It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Tis the season to be jolly.... at least it is for me now that all my Christmas shopping is done!  Now I feel like I can truly devote the rest of the time until Christmas focusing on what it is really all about, Jesus!  Over the Thanksgiving holiday we were also able to decorate the house for Christmas. 

Our goal after Christmas this year in the sales is to find a fuller, more vibrant Christmas tree. Ours is a little puny. 

With Captain wild (AKA Leah) around, all breakables had to be placed out of reach.  However, I told Kevin that this year I had to have my big nativity out.

Today also made us feel like we are getting closer to Christmas when we woke up and looked out the window...

Chase of course would not settle down until we went outside to play.  We joined some friends at their house for some play time...

Hope everyone else is enjoying this time of year!

Canada "AAY"

With Laura in town and Canada only being a hop, skip, and a jump away we decided to take an evening to see if the grass is greener on the other side.  From downtown Detroit you can either take a bridge or venture through a tunnel under the Detroit river to get into Windsor, Ontario.  We of course wanted to check out the tunnel...

The Tunnel was not as scary as I had imagined it to be.  We were through the tunnel pretty quickly and before we knew it we were looking back over the river at downtown Detroit...

Once we were in Canada, we really didn't know what to do. We really didn't have much of a plan and we really didn't know where anything was and the GPS was not knowledgeable of where we were.  With all those elements I decided to share with Laura that 19 is the legal age in Canada so we went to check out the local Casino.  Of course since Laura was "legal" she had to do the things that any 21 year old in the US would do...

I didn't bring my camera in the casino with us so sorry for the bad phone pictures.  Laura gambled for the first time and actually won enough money to pay for our dinner and coffee later.  We found a nice Irish pub for dinner.  After dinner we walked around and got some coffee and then were able to stroll along the river.  We enjoyed our time in Canada and only ran into a small problem when we tried to return to the United States.  Kevin so graciously allowed us to take the new car on our adventure so when we tried to re-enter the states we were stopped and questioned for registration on the car.  Sadly we had not had the car long enough to have it registered yet so we were stopped by customs for about 15 minutes while they questioned me on the vehicle and Laura on her job status and what she wants to do with her life (guess they weren't going to let her back in if she didn't show potential).  I suspect they were running the temporary tag through the DMV to make sure we did not steal the car.  Luckily we checked out and they let us back in the states!

Change

 Something I will never get used to is change.  I am one of those people who do not do well with change.  As you may all know there has been a lot of change in my life lately.  Winter is quickly approaching us here in Michigan.

I don't know if I will ever get use to casually looking out the window and seeing snow falling from the sky.  One of the many changes that I am getting used to in my life right now.  With temps dropping around here we had to figure out a way to get Kevin's big truck in the garage so he wouldn't have to scrape his windows every morning.  In order to do so he had to take my side of the garage and I had to get so close to the wall that I was unable to get the kids out of the car on one side.

Pretty tight huh? I guess with a McMahan man I should be used to change by now.  You know with the tight fit of the truck in the garage, winter coming with a 2 wheel drive truck, and the boat being sold... more change was coming my way.  Meet more change in my life...

Meet our new vehicle - 2010 Jetta TDI wagon.  On Saturday morning I took Kevin to the airport at 5:30 am where he caught a flight to Tennessee to pick this baby up and drive her home.  It was pretty nice getting 43 mpg on the way home, even through the mountains.   The truck actually sold to a buyer in Michigan the weekend my sister was arriving in town so for one week Kevin stole her vehicle until he was able to find and figure out a way to get our new car.  In the long run it all worked out perfectly. 

Surprise visit

We have a semi-surprise visitor, Aunt Laura (aka my sister).  Her visit isn't completely a surprise just a little on the last minute side but we are so excited that she is here with us!!!   Today we decided to show Laura downtown Detroit.

Laura was really excited to find out that Detroit neighbors Canada, so we took a stroll down to Hart plaza to look over the river into Canada. 

After some time to run around the plaza we had worked up a good appetite.  We decided to hit a classic eatery...

After a very yummy lunch we went to the top of our parking deck to get some good pictures of the Detroit area.

We are looking forward to some more fun adventures with Aunt Laura while she is here!

The greatest show on earth!

Kevin surprised Chase today with tickets to the circus!  He was so excited not only to be at the circus but to get to spend time with his Daddy.  They of course had to stop and get some snacks on the way in...

After getting settled in with goodies in hand it was time for the show.  They really had good tickets just a few rows back almost center stage so there was a lot to see...

Chase really thought the motorcycles were cool...

The boys really enjoyed their guy time and I think it wore Chase out a little...

"Falling" into winter

Fall has been in the air around here.  It really has been a beautiful fall.  The temps have been fairly mild ranging from 50's-60's mid day and droping in the 30's-40's at night time.  We have been getting outside as much as possible enjoying the sunshine and mild temps before the true cold hits. The fall itself has been beautiful with the change of colors.

We really had fun playing in the leaves and soaking in the cool air and warm sun.  Leah is getting so big and enjoys running around and trying to be as big as her brother.

One short week later we have officially seen our first snow.  It was nothing major, just snow mixed in with some rain and nothing that was ready to stick to the ground but it was our first sighting of snow.  Chase was so excited and of course ready to go outside but luckily I was able to keep him inside for this round.  Winter is coming, ready or not!

Happy Halloween

After all our fun leading up to the big day, Halloween night finally arrived.  Lucky for us our friends, the Hoyt's, had us over for dinner and trick or treating in their neighborhood.  We figured that there wouldn't be much going on in our condo complex and were excited to get to hang out with friends. Before we started the night we managed to get a family photo...

Maybe not the best photo but we were all in it.  Prior to I tried to get some pictures of our little police officer and lady bug...

It is impossible to get them to sit still and look at the camera but at least they were having fun.  Another impossible task was trying to get a picture of our whole group prior to trick or treating...

From Left to right Brooks (Buzz), Jillian (care bare), Seth (alligator), Harrison (lion), Chase (policeman), Leah (lady bug), Dominic (Scooby doo)

We had a pretty cute crew and after the torture of picture taking we let them loose to trick or treat.

Chase LOVED trick or treating and I know would have gone a lot longer if we would have let him. He had so much fun going from door to door and collecting all his treats! We had a great night of fun and friends!

Pumpkin carvin'

After finding and picking the perfect pumpkin it was time to give him some character. 

Before we could give the pumpkin a new face, he had to be gutted...

Chase was not a big fan of digging the guts out of the pumpkin but when momma told him it used to be her favorite part of pumpkin carving he helped out some (and giggled at momma getting messy).  After gutting the pumpkin Chase said he wanted a scary face so Kevin got to work.

After careful carving, drum roll please.......