Happy Thanksgiving

You have to run a turkey trot on Thanksgiving! And if not an official race, than an unofficial turkey trot.  Rachel and I drove to her sister's house in Gilbert to run a 10k for change of scenery and it was a beautiful and slightly chilly run -perfect!

Elliot helped me make the stuffing.

Turkey turned out nice!

Peter did the turkey carving this year.  Really the meat just fell off the bones.

Loved have the elders over this year!

After eating we needed to make room for all the pies!

Lot's of good conversations, and ukulele music too!

 Peter brought his corn hole set which was a big hit!

The Manning's left to be with James' family and the Opie's came for pie.

Andrew and Zara helped out with the Brown's project next door.

And neighbor friends from the other side of our house played out back for a bit.

 We finished the night off with a call to Mom & Dad, a Christmas movie for the kids, and a couple games. It's been a good day.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving weekend

I'm a little late posting these but we had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  It started off with the pie making, I mentioned, a tradition that Julie made more special with a little pie announcement.  She likes to announce these things with subtlety.   I had a bad cold most of the week which caused me to miss out on the Turkey Trot but I still ate my Thanksgiving meal with gusto.  Elliot and Avery ate more than last year, which wasn't difficult since all Elliot had was ham and Avery pie.  On Friday we took some family pictures of Julie, James and Josie and took the opportunity to snap of few family pics of us as well.  That was interesting!  Saturday was a special day.  Someone turned 27 and someone else turned 9 months (hint).

I don't know about you, but I am really looking forward to Christmas.

This week we plan putting some Christmas lights on our house,

buying a Christmas tree,

get my hair done (I'm itching for change),

making homemade ornaments for Andrew's family,

and celebrating Andrew's 32 b-day Saturday.

pies, pies, pies

1/2/3/4

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday.  It probably has something to do with the fact that sometimes my birthday lands on it.

Here are some other reasons I love Thanksgiving:
♥ the FEAST
♥ it's only a few weeks before Christmas
♥ being able to take a moment (or two) to count my blessings
♥ spending time with family
♥ the Turkey Trot
♥ knowing I'll never be in England for this holiday again (what's the point?!)
♥ going to bed in a sleep coma that night to wake up and shop!

The day before Thanksgiving it's a tradition to get together with my sisters and make pies.  Ever since we bought our house I host have been hosting and I really look forward to it.  In the past there have been years that we had about as many pies as people!  This year our Thanksgiving will be a little smaller so I'm only making pumpkin (my favorite!) and chocolate pudding pie.  It's not just that we really love pies but we love making them together.  It's a tradition!

thanksgiving recap

"How was my birthday/Thanksgiving?" you ask. Well, it it was amazing. How was yours?

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and I had a good time.

I got to eat a lot of yummy food!

I got to spend time with family, including my grandma that I don't see very often.

I watched Andrew play with the bow and arrow he made out of bamboo.

That's his new phase right now but I'll have to share photos because it's actually pretty cool.

Instead of the usual football after feasting my dad set up a volleyball net and we played in the rain.

My family also sang to me but we saved the candle and cake ceremony for today.

My mom made this delicious heart shaped cake from scratch.

I know I just shared a belly picture two weeks ago, but who's keeping track?

This is me at 26 weeks looking smaller than I did in the last picture. I think the uterus is growing up, not out, right now. I also wanted to share the cute felt bow I made for Avery, and my hairdo that actually turned out the way I wanted it to. I love it when that happens!

Happy Holidays!

a time to celebrate

Somehow another year has come and gone.

It's exciting to have my birthday on Thanksgiving this year.

It's also special to be pregnant on my birthday.

This is the third time that has happened.

Today I plan on eating and relaxing.

Should be easy.

traditions and ducks

Today is going to be a beautiful day!

My house smells like yeast because I'm baking rolls for Thanksgiving.

That has to be one of my favorite smells.

My sisters/sister-in-laws are coming this afternoon to bake pies which will only make my house smell better.

I really want to enjoy this Thanksgiving with my family because I won't see them at Christmas.

Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled to have Christmas with my in-laws. In fact, this is my fourth Christmas in England. I'm just grateful that I can always have Thanksgiving at home. Obviously, they don't celebrate that holiday in England.

Yesterday I took my kids to feed the ducks.

It's only a 5+ minute walk from my house. We should go more often.

They didn't want to leave. I love making them happy and making new memories.

So I want to start a Thanksgiving morning breakfast tradition. Our Thanksgiving meal isn't until 1:00ish, which is a long time to wait after breakfast(especially for kids and pregnant women) so I want to make something yummy. I was thinking cinnamon rolls or crepes with fruit or some sort of egg dish. Do you have any Thanksgiving morning breakfast traditions? Any ideas or suggestions?

Judging by this mess, can you tell what craft the kids and I did today?

If you guessed turkeys you are right!

Andrew is camping and I wanted to do something fun with the kids to help the time fly by.

It was a big mess but I love how our turkeys turned out.

Far from accurate but you get the idea.

We used materials that were already lying around the house such as feathers, card stock paper, Martha Stewart glitter, markers, elmers glue, and scissors.

Elliot really took his time coloring. Avery finished both of hers before he started gluing his first one.

Her face is hilarious here! It's like she's critiquing her own artwork

thinking she can do better next time.

I didn't want to miss out on all the fun so I styled my turkey with chevron stripes.

And here are the finished products.

I think we might make this a tradition and start making them every year

to get us in a Thanksgiving mood.

On a side note, Happy Bonfire Day!

Maybe we'll roast some marshmallows in our fire pit tonight to celebrate.