Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving festivities by... cooking!  Exciting!  I know.  I wanted less of the actual turkey day spent in the kitchen this year, so we did as much as we could ahead of time.  Our cousins came and it was a great time! 

The pies were all done by Wednesday evening, so we had pizza for dinner and pie for dessert on Thanksgiving Eve. Shh!  Don't tell.  I wanted to have everyone's pie of choice this year so we had 4 pies (3 pies and one chocolate tort) for 4 adults and 1 toddler.  Nice math, huh?  Christie made their two and I made ours.  Christie: chocolate tort, Derek: apple, Tyler: blackberry, Nicole: banana cream (no bananas on top yet...)

Thursday morning starting with the boys making stuffing and getting the bird in the oven.  Then we all headed off to the ward Turkey Bowl. 

READY, SET, GO!

Tyler's on the far right and Derek's on the far left.

 It was FREEZING!  At least for the three of us just standing and watching.

Caleb really wanted to play.

Attempted interception?

We got home, dethawed and relaxed while we finished up the rest of the meal.

Early afternoon the thermometer popped on the bird so we threw the beans and sweet potatoes in the oven, boiled the potatoes and made the gravy.  

Boys should always be in charge of the meat.  Look how good they did!

Caleb woke up from his nap just minutes after we sat down to eat.

Tyler did a great job leading us in a thankful discussion and prayer.

Then it was time to eat!!

What a great Thanksgiving!

The next three days with our cousins were spent relaxing, playing with Caleb, eating lots of leftovers, and ushering in the Christmas season.  We got our tree and set up all of our Christmas decorations.  We pulled out the music.  

We even went to see the sights downtown.

Market Square is so cute!  This tree flashes to Christmas music and there are similar balls all over the store fronts of the square.  Caleb loved it.

We saw the gingerbread houses and the huge tree and the ice-skaters.

It's great to just be out there among the lights and the people and feel the Christmas spirit.  And snuggle. :)

We did some Black Friday shopping.  We actually got some of our Christmas shopping done!

And of course Tyler wanted to see if Caleb would like Santa a little better this year... not so bad as last year, but he still hasn't a clue who Santa is.  I didn't even try leaving him with the stranger with a big fake beard.

So hooray for another great Thanksgiving and welcome Christmas!

Best & Worst

First of all, have you looked at the ticker to the right lately?  Okay, I don't expect you to, it's really for me, but LOOK!  I'm already halfway done!  So exciting.  Against my better judgement, here's evidence of how the little man has changed me.  I've already gained a lovely 15 lbs with this pregnancy but I'm still a mega 33 lbs from my labor weight with Caleb, so I'm feeling good.

In related news, I've reached an all-time low of pregnancy food purchases.  (I really shouldn't be the one to grocery shop while I'm pregnant since I buy way to much junk!)  This one is so bad, I need to publicly declare it in hopes of humiliating myself so much that I won't do it again.

The motivation for this purchase actually began a few weeks ago while driving some of my young women home.  The got into a heated discussion about whether Utz Cheese Balls were the best or some other brand (can't remember).  Utz won.  I was blown away, not because utz won, but because I had no idea what they were talking about!  I know I'm older than them, but not that much older!  So then I was super curious.  They swore these cheese things are the most delicious snack on the planet.

Then I saw them at Walmart, but HELLO the canister is huge.  And they look disgusting.  I paused, but walked on.

Then I saw them at Costco.  And gee, if COSTCO carries it, it must be a quality product, right?  I just looked more attractive in Costco than in Walmart.

So I gave in.  And they overtook my kitchen.  Literally.  LOOK!

What's the first thing your eyes settle on?  The cheese balls.  Caleb's too.  And by the way, young women, they aren't that good!  Ugh.  I have a million of them.  Literally.  They are now hidden in the basement and will be served at the next six YW activities.

Okay, time to talk about an amazing purchase.  This one is going to blow your mind more than the last, but in a good way.  I happened to be in Old Navy pursuing the clearance racks, when low and behold I found my currently favorite pair of jeans.  NICE!  I'm even going to get them at a discount, I thought.  What an understatement.  I find the price tag and LOOK!

Have you ever seen such a thing?!?  A full, undamaged pair of wonderful skinny jeans.  FOURTY-SEVEN CENTS!  Amazing.  They even really rang up that cheap.  Amazing!  I just can't tell enough people this story it's so great!

Lastly, I must include a picture of our toddler.  He's so much fun lately even though he's occasionally a handful.  90% of my day with him I just love.  (The other 10% I wonder how on earth I can teach him to not do whatever he's doing.)

Here he's saying with his eyes, "Mom, I don't want to wear my hat anymore, OKAAAY?"

In an effort to get him excited about the hat again, we reviewed the words, hat, hair, and head, all of which he's trying to actually say lately.  Here's he saying, "Head!" 

So fun and cute.  I am a lucky mom.

Happy Halloween!

Caleb and I had an interesting Halloween weekend because Tyler was gone (more on that later hopefully) and we were sometimes not feeling our greatest.  We missed some things we were really sad to miss.  :(  But we managed to have a few good times.  Thankfully we have great friends who hosted a myriad of delightful parties.  Thanks everyone!

Caleb dressed very appropriately as our little monkey.  It's too bad I didn't take any pictures of him actually climbing in his costume - they wouldn't have been hard to come by!  He is just such a climber lately.  It's nuts.

Okay, onto the pictures! 

The Monkey

 So you can see his adorable curly tail!  This is the best shot I got of it...

I have to explain what Caleb is doing in this picture.  He thinks that when we take his picture lately, and say, "Cheese" that he should mimic us entirely, so he's saying, "cheese!" and holding up a pretend camera to his eye to take a picture. :)

 

With one of his little buddies.

 Another one of his little friends... Do you like how they're looking in opposite directions?

Not the best picture of either of us, but the only one I got of the two of us.

With my girls that came to the ward Trunk or Treat with the banner we created.

I got to attend a Witches Only celebration.

I was going for the 'witch' from Snow White who is actually a jealous queen who used black magic - basically a witch, right? 

This was the spookiest part of our Halloween weekend: SNOW!  From the time we woke up Saturday morning until 2:00 or something.  Luckily it's all gone now, but the cold weather is kind of scaring me!

 That's a wrap.  Let's get this thing off!