year. Last year they slept most of the way without any issues. This year, every time we stopped for gas or bathroom breaks, they woke up and then decided to stay up for hours. Needless to say it was a long night, but we made it. We had a really good Thanksgiving and a lot of fun visiting with everyone. It was really neat to see how far we have come since last Thanksgiving. Last year, the girls were eating sweet potatoes out of a baby food jar, this year we got to fill their plates with all the good Thanksgiving food traditions that we were eating. They mostly ate macaroni and cheese, but they tried a lot of different foods. We also decided to have Chloe's first haircut while we were home. Mark's sister-in-law Becky is a hair dresser so we asked her to cut Chloe's hair. We didn't have her take a lot off, just a trim in the back and cut the hair out of her face. It was a busy week visiting everyone but we had a lot of fun. We headed back home on Saturday night. The ride home was a little better, but not much. We made it home safely though and that is all that matters. I have no newspaper stories this year as we didn't get a chance to stop at our infamous Dairy Queen. Maybe next year...

Last weekend we went to the Festival of Lights in St. Augustine with Derek, Jessica, Mya and Addy. It is a Christmas Festival with all sorts of activities. They got to take a picture with Santa (kinda). Again a lot different from last year. Last year they sat on Santa's lap without a problem. This year, they would not go near him. So we got a family picture, but that was about it. They also had some little houses for the kids to play in and we also made s'mores. By the time we did all that, it was well past their bedtime and they had enough so we didn't get to go on the carriage ride with Mya and Jessica, but we still had a lot of fun.

I am proud to say that Mark and I are done Christmas shopping almost a week early this year and everything is wrapped and under the tree. (we made a very smart desicion this year, to put the tree in the kitchen. The girls can't get into the kitchen without someone opening the baby gate, so it has allowed us to put ornaments on the tree and presents underneath it.) However, we have been so busy that we have really dropped the ball on video tapping and pictures. The girls are doing so much new stuff and are starting to talk a lot more. I am hoping this week, they will be willing to let us get them on video. Here are a few pictures that we have from Thanksgiving and the Christmas festival.

Family picture with Santa...Jillian was stuck with Santa and wasn't too happy.

Chloe: Daddy went upstairs for just a quick min and came down to this smiling!

Payton and Chloe playing in the houses

Jillian: Simple and Sweet!

Payton with her Belle Doll from Aunt Becky and Uncle Mike

We got an early Christmas gift from Grandma Mimi which was a seat and and trailer for the bikes so we could go bike riding. We also got bikes from Uncle Conor so we went on our first family bike ride together.

Jillian: "OH TOODLES!!!"