"Honey, do you think you have enough room for the angel?"

Usually, we go and cut our tree down from a tree farm. Last year, we just bought one from a tree lot.  It wasn't as cool.  So, this year we went back to the tree farms. I'm sure Garrett would rather get it from a lot.  I'm sure it's much easier on him. 

Looking for the perfect tree...

Found it!  Garrett likes to pick the biggest, tallest tree that he can find--so big and beautiful, but we always end up cutting a lot off so that we can fit it in our house.

Noah LOVES to be outside, so he was having a great time!

Maggie was trying to catch up with Garrett so that she could help carry the tree.  But, she couldn't ever get caught up.

Getting the tree home was quite the adventure.  First off, we have a perfectly good truck that we could use, but it doesn't fit all 7 of us.  So, we took our suburban.  Second of all, we forgot to bring rope.  Oops!  Luckily, the lady had something we could use.  Something thin and not super strong, but something nonetheless.  Third, this tree was massive--and really heavy.  Garrett had to get another guy to help him get it up on our car, and even with his help, they had a heck of a time.  Once we got it on, Garrett tried to tie it with the thin plastic rope as best he could.  But, Garrett didn't feel that it was secured enough, so the whole ride home, he hung on to the tree through our moonroof.  He froze his arm off.  I had to take a picture though, because I thought it was hilarious.  He cussed the whole way home about not being able to use his truck...and how "next time we're leaving someone home".  Ha ha ha! 

The tree ended up being almost 12 feet tall, so we had to get it down to 8 1/2 feet, so we could have room for our angel.  We (I should say Garrett, since he does all the work) also had a heck of a time getting it to stand up straight in the tree stand.  It kept leaning off to one side, so Garrett had to stick some pieces of wood down the sides of the tree stand, so that it would stand up somewhat straight.  It still leans a bit, so we tethered the tree to the wall, just in case it tried to tip over.

Noah helping daddy with the lights. 

Everytime I decorate a tree, I can't help but think, "SQUIRREL!"

Taking an eggnog break

Isn't he adorable?

Decorating the tree...normally we have all red lights, but this year I was wanting to do white.  But, I didn't have enough white lights.  So, we went with red and white.  I really like the way it turned out!

Noah helping decorate the tree.  That first night, he kept trying to take all the ornaments off, but after telling him not to touch it anymore...he really hasn't touched it since.  Thank heavens. 

The beautiful finished product!

The Rest of Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was so nice and relaxing.  Friday, we ran over to Fred Meyer's to catch the end of the Black Friday sale--mostly the 1/2 price sock sale.  We are not big black Friday shoppers, and this is the closest we will come to it. 

Later Garrett took all the kids out in the back and they raked the leaves and played.  It was a beautiful day and while they were outside, I worked on cleaning the house a little bit...it was SO QUIET and peaceful!!

Later that night, we took the kids to McMenamins to see "A Dolphin Tale". First of all for all you non-Oregonians, McMenamins is a chain of nearly sixty microbreweries, music venues, historic hotels, and theater pubs. The one we went to is a grand hotel and they have a movie theater in the hotel and you can eat dinner as you watch the movie. It's a lot of fun and the tickets for the movie is pretty cheap. They have the best cajun tater tots, ever! Anyways, we went to see "A Dolphin Tale" and we loved it. It was such a good movie and my kids loved it because of the dolphin!

Saturday afternoon, we went to see the pianist Jon Schmidt in concert. He is an amazing pianist! I used to listen to his cds in college when I would study. I got reaquainted with his music recently when I found this video of him and his friend, Steven Sharp Nelson (an amazing cello player) on youtube. It's called "Love Story meets Viva la Vida". If you haven't seen it, you should check out the link. It's so awesome! My kids love watching it. Anyways, since Maggie and Lydia are taking piano lessons, we took them to the concert because we thought they would appreciate it and enjoy it. It was awesome! They are both so funny and talented, but I personally think that Steven Sharp Nelson should be included in the title of the concet heading because he added so much to the show!  He is hilarious. It was a great outing and I know the girls really enjoyed it, too. Lydia was grinning from ear to ear the whole concert.

These two pictures were taken from our phones and they didn't turn out so well.  But the following three I got off the internet.

He actually played a song like this at the concert!  Crazy talent!

Here is the link for "Love Story Meets Viva la Vida":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k

This is a link to something they did in our concert as well that had us all cracking up.  They were playing Pachabel's Canon and Steven thought it was so boring that he "was falling asleep", but then changed it up a bit and threw in a little U2.  The recording is not the best, but you can still get the idea. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2xgLL52xds&feature=related

Our Little Songwriter

Anyone that knows Paige knows that she is a singer, a whister and a hummer.  She loves music and loves to sing.  Whether she's coloring, working, eating, dancing, whatever...you name it, she's usually singing something.  Well, now I can add that she is a songwriter too.  She wrote this song the other day, and she had a specific tune to go with it.  She practiced it over and over and sang it so much, that all my girls know it now and sing it sometimes. 

She took the words with her to school the other day and told me that she wanted to sing it to her teacher, Mrs. Nakonsky.  When she came home that day, she told me that she sang it to her teacher and then her teacher asked her to sing it to the whole class, which she did.  (That kid has no fear!!)  Then, I guess they passed the words around and all the kids got to sing a part of the song and then they sang it together.  I thought that was so cool, that the teacher took the time to help Paige showcase a talent and to have her share it with others.  What a cool teacher.  Paige is so funny, too.  I love that she was brave enough to sing it for others and that she has a love for entertaining!

This is her song...It's called "I Love You". 

I have a heart it's big and red.  A difficult is happening to it.  (I'm not quite sure what she thinks "difficult" means)
I need someone to help me get untrapped. 
Oooh wah...from my heart.  I love you.
Love you, love you.
Love you, love you.
Love you, love you!! 

I should record her singing it...it's so funny because she really gets into it and she's so animated!  She is such a cute girl!

Thanksgiving

This year we were planning on having Thanksgiving on our own at our house like we usually do.  But instead, we were invited to have Thanksgiving with some friends from our ward who didn't have family around either.  We ate at the Browns house and the Dixon's and the Braithwaite's came also.  In total, there were 9 adults and 20 kids.

Waiting for the feast to begin

Abby, Trevor, and Kayla

Whitney and Cassidy (two of the young women I teach--such GREAT girls!)

The hostess, Beth, divided up the food assignments and I have to say that I got off pretty darn easy. Beth made the potatoes, broccoli/cheese casserole, green beans, and a berry jello salad. Her mother-in-law made the most amazing peanut butter pie!! 

Rockelle is our chef and made the turkey, the stuffing, THE best yams I've ever had, 250 rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy and some pies, pumpkin bars and a couple other desserts.

Suki made the ham and her delicious pot-stickers.  Not your typical Thanksgiving dish, but yummy just the same.  She also made some peach pies.

I made some rolls and 2 banana cream pies, and bought a pumpkin pie and pecan pie from Costco along with Costco's All-American chocolate cake.  They all requested the costco desserts. 

The adult table

The kids table

Waiting in the buffet line

Dessert time

The kids got a kick out of making jib jab videos

Noah playing with some real boy toys.  (The Browns have 3 boys and 3 girls)  He had a great time. 

We had a TON of food.  It was a lot of fun and nice to be able to hang out with such great people.  After we ate, Garrett took Noah home to have a nap (we live 4 houses down from the Brown's), the kids played, the men watched football and the women talked.  It was so nice and relaxing.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went ahead and cooked our own Thanksgiving meal since we had the turkey and I was really craving my mom's stuffing and gravy and her baked beans. It was so good! I guess we had so many things to be grateful for that we celebrated twice!