Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was spent here in Las Vegas with family. We started off the weekend with a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Wednesday night. We made popcorn and buttered toast, and had pretzels and jelly beans. Not everything was perfect...Abbie keeps reminding me that the napkins weren't right. Snoopy does little boats. And we will have to borrow Grandpa & Grandma's ping pong table because Kyle kept bringing that up. I mentioned getting Abbie & Daisy little pilgrim costumes like Snoopy and Woodstock but they didn't seem as important for some reason...hmmm.

The next day we joined everyone at Grandma and Papa's just after noon. The kids made a beeline for the leaves in the front yard. They buried Aunt Sam then Papa. Later in the day Kyle raked a huge pile for them and they tried to bury him. All that was missing was a wet sucker...
After the first leaf madness the little kids went for a bike ride with Aunt Sam. Daisy tried to follow on her squirrel but quickly became frustrated and had to go home. Tripp and Kyle missed the bike ride but had one of their own as they rode their bikes from home to Grandma & Papa's house. Ryan followed behind (the little kids that is) in his wagon.

Ryan couldn't wait until 4 p.m. for dinner so he checked out the fridge early. He is so funny. I am going to miss him when he gets older. It will be fun having another bigger kid but I'll miss cuddling a baby.

After playing in the playroom and all the outside activity, it was time for a little rest and another viewing of Snoopy Thanksgiving (my favorite Snoopy holiday special, in case you wondered). That's me on the side looking through the holiday ads. I woke up at 4:35 for Toys R Us. Lindsay and Sam got up and went to Target at 4 a.m. Forget that. I love my sisters but NEVER go with them. They always end up going earlier and to more stores than I do. That's why Abbie goes shopping with her Aunts for her birthday...I hate to shop.

Kyle can't watch TV at the moment and Ryan isn't interested so they had a little man to man time. I've mentioned before, little kids LOVE Kyle. I think it's because he is nice to them. He is loving and kind and sweet to the little guys.

But rest didn't last long. There were Rice Krispie turkeys to make, and games to play. Lindsay had an entire line-up planned. My parents even bought an air hockey table. It didn't work but that didn't stop Abbie, Daisy and Nate from playing it. Abbie (in particular) really loved it.

Thanksgiving was a fun day. The food was yummy, the family was fantastic and overall it was a good day. Tiring, but great.

The next day started early, then went full speed ahead. Paul and his family were in town and invited us for a full day of activities. We went bowling with them and their cousins for a couple of hours then to see Tangled. Abbie has been waiting for months to see the movie and going with so many cousins and friends made it even more special.

The photo below is my favorite from bowling. It is Abbie and Paul's niece Maddy. She is in 5th grade is was so cute with Abbie and Daisy. Abbie in particular liked bowling with her. Abbie, at one point said, "I got a home run!" and instead of correcting her or making fun of her (which her brother would have done) she just said, "I got a grand slam." She helped her each time get the ball down the lane, which was helpful since I was there with the girls and Daisy was noshing on the food Paul and Jeremy ordered so I had my hands full with that. We are lucky to be associated by family to such fun kids as Maddy and Crew and to see them so often! The girls had a blast with Paul and Jeremy's kids, especially the girls. Daisy kept saying, "I love Isabelle."

Later that night, Sam made a huge pot of chili and we all (Lindsay, Wes, Sam, our parents, the kids) met up again to eat it. It was so nice not to have to cook or eat turkey! Thanks Aunt Sam. You're a brick.

After chili, Paul, Laura and the kids came over for games and pie. That's right, Paul, Laura and ALL the kids. It seems Seth's new doctor has the "The kid's gotta live" attitude and advises him to simply take some benedryl when visiting family with dogs (or dog) and just do it! Works for us. So we put Kramer upstairs and they all came over for some fun. We played UNO Blaster and Bingo. Tons of fun. You don't realize how nice it is to simply invite family over until you can't. Then you just get used to not inviting them over and not seeing them much until you can again then you realize "It rocks to have family at your house to play games and hang out!" We missed you Seth...so glad you can all come back!!!!!!

Saturday we finally (after two cancellations - bad behavior of course) got to take Kyle to see Harry Potter. We also met Scott, Tara and Jude for lunch at Metro. It's sad when the one year old is the best behaved of the group. Jude is so darling. Why didn't I get a photo? Maybe because my kids aren't. Daisy was finally sent to the car with her dad for bad behavior. Ugh. It was Disney day though and all the little guys looked cute in their t-shirts and princess dresses. We sure do miss the Hurds...why is such a small town so stinkin big?

And that's it...our Thanksgiving wrap-up. Sunday was spent putting up the Christmas tree and celebrating Preston's birthday.

And on the other side of the country our nephew, Trey, was getting sealed to his fiance Courtney on Friday in the Washington D.C. temple. It was too far away and too quick a trip for any of us on the west coast to make it for anything other than a quick "Hello" so many of us are talking about trying to head out over the summer for a longer trip to get spend time with Wes & Elizabeth and their kids. My kids keep asking "Who is Courtney" and I keep saying "Trey's fiance...you know, the cute girl on our fridge" because really, I don't have any details on her yet either and they can only live with "She's a nurse and Trey loves her" for so long. I got to meet her briefly a couple of years ago at Elizabeth's house but not as a girlfriend or anything...just a family friend. So when Trey came home from his mission and blamo announced his engagement, I had some quick talking to do. My kids don't let you off with just "Trey's fiancee" without really knowing who this girl is first. Especially after talking about Trey and his mission for so long...this was big news. Kyle is content with it now because he spent the afternoon with her brother and thought he was cool but the girls aren't giving this thing up...they really want to know what is going on here. I'm hoping that once they meet her this summer and really love her we can drop all the questions and just focus on how much we love Trey and Courtney. We hear they are excited and are really excited for them...sad to miss the big day but our thoughts were with them. Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Wesley Gormus III!!!!!