Thanksgiving at Grammy's

We went to Grammy Jo's house for Thanksgiving this year, and had a great time. The kids had their own table, which Lexi and Megan and Ashley Noto also had to sit at.

We used the pomoegranite plates and had some delicious fried turkey and ham. (though the ham was not fried.) Apparently a large percentage of people (I'm thinking it was 80%) photograph their Thanksgiving feast, and we were not among them. Afterwards, the girls took the kids outside to play on scooters and bikes. Lexi and Sareny had to pose, of course.

Cute cousins! Fin and Chuckles look so cute together.

And I love this one too.

They had lots of fun.

The boys.

Lexi and Ashley. Megan was the photographer, so she isn't in any of the pictures.

While we were there, Sareny asked Grammy Jo if she could do lite-brite.

She had fun desiging her own picture.

Soon the other kids caught wind of a fun project, and gathered around for their turn.

The kids also had lots of fun playing Lincoln Logs.

Charlie threw a fit over something, I think it may have had to do with Finley. Maybe because it wasn't my own kid throwing the fit, I thought it was pretty cute.

It was pretty dramatic.

Friday evening, Bampa set up an outside movie on a big screen and we watched Elf. We bundled up as much as we could, but I was still freezing! Very strangely, my mom was apparently not cold. The next morning, we did gingerbread houses before Jake and Liz headed back up to Utah. Everybody had some pretty cute and creative little houses.

The Keel family with their creations. I especially liked Liz and Josh's ladder with Santa on it.

The rest of us, sans me the photographer.

The kids with the houses.

At some point on Saturday, I looked in the front room and saw all three kids clambering and playing on their Bampa. Pretty typical. I was glad I got this candid shot before everyone looked up at me. 

He even puts up with Isaac pinching his nose and will still smile for the camera.

Saturday evening we helped Grammy Jo get her Christmas tree decorated. Finley clustered a lot of hers in this spot with the ladder.

Lexi hanging up her favorites.

The little ladder was pretty handy.

Finley gets pretty excited about Christmas ornaments and liked this Canadian Mounty.

And this is the only picture I got of Isaac hanging ornaments, because lets face it, he loses interest in non-electronics pretty quickly and moves on.

And to conclude our holiday festivities, me, Lexi, and my mom went to a late show. Yes, we saw Breaking Dawn in the Pioneer Theater in downtown Overton. And they were both quite embarrassed that I asked a random stranger to take our picture. But hey, things like this have to be documented.

I realized about halfway through the movie based on the giggles and comments from Lexi and my mom and that none of us are die hard Twilight fans. I wanted to go because I like going to movies and will see most anything, but afterwards I was like, "so why did we go see that if none of us are even remotely into Twilight?" Apparently, my sis-in-law Liz is, and she was the one who had come up with the idea of the girls seeing it, but we weren't able to squeeze it in before she left. So instead, the non-fans went. Interesting. All in all, we had a great time at Grammy and Bampa's.

Soccer

Sareny and Isaac played soccer this year, and they both loved it and had a great time. Sareny's team was the Dragons and she wore number 3. She had an awesome coach and was lucky enough to be friends with most of the kids on her team before the season even started. She was one of five girls on the team, which I think made it fun for her. She did great and can't wait to play again next year. Unfortunately, the camera never made it to one of her games. Sad. But I did take some at one of Isaac's games.

Isaac's team was the Coyotes, and he wore number 9. He had the best, most patient coach ever, and we hope to get him again next year. For most of the season, Isaac didn't love soccer quite as much as Sareny did, but by the end, he had gotten more in to it and did great.

He got to do a kickoff.

A picture of the whole team. Isaac is sitting by his friendCharlie from church, and Revan that we met at the park is on the other side of Charlie. Revan's dad is Coach Pete, and I can't remember the other coach's name.

At Isaac's last game, there weren't any subs and I was pretty worried how he would do, since he was always the first kid asking for a sub, and if he was tired, he would just kind of stand there and do nothing. We had talked it up pretty big, and I was shocked that he stepped up and never once said he was tired. He even scored two goals! It gave me some hope for next year. 

After the game where I had my camera, I tried to get some pictures of Isaac and Sareny, but they were being pretty silly.

But still pretty cute.

At least they had a lot of fun...

We can't wait for next year, where Finley and Isaac will be on the same team. That should be fun!

Halloween, which happened over two months ago...

This year Grandma was visiting and she offered to help make the girls' Halloween costumes, and it was so nice to have her expertise! My little flapper girls were the cutest ones I've ever seen. Isaac's costume was actually store bought this year, but I thought that was fine. :) Sadly, grandma had to leave the morning of our ward trunk or treat, but the kids looked so cute.

Sareny and Isaac had soccer practice right before this, so I had to do her hair before soccer and hope that it held up okay. We also were changing into our costumes in the church parking lot.

My favorite feature of Isaac's costume--the little violin case. I thought it was a little less risque than having him run around with a tommy gun. We also had him wear his tio Johnny's hat that I believe was originally part of a Bonnie and Clyde costume. Which was a little big on him, but I thought it worked fine.

Keith and I resurrected the Raggedy Ann and Andy costumes. Finley wasn't being the most cooperative for pictures, so here is one of Keith holding her.

On Halloween night, our neighbors have a fun party with chili before all the kids head out to go trick or treating together.

The kids in our group.

We had a really fun Halloween this year, and were especially glad that Grandma was here to celebrate a little bit of it with us!

Getting in the Holiday Mood a Bit Early

We got a little crazy this year and put up our tree, decorations, and house lights before we left to go out of town for Thanksgiving. Maybe that makes us as bad as all the stores, but I just couldn't help it! I love seeing all the Christmas decorations and wanted to enjoy them as long as possible. Anyway, the kids had a great time putting up their ornaments. Here they are holding the new ornaments they picked out this year at Disneyland as their souveniers.

Finley was especially cute, because she got so excited by each ornament. Each time she would pull one out, she would exclaim about it, "Look! I got Winnie the Pooh!" and want to show everyone. Isaac, in typical fashion, put up a few of his ornaments, and then told me, "You can do the rest of mine." Not so into it, apparently. Sareny loved finding all of her old favorite ornaments and finding a special spot for them on the tree.

We also got a lovely new garland from Costco this year, that looked really gorgeous draped on our banister.

It's kind of fun having a railing for garland, and fireplace to hang stockings by. Sadly, December was really warm and we didn't get to use our fireplace too much, but it looked really pretty.