Thanksgiving 2015

We pulled in late-ish Tuesday night, got the kids in bed and chatted with Mom and Dad. Wednesday morning, Dad had arranged for Richie and the kids to go rake leaves at the neighbor's house. Richie was grateful for a work project and the kids were excited to help. When I told them they would be helping rake leaves, they were so excited. "Rake leaves?? I'm great at raking leaves!" said a cute Miles boy.



Later on that day, Mom had a cool craft to work on with the kids. :)


Thanksgiving morning, we met the fam at a park where we were introduced to Pickle Ball. We are a little late getting on the Pickle Ball bandwagon, but it is super fun! The kids ran around and played hide and seek with their cousins to their hearts content. I'm grateful my kids have so many wonderful cousins to play with and learn from. I never worry about hurt feelings or exclusion or anything like that, when they are together. They treat my kids so well and it's the best to watch friendships grow. The weather was perfect, thank you very much SG. It was such an enjoyable way to spend a morning. After a couple of hours, we packed up to get ready to feast!


I got everyone's plates loaded up and handed out, then got to work crafting the perfect Thanksgiving plate for myself. When it was sufficiently full, I started carrying it to the table and had a small, but noticable, physical reaction to the pang of guilt that hit me. I stopped mid-step and almost wanted to put my plate down and say, "What are we doing?" I realize it's not bad for us to have so many blessings, I just was keenly aware of them in that moment and felt acute sorrow for those people who aren't so blessed. I mean, check out that bounty!


To burn off the Thanksgiving calories, we were introduced to another fun game: Nine square. Remember 4 square from elementary school? It's just like that, except there are nine squares and it's up in the air. Lindy tagged along as my partner, Miles stuck with Paris, and Gwen went rock hunting. :)



Friday afternoon I was able to meet up with a few friends from high school (Hi Ani, Laura, Hillary, Jessica, and Jasmine!). I love getting together with old friends. It's so fun to catch up. I brought my camera in to take a picture, then forgot to take any and left the camera at Laura's! Luckily, she was nice enough to drive it over. During this time, the boys were out shooting targets and skeet. Then began the annual grandkid's sleepover! My mom is amazing and hosts all the potty trained grandkids for a sleepover after Thanksgiving every year so the parents can get some shopping done.
This year, the theme was all around hot air balloons. The kids made marshmellow shooters out of balloons and cups, hot air balloon ornaments for our Christmas trees, and she helped them make giant hot air balloons out of tissue paper to be used the next day. My kids chose to have the inevitable meltdown during a game where you try and stomp on balloons attached to everyone's ankles. Miles was the first player out, so he obviously needed to sulk for 20 minutes in the backyard. Gwen tripped not too much longer afterward and scuffed up her elbow. So naturally she cried, inconsolably, for the next half hour. Grandma ended the game not too much after that and gave everyone a prize to calm them down. Ha! The best part of the night however, came when the kids were settled eating pizza and watching "UP" and Richie and I snuck out to have dinner with Jenn and Mike, and Chris and A. After Red Robin, Richie and I treated ourselves to a full-price movie! High rollers!! Dates are so nice. We should have more of them. :)



Saturday, we got ready and then headed to a nearby park to launch our homemade hot air balloons. Coolest activity ever! Uncle Mike brought over some sort of device from his classroom and attached it to Mom's propane tank. If you held the balloon over it for just enough time, it would float for a few hundred feet and then come down. Our balloon had some sort of magic in it because it floated a couple of miles away and out of sight! After launching them all a few times, we let the propane take over and watched them catch on fire and disintegrate up in the air. Grandma also had a helium balloon for each kid and a tag to write something they were grateful for. Then they attached the grateful tag to the balloon and let it go.


I know my grandparents loved/love me, but I don't remember them ever doing cool things like this for us grandkids. Part of that I'm sure is that I came along so late in the game. I hope my kids realize how lucky they are! We had such a fantastic week, but by Saturday afternoon we were ready to head home. We beat bad weather and bad traffic and made it home in time to warm up by the fire and unpack before bedtime. Now it's back to real life. No Grandma and Grandpa here in the morning to make my kids Eggo's while I sleep in. No more mama to braid my hair. It was a heavenly break, but now it's back to reality. :)

FHE

Remember the candy the kids donated? Both from their own stashes and from other primary kids? We made an FHE out of it, and took it up to a place in SLC. The kids got to see the candy weighed on a big scale (totaling 15 pounds!).


After we dropped it off, we headed to the newly remodeled church history museum! In my opinion, the downstairs section (the grown-up part) is way cooler. So many cool exhibits. However, the upstairs section (the kid area) left our kids wanting. They missed the old set-up. But there was still plenty of things for them to be involved in, in both areas. The church does things right.


During our outing, I tried extra hard to point out the moments when I thought they were feeling the spirit. I'm hoping that if we give our kids plenty of opportunities to feel the Holy Ghost, they will be familiar enough with it to recognize His promptings when they are on their own. It was certainly a fun family night.

Halloween Festivities

This year, the kids debated between a few costume ideas, but eventually they decided on an ancient Egypt theme. We've been studying Egypt a lot for school, so I was happy about their decision on 2 levels: 1-They picked matching costumes again! I think I'll be sad when they all choose something different. 2- Their costumes were not just for Halloween, it was a homeschool project too! Miles chose to be a mummy, Gwen was Hatshepsut (A female pharaoh), and Lindy was an archaeologist ("Lindiana Jones" :)

Ward Trunk or Treat
In the past we haven't put a lot of effort into decorating our trunk or anything, but this year I gave it a shot. I tried to make it look like an archaeological dig, and the kids had to dig through sand to find their candy. Miles and Gwen had such a blast running around the parking lot with each other. Lindy stayed near me and was ready to be out of her "costume" after about 5 minutes.


Joy School Party
Miles and Lindy got to tag along to Gwen's joy school party. We tried to serve some fun foods for lunch and play a few Halloween games. Another reason to use the costumes!




Homeschool Party
Before heading up to Makenna's for homeschool group that day, we stopped at Dad's work to hand out candy to the kids in his class. One of our favorite little traditions. :)

That week, we were back to studying ancient Africa. There were lots of traditional stories about Anansi the Spider, which was very fitting for Halloween. So we smooshed our history lesson and Halloween Party together and it was awesome! Everyone brought a traditional African dish or Halloween treat to share for lunch. After talking about the history reading that week, we ate delicious food, and then played some Halloween games.


Gardener Village
A friend of mine from high school and his wife invited us to go check out Gardener Village with them this year. They dress it all up in Halloween decor and have a witch scavenger hunt. It was such an unexpected, fun and easy outing.


Halloween!
It was such a fun treat to have Halloween on a Saturday this year. We just took our time cleaning the house, and fitting in a few Halloween books and movies throughout the day. I got the kids ready to go trick-or-treating, but let Richie take the kids out while I handed out candy. I was worried about all the extra candy laying around the house, so I did some research and found a homeless shelter in SLC that would accept candy donations. I opened it up to all the kids in our primary, to make the donation more substantial, and we've received a bunch! We'll take it up on Monday, and I'm excited about that. When I explained the concept to the kids, I didn't expect them to donate so much. But they both jumped right on the bandwagon. Miles even decided to donate all of his candy. I am frequently proud of my kids. Especially when they do something so awesome. :)


I tried to fit in as many Halloween books and movies as I could. As usual, Richie's and my favorite movies to watch were Rear Window, Wait Until Dark, and Arsenic and Old Lace. They never, EVER get old!! Happy Halloween!!