A Happy Thanksgiving!

We had such a great Thanksgiving this year! Grammy Jo, Bampa, and Lexi came for the weekend and our friends Jay, Shauntel, Caleb and Claire came for dinner. The table looked great and the food was all really delicious.

Everyone pitched in to get the food on the table, whether it was mashing potatoes or entertaining the kids, who happen to love their Bampa.

I have decided that Lexi must have more clothing than any other human being on the planet, because she refuses to use laundromats and just saves up her clothes until she visits home to do any laundry. Well, to be fair, she did say she did one load of darks in the month between visits. Anyway, what this means is that she had to bring all of her laundry to my house to do.

Here is Sareny modeling one article of Lexi's clothing, which prompted probably the funniest thing that happened all weekend. Isaac pointed at it and said, "Ucky's Boobies." Apparently ucky is how he says Lexi. It was just darn hilarious!

Sareny absolutely loves her tia Lexi. I think Lex is the only one who will straighten Sareny's hair, and she was so excited. I kind of feel like I already have a teenager, since Sareny always wants to have her hair straightened and has even asked if we could dye her hair brown.

Lexi picked up these adorable little leggings for me from someone who sells them in Utah. It is actually my friend Debra Gardner's sister-in-law, and because I'm cheap, I opted to have Lex pick them up for me instead of paying for shipping. I think they are so darn cute!

The rest of the weekend was pretty crazy. For the first time ever, we decided to participate in Black Friday to see what all the fuss was about. Me, my mom, and Lexi started the day off at 4:30 am in Walmart, while my dad covered Lowe's and Big 5 (Keith had to miss out on the fun by sleeping in with the kids.) I felt like I was on Shop 'til You Drop--I seriously just ran from stack to stack, dumping stuff in the shopping cart as I ran by. We got several good movies for just $2 each, as well as various other cool deals. We went to Target next, but they seemed to be pretty cleaned out already, so we just basically got a few movies before heading off to Jo-Anne Fabric. I dropped Grammy Jo and Lexi off and went back home to unload all of our purchases, feed Finley, and pickup Keith, Sareny, Isaac and Finley for a trip to the mall. We went to Sear's, where Keith got some dress shirt and tie combos for $15 and I got some Hallmark ornaments for regular price. Sad. The shopping spree ended with lunch at Mimi's where the whole group reunited.

One of our favorite Thanksgiving traditions is decorating gingerbread houses. This is something Keith's family always did when he was a kid, and something we started doing together when we were just dating. Now gingerbread houses have also become a Keel family tradition and something our own kids are starting to look forward to. We always have a huge assortment of candies to choose from and everyone gets creative and has a lot of fun. Our company had to leave this afternoon so Bampa could get back home in time for church tomorrow, since he is the Bishop of their ward right now. Before they left, we squeezed in one last trip to the mall, but I'll have to post about that later since this is already so long!