Thanksgiving Day

We had a great Thanksgiving, although I think by the end of the day, we were all exhausted and just collapsed into bed. That morning, Keith and my dad went golfing and Lexi was at the Knight's house. This meant it was just me and my mom with Thanksgiving dinner to prepare and a houseful of small children, one of them being Keeley. So basically, only one of us could be doing anything productive at any one time while the other one took care of the baby.
Even though we had done quite a bit of preparation the day before, we could have used a couple more hands--someone to come behind us and clean up, for example, would have been nice. ;) It was not easy getting dinner on the table, and in fact we ate more than an hour later than we had planned--but it turned out really nice anyway. You can see in the above picture how beautiful the rolls turned out, but they were very nearly a fiasco. They had risen too much, and then fell so they were flat as pancakes. I just could not see how we could serve them, so we rolled them out again and hoped they would be able to rise enough in a very short time--somehow they turned out perfect! My dad came home from golfing and fried not one, but two turkeys, and they were super yummy!

Later on, we checked out the  shopping ads while Keeley showed everyone what a big girl she was, pulling herself up to standing.

Then the kids put on a little Thanksgiving play they had prepared. First was the musical score.

Then the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Grammy Jo had brought the pilgrim people as a little craft for the kids to do, and then they made the boats and props for the play.

Sometimes the performers were visible.

Sareny constructed the boats so they would hold the people in them.

It was a pretty cute production.

The proud performers!

After the play, me, Keith, Lexi, and my mom headed off to Walmart and Target for some Christmas shopping. Bampa was super nice and stayed home with all of the kids so we could go. It may be over-commercial of me, but I do enjoy black friday shopping. It was a crazy fun adventure. Especially if you ventured near the movie bins at Walmart.

Zoo Lights!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year and Grammy Jo and Bampa came down for the festivities. Wednesday evening, they went with us to see zoolights, which are always so fun.

This year, the zoo handed out these special glasses to view the lights through. Kind of a cool idea, but really the lights looked better without the them. Isaac and Finley sure loved them, though!

You may notice in these pictures that some of us are wearing shorts. It was a really warm November! We threw on some jackets for good measure so we could feel wintery, but they weren't really necessary.

A family photo. Keeley was being a good girl in her stroller, so we weren't too anxious to disturb her by getting her out for every photo-op.

Daddy and his boy.

We spotted this unicorn, so we took the girls over for a picture. Isaac ran over to be in it too. :)

The best part of the experience--the avenue of dancing trees. They changed it this year so that instead of sitting with your backs to the lake,  you are looking out over the lake and some of the far trees participated as well.

We took a picture of Finley sitting on Keith's shoulders eating cotton candy last year, so when the event duplicated itself, I thought it needed another picture.

Mommy and Sareny. Love my biggest girl!

Grammy and KeeKee. The camera puts a green light on your face right before it takes a picture, which KeeKee didn't like, so it was hard to get her looking right at the camera.

Scott was able to meet us at the zoo near the end of our visit. We repeated some of the lights with him, which I thought they were just as cool the second time around. Isaac sure loves Scott!

And Sareny sure loves her tia Lexi.

These two love each other as well! I do like how sweet they look in this picture.

My mom and dad.

Bampa and LeeLee in front of the giant blue tree at the entryway of the zoo.

A family photo out front at the zoo. Not the greatest shot, but nice that it has zoolights in the background. And probably more representative of our real life!

Grammy Jo and Bampa. So glad they could come share in this fun tradition with us! We love going to zoo lights, and it was even more fun with family.

Kindergarten Feast

Isaac's school had a feast for the kindergartners the Thursday before Thanksgiving, which was their last school day until after the holiday. They didn't really invite the parents to come, but they had lots of parent volunteers that were told to stay and eat with their child, so I figured they wouldn't notice an extra mom or two. I'm not able to do much volunteering this year because we have a baby, and I wasn't even sure I could make it down to the school in time since I had to get Finley to preschool first, so I never told Isaac that I might come down to eat with him. But I sure was glad I made it there! There were tons of parents milling about and Isaac was thrilled to see me.

They had all the kindergartners come in the morning, and he had so much fun that day at the "fun centers," where they played games and made things like his pasta necklace. Here he