What We've Been Up To: Thanksgiving and Christmas Break

Having not posted since Halloween, I have a bit of catching up to do. It would take me forever to write up all that has been going on, so I hope to use mostly pictures to update you on our latest adventures. I was going to just do one big huge post, but as I'm looking through pictures and remember the good times we've had it's looking like it's going to take more than that.

After Halloween was Thanksgiving, which was nice. We spent the day (which was a beautiful one!) outdoors enjoying the weather and all the beautiful world around us. That evening, we celebrated with several families from church and had a really nice time. There was lots of food and good company, what more could one ask for!

 

 Christmastime was really nice. We stayed here in MS and did our own thing this year. We decided to keep things pretty simple, so we started with an Erik-proof Christmas tree...

 and an Erik-proof nativity scene or two.

 We went with some friends on a drive to see the Christmas lights in Woodland, MS. The whole town was lit up and it was really fun to see all the lights!

 Remember I said we were going simple this year? Well, thanks to our friends and family we had enough presents to bury our little tree. It barely poked out above the pile. Most of them were for Erik, but it was so fun to watch him enjoy them.

 Christmas morning was a lot of fun. We skyped with Erik's Grandpa and Grandma Richins while we opened presents. He especially loved the dog from Great Grandma Mower and the shape sorter from Aunt Kate.

 One of our other favorite things to do when school is not in session is to hit the playground at the nearby elementary school. It's close enough to walk to and they have a whole area designed specially for toddlers and young children. Erik loves it!

 Just as we were finishing at the playground, Erik sat right in a mud puddle. I decided to let him walk for a few minutes to dry off before sticking him in the stroller. He noticed these two on the road ahead of us and took off to try to catch them.

"Hey guy with the dog, wait for me!!!!!!!"

Halloween!

Our Halloween was kinda spread out over a week or two. It started with our Branch Fall Festival. We all made costumes and dressed up for that. 

Erik was the Big Bad Wolf.

Detail on the Wolf's face.

Ethan was the Granny. 

Have you ever seen a sweeter looking Grandma?

Little Red Riding Hood

Erik got more frosted sugar cookies leading up to Halloween than ever before in his life. We made cookies at the play group we went to, and he liked it so much we decided to do it for Family Home Evening. He thought the cookie was pretty good, but he thought the frosting was AWESOME!

We also spent an evening at the MSU Halloween Carnival. Erik started the evening dressed up, but it got too warm so it wasn't too long before he shed his wolf skin and just went around as the cutest boy anyone had seen.

There were tons of games to play and things to do. And Erik could've made a haul on the candy if we could've talked him into grabbing more than one thing from the prize bowls. 

Check out what I've got?

Dropping balls into candy buckets to earn a prize. 

Yeah, there was a whole bucket of chocolate and he chose a Twizzlers. 

Squirting water into a bucket to win a prize. 

Decorating a goodie bag. 

"Look what I did Dad!"

Soda can bowling. Erik loved the bowling ball. In fact, he loved it so much we finally had to just take it away from him and drag him away kicking and screaming. 

Look, they had cookies to frost! 

Purple lipstick? I don't know what you're talking about...

Getting a picture with Bully the bulldog.

For the actual Halloween evening, we decided to go Reverse Trick-or-Treating. This is a tradition my family has done for a while, if you want to know more about it, here's a blog post my sister wrote about it. We made a huge pile of sugar cookies (complete with frosting, Erik wouldn't have had it any other way) and delivered them to some of our friends and neighbors. We ended up hanging out for a little while at the last house on our list, but couldn't stay too long because our little Big Bad Wolf was getting a little crabby. 

It was a pretty fun way to spend the "holiday" (c'mon, it really doesn't count as a holiday, barely anyone even knows what it's REALLY about), and we had a great time. 

MSU Homecoming Tailgate

We have never been on campus during the football season tailgating before (we've driven by, but never really stopped to take it all in) so we decided recently that we would go see what all the hype was. It was homecoming weekend, so things were even busier than ever. 

Too cheap to pay the $20 parking fees on campus, we decided to park in downtown Starkville and ride the buses that run especially on game day for the tailgating crowd. These buses run for three hours before kickoff and two hours after the game ends to help everyone in town join into the party. Every bus we saw going to campus was standing room only. Imagine that continuously for three hours, that's a lot of people!

The bus drop off was right by the foot ball stadium, but that wasn't our destination. Ethan is a member of the MSU chapter of the American Fisheries Society, and so he was invited to join in on their annual Homecoming tailgate party, catered by one of the most famous BBQ places in town. There was no way we were going to pass up free BBQ, so we put Erik in his stroller and headed south to Thompson Hall to get some grub. Watching the people along the way was just mind boggling. Just so you know, we got on campus three hours before kick-off, and these people had already been here for who knows how long. 

Many of the streets on campus are closed to car traffic to allow for the massive number of pedestrians. Each family/group has a canopy to hang out under, usually with all the fixin's (I'll show you what I mean in a minute).

These people staked out their spots days before this, and they're now ready to sit back and relax. Did you notice the satellite dishes? Everyone brings their HUGE big screen TVs from home and they all sit just outside the stadium to watch the game in style. 

We made our way through the crowds to our party and pigged out on BBQ'd pig. And coleslaw. And potato salad. And ice cream. And soda. It was pretty awesome. Erik was somewhat interested in the food, but more interested in the landscaping. 

If only there wasn't a formidable wall of grass between him and the water...

He just wouldn't push through the grass to get to the stream (which was okay with me). He finally figured out he could crawl underneath it, and then we decided it was time to move on before we all ended up soaked. 

After we ate, we decided to walk back through the main tailgating crowd just to get a feel for the scope of this huge tailgating party. 

We looked down this side street and saw this huge crowd of people and had to go check it out. 

Turns out the drum line was performing for the crowd, so we decided to stick around for a while. As soon as Erik heard the music he started dancing and was hooked. 

Watching the drum line. 

People EVERYWHERE! And in pretty much every possible state of drunkenness and undress there is. 

Again, this is 3 hours before the game started, but people were already forming huge lines to get into the stadium. 

Just another look at a typical set up. Generators, Satellites, Ice chests, oh my! There's actually a company here in Starkville that you can pay to come set up your gear for you. They bring in tents, tables, chairs, satellites, TVs, EVERYTHING! I bet they make a fortune!

The shuttles only run one way, and they didn't switch to go back to downtown until the beginning of the 4th quarter, and we weren't willing to stick around and try to keep Erik entertained for something like 5-6 hours to wait for the bus, so we just walked back to town. Erik chewed on everything he could get his hands on, bark, sticks, rocks, grass, etc... He was a mess by the time we got back to the car. 

Back in the car headed for home. All the fun we had, and all he wants is the camera.