Is it December already?!?

This year both of my kids got character awards at school!!  Stephen got the courage award from Cary Elementary and Lily Gray got the respect award from Lacy Elementary! Danielle and I were able to watch Stephen get his award and celebrate with him and an ice cream sandwich! 

Stephen getting his Courage award! :)

Stephen's award

Lily Gray's award

Also big news this week- Lily Gray got a retainer put in on her bottom teeth.

Lily Gray showing off her new metal

It was been a whirlwind week already, this weekend we have lots of fun Christmas activities planned possibly even getting a tree! :)

Thanksgiving Round 2

On Friday we headed to my family's house back in Burlington to celebrate Thanksgiving with my side of the family.  My brother and his new wife Beth, announced that they were moving to Montreal in the early parts of 2011 because my brother is becoming the general manager of Alcon Canada! :)  While this news broke Lily Gray's heart because Aunt Beth is now her new favorite member of my family, she quickly got over it when she realized that Uncle Alex and Aunt Beth were giving out Christmas presents.  The kids got a new gumball machine- which Lily Gray and all of her friends LOVE, they got a fabulous Woolly Mammoth stuff animal-that they both adore, and some fun light up holiday necklaces and glasses. 

Lily Gray with her new love- Arburn Tex Flournoy (aka Woolly Mammoth!)

Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving came and went way too fast this year!  This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, Lily Gray had her cousin Kate come over for a play date/sleep over on Tuesday night and then they both went over to their Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen's house where they got to have another sleepover. 


On Thursday, Stephen, Danielle and I made a quick visit to a friend from the church, Walter.  Walter lives in a rehab center not too far from us and also has cerebral palsy.  Not only were we there to wish Walter a very happy Thanksgiving but also to wish him the happiest of birthdays!  Walter turned 63 on Thanksgiving! We had a great visit, showering Walter with delicious candies and birthday balloons.  


Thursday afternoon everyone arrived at our house to celebrate and eat Turduckin (Yogi's choice of course).  Danielle and Stephen took the opportunity while everyone was eating Thanksgiving dinner to go on a little shopping adventure to Wal-Mart.  Typically heading to a place like Wal-Mart is a nightmare with Stephen, trying to get around everyone and squeeze him down the toy aisle is so frustrating that many times we just give up- This time it was different! We have discovered the seceret that no one is a Wal-Mart in the middle of the day on Thanksgiving and all the aisle have been widen in preparation for Black Friday.  Danielle and Stephen had the best time cruising up and down the toy aisles.  They grabbed some batteries and got to work making all the toys come to life- Stephen loved every minute of it!!  It also told us exactly what toys Stephen wanted for Christmas.  Danielle then stashed all the toys Stephen loved and the ones that Lily Gray wanted so we could find them again in the midst of Black Friday may-ham.  This year was my first experience with Black Friday, Danielle and I headed to Wal-Mart around 10:45 to stake out our belongings.  What an experience it was, I can't believe all the crazy people!  We ended up with WAAAYY more than we expected to get but at such great prices, how could you say no??  :)  All in all we had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends- Lots to be thankful for this year.

As promised here are the pictures of Lily Gray's famous Gobble Bieber Turkey that she created for school.  It also sang Justin Bieber's "Baby" when you pushed its back. 

Wrap up round up

These past weeks we had some exciting things happen.  A few weeks ago, Danielle took Lily Gray to cornhuskin with some of Lily's friends.  They all made matching sweatshirts that said class of 2024 on them! Of course they were the hit!! :)  Stephen was able to work with a new communication device at speech therapy and we were able to order a walker that Stephen can walk in!!   Lily Gray created an adorable turkey for school which she named Gobble Bieber and disguised as a Justin Bieber look-a-like. (pictures to come as soon as it comes back home). The best part of Gobble Bieber is that we programed it to sing in LG's voice Justin's famous song "Baby" when she pushes the button on it's back.  While Yogi was home this week, we tried to get a handle on all the leaves that were taking over our house;  Lily Gray and her friend, Rainey, had a great time jumping and playing in the leaves.  This past weekend we all headed down to the Raleigh Christmas parade too, which the kids had a blast at!!  Sunday we wrapped up the week by heading down to the farmers market and picking up everything we needed to make a Thanksgiving feast!  Even though its only a 2 day week this week, we are going to be jammed packed, I can already tell!!  

Sophie and her younger sister and Lily Gray before the parade at Cornhuskin.

