Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, filled with lots of food, family, and fun!

A family from the ward joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a mom and her 3 teenage boys, who we did not know very well, so I was a little nervous at first. But I was glad that we were able to provide a place for them to go for Thanksgiving. It ended up being a great afternoon! It was wonderful to get to know their family better, and the teenagers were so sweet to our kids! As usual, I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, but I did manage to take a picture of the turkey treats we made. Everyone got one at their place for dinner.

The rest of the weekend included some relaxing, kids playing with friends, a little Christmas shopping, and a lot of Christmas decorating! Fortunately, the weather was great and Ryan was able to hang the Christmas lights. For the first time, ALL three boys got to be on the roof to help!

Nathan and Joshua

Benjamin got to do the tricky corners while Ryan held the ladder

Everyone helped assemble the tree. We have a really great system where Ryan unloads the box in the basement, the kids are the runners to bring branches up a few at a time, and I put the branches in the tree with some help from the kids! When it was time to hang the ornaments, we first opened up our new ornaments from Grandma-ma and Grandpa-pa this year.

Elizabeth loves her new Rapunzel ornament!

Benjamin posing with his baseball-playing penguin!

Joshua wrote his full name on his penguin's bat

You know Nathan is happy when he doesn't scowl for a picture!

decorating the tree

Ryan likes to joke that the whole reason I wanted a fireplace installed was to have a place to hang the stockings at Christmas. I have to admit that he is mostly right! So I wanted to make sure I got a picture of our first Christmas mantel! I still have work to do on the bookshelves, but I love the mantel!

Thanksgiving

We had an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. I guess it was so great that we didn't take any pictures of it :)
It was so nice to sleep in a little for 5 days :) I am grateful that none of my children are "morning people"! This year we went to our neighbors' house for dinner. It was been years since we haven't hosted dinner, so it was really strange not cooking the turkey. It took me a little longer to get in the Thanksgiving spirit because I wasn't as wrapped up in cooking. We did make some yummy rolls, Cherry Coke Salad (can't have a holiday without that!), mashed potatoes, and store-bought pies. The Jacksons had the tables decorated so cute -- cornucopias made out of sugar cones, filled with M&M's for the adults and fruit snacks for the kids! Plus their kids had made cute place settings -- Turkeys made by dipping fingers into paint to create the feather look. Wish I took a picture!
We stayed at their home for about 6 hours, and still the boys put up a fight when it was time to go! I got everyone home and in bed by myself, because Ryan had already left to go wait in line at Old Navy. They were giving out free Lego Rockband discs to the first 50 people in line. I had heard that last year people started lining up at 7:00pm, so we wanted to make sure to be near the front of the line to get a copy! Ryan got there at 6:45 and called me. When I asked how the line was, he replied, "I AM the line!" So he waited in the car for about an hour until another group showed up, and then he waited in the line in the 20-something degree weather until the store opened at 3am! He has some great stories, which I will let him post sometime. But I think he had fun and it was worth it! Now we just hope that Santa brings us a Wii for Christmas so we can play the game :) (Shhhh . . . the boys just know he was gone running an errand.)
The rest of the weekend was filled with just relaxing and putting up Christmas decorations. I am happy to say that I have the majority of my shopping done already. So now I can focus on all the other holiday fun, and a few crafty projects I need to complete before Christmas.
I am thankful for such wonderful neighbors and family. And I am thankful that it is almost Christmas and we get to focus even more on service and our Savior.