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! 

Birthdays

We were busy celebrating mine and Lydia's birthdays this month.  Garrett was going to be out of town for my birthday, so we celebrated a little early by going out to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then opening gifts the next day. 

Bella got me Michael Buble's new christmas cd!

Paige got me some pretty silver earrings

Lydia got me this cool purple shirt and Garrett gave me a fancy new watch.

Maggie got me the new Harry Potter movie and she wrote me this really cute poem.  It was so sweet!

This is what it said:

Our Mom's Day

Dashing hurriedly to get us out the door

Counting quickly to make sure

All of us have made it: 1,2,3 almost 4

Sighing with a cry of relief

We're all gone like wind to a leaf.

While alone with our sister and brother

Trying hard to be a good mother

You already are, you don't have to try

The thought of you makes the school hours fly by

Now we're home, time to work

Sorry, we're surely driving you berserk.

But, we're trying too

To be good daughters

Getting good grades and helping you and our father.

Now dinner has approached

All your hard work has been acknowledged

Even if it's under camouflage

We're secretly thinking, did you go to cooking college?

Finally now the day's almost over

We're all tired and trying not to yawn

But give up to sleep 'til dawn.

You go to bed early

Because you're tired

Surely you know that you're the most admired.

You work hard each and every day at these professions:

Cook, mother, wife, daughter, maid

You absolutley don't need lessons.

With love, from: your 4 daughters, son and husband wishing you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

She surely had me in tears while I was reading it. 

 For Lydia's birthday, we just had a family party this year.  We're trying to switch to doing every other year for friend parties.  We celebrated by giving her 4 different clues that she had to open up one at a time and figure out where the clue was taking us.  Her first clue was a word scramble that ending up taking us to the:

BOWLING ALLEY

This is her figuring out her #2 clue in the car.  The next clue was a maze that she had to get through and home was at the end.  We had to get home for Noah's nap, so we thought it would be a good time for present opening. 

She got an alarm clock with a docking station for her itouch.  I also loaded her itouch with a bunch of country songs since she's really liking country right now.  She loved it!

She also got her very own harmonica and a book/cd to help her learn how to play it.  She is constantly playing the one in our camping trailer, so we thought she'd like to have her own.

angry bird t-shirt

new bike helmet

and a new scooter

already a pro!

The 3rd clue was a word search and she had to find all the words to the message, "Happy Birthday Lydia, love, and then each of our names.  Then she had to find two bonus words, which were "Happy Feet".  So, they got to go see Happy Feet 2.  I stayed home since Noah was still asleep. 

The 4th clue was to put together a puzzle that was a picture of food.  She got to pick where she wanted to have dinner.  Out of all the restaurants, she chose Subway.  Oh well, she enjoyed it!  Then we came home and had cake and ice cream.

Happy 9th Birthday Beautiful Lydia!!

Garrett let Noah eat his chocolate cake on top of the table.  You should have seen this kid when he was done!  Lydia got a kick out of it and was laughing her head off!  It was a fun end to a fun day!

Bella

I love this girl!  She is the sweetest little thing.

 

I just wanted to show her latest thing--fixing her hair.  She puts in these two little pony tails all by herself.  She is so proud that she can fix her hair!

This was taken one day when we were making one of our alphabet letters.  We were making the letter B out of paper bananas that she was painting.  She loves making things and doing crafts.  She is a pro at using the scissors and she loves to paint. 

She loves her daddy and loves to get piggy back rides from him.  She always tells us that "she loves us forever" and she loves to give hugs, but she hardly ever gives kisses.  When she needs someone to help her with something, she says that she needs "teamworks".  She cracks me up everyday with the things she says. 

Family Halloween Party

We started our party with one of my favorite games, the Costume Game.  I get a kick out of seeing what the kids come up for their costumes.  Of course, I "assign" them a costume, but to see them embellish it is what is so fun to me.  Below is a picture of my family and I in our "costumes" at one of our Halloween Parties growing up.  I was the clown.  Too funny!

The Fam

Lydia made a fabulous clown!

Paigey was a very professional looking nurse.

Bella was a cute bunny.  I tried to get her to turn to the side so we could see her little tail, but she didn't want to. 

Maggie was a such a good witch...She cracks me up...love the profile with the nose!!

Garrett was a sherrif and I was supposed to be a "movie star", but you can't really tell.  My feather boa blends in with my shirt. 

Noah was a clown, too.

Cute clowns

The Mystery Dinner

This was our menu for the evening

Worms in moldy bread were cut up hotdogs on a roll; skeleton heads were tater tots (I didn't get a picture of everything); Witch's sauce was ketchup and the ghost slime was ranch dressing--for dipping skeleton heads.  The black beetles were olives; lizard tongues were cut up apples and my personal favorite was the rotting pumpkin covered with bugs.  It's this fabulous cream cheese/caramel dip with mini chocolate chips on top for the apples. 

Best ever!!

Frankenstein's Green Fizz--Loved the cup idea

This was a picture of the poisoned brew that I found online and the picture below is what mine looked like.  Not as good-looking, but was still pretty good.  Pretty much vanilla pudding layered with crushed oreos and orange sprinkles. 

I was trying to keep the games fairly simple this year for Bella's sake.  We had 4 games.  Our first one was a "Scavenger Hunt" of sorts.  Each person/team was assigned a Halloween word (each was 7 letters).  They had to search the house and find one item for each letter of their word.  Just so I wouldn't have to put everything back that they found, I gave them each a camera and they had to take a picture of each item.  Then as a bonus, they had to take a picture of their clue word.  So, one of the words was 'pumpkin', so they had to find a pumpkin and take a picture of it.  The picture below is me explaining the game.  I gave them each a sack and after each game they were allowed to pick two prizes.

 

Garrett and Bella--teammates for Scavenger Hunt

The next game was actually a story that I read to them.  They all sat in a circle and passed a package around.  Whenever I said the word left, they passed the package to the left.  When I said right, it was passed to the right.  When I finished the story, whoever held the package got to open it.  I thought it would be fun for Bella and I think she liked it, but the older girls seemed bored with it. 

The third game was a bean bag toss into Pumpkin buckets.  They had 4 bean bags.  If they got a bean bag into the 1st pumpkin, they got one piece of candy.  If they got it into the 2nd pumpkin, they got 2 pieces, etc...There were 5 pumpkins. 

Bella was the champion of the game.  They each had two turns and each time she hit the #5 bucket twice, so she got to pick 20 pieces of candy.  This is her jumping up and down with excitement.  Of course the picture had to be blurry. 

The last game was similar to pin the Witch on the Wart or the smile on the pumpkin.  Except that they got to add the whole face blindfolded.  I made like 5-6 different mouths, noses and eyes.  They had to pick one of each and then put it on their pumpkins.  Not sure what Maggie's doing here.  I think she was dodging the bean bags that Garrett was throwing at her. 

While Lydia was waiting her turn, Garrett wanted to get a picture of a sad clown. 

Maggie attaching her facial features.

Bella with her silly pumpkin

All the silly pumpkins

They always seem to have a good time, even though I think things don't go so well.  Hey, it's a fun party with games and prizes; what's not to like, right?  I love this tradition that my mom started and I love doing it every year!!