Supporting their class!!

Stephen working with the Dyna-Vox system. 

Lily Gray and Rainey playing the the gigantic pile of leaves!

Watching the Christmas parade! :)

Taking home the blue ribbon!

This past week was an exciting week in our household because Stephen took part in the Special Olympics!  This year he was competing in the soccer competition which consisted of three mini skills test: in the first test he had to dribble the ball from one cone to the other (Stephen did this by focusing hard on not knocking the ball off his lap), the second test he had to shoot the ball into the net, and the third test was where he had to try and hit sets of cones with the soccer ball.  Needless to say, we were all super excited for Stephen to be participating this year but were even more excited when he WON FIRST PLACE in all three skills test!!!! :)  For those of you who are keeping count, that is 2 years participating in the Special Olympics and 2 years coming home with a blue ribbon!! 

Stephen and Cheryl running to the other side of the gym without knocking the soccer ball off.

Stephen concentrating hard on hitting the ball into the goal. 

Everyone cheering Stephen on.

There it goes.....GOAL!!

 Picture with his number 1 fans after winning the blue ribbon!

Lily Gray showing her Olympic athlete some love.

Stephen was so proud of himself!

CONGRATULATIONS STEPHEN!! :) 

The calm after the storm

So Halloween is over and this week as been a quiet week for everyone to just relax before all the madness starts again with Thanksgiving.  These past few weeks, Lily Gray has been working on her first book report.  She decided to do the 'Alice in Wonderland' chapter book (mind you, everyone else in the class did not do a chapter book).  Needless to say, our finished book report was 9 pages hand written and in great detail; Ms. Busick has no idea what's in store!  The book report itself is amazing but the part that blew me away were her drawings.  Lily Gray had to illustrate the book and she chose to draw a picture of the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter at a tea party.  We printed off pictures for her to look at on the computer and from there she free-handed the drawings onto her paper. 

Her picture of the Cheshire Cat along with the picture she looked at 

Her drawing of the Cheshire Cat

Lily Gray's picture of the White Rabbit along with the picture she looked at

Lily Gray's picture

Lily's picture and the picture she looked at

Lily's picture!

The finished product!  AMAZING!! We are so proud of her first book report!! :)

Monster Mash Halloween Bash

Oh Halloween weekend we meet once again.  On Saturday, the kids headed to the Museum of Science in Raleigh for their Halloween frightful spectacular.  Lily Gray fell in love with their animal room.  It's basically a room where they have all different kinds of animals that have been preserved that you can touch and look at under a microscope.  Of course, their Halloween costumes were a huge hit! 

'

Lily Gray showing Stephen a skunk's fur

Lily Gray holding a opossum

The kids outside of the museum

We found a lady to paint Lily's face to look like the Cheshire Cat, she was AMAZING!!! :)

Check out this funny video her husband made of Lily Gray's painted face: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltX10377mgE

Lily Gray loves being a mini celebrity! :)

We finally got around to carving our pumpkins on Halloween morning.  In true Flournoy style we had to have spectacular pumpkins! 

The kids dressed and ready to carve some pumpkins! :)

One Alice pumpkin down, Cheshire Cat to go.

All three of our finished products

Close up of the Alice pumpkin

Close up of the Cheshire Cat pumpkin

Everyone had a great time at the Halloween party! :)  

Twas the week of Halloween

This week was busy but what else is new!  The kids and I headed down to the farmers market to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween.  They loved walking around and seeing everything, Lily Gray especially loved taste testing all the apples.  
Also this week, I was in charge of the Halloween learning experience in Lily Gray's second grade class.  I decided that we would make a craft, play a few games and then have cupcakes, sounds simple right? HA it was anything but!  It all turned out fabulous and fun was had by all in the end!

Lily Gray with her finished craft! 

The girls after playing the mummy wrap game.

The whole class

Making a silly face! 

The mummy cupcakes Danielle made for the kids classes!

After the Halloween learning experience the kids decided to make some candy apples to give their teachers and therapist for a special Halloween treat.

Step 1: Start with delicious granny smith green apples

Step 2: Melt the caramel and try hard not to eat any! 

Step 3: Dip the delicious apples into the equally delicious caramel sauce

Step 4: Let the caramel dry and decorate! :)

Step 5: ENJOY!! 

Perfection! :)

In all of our spare time this week, we decided to make red heart chocolate lollipop to pass out on Halloween at our 'Alice in Wonderland' themed party! :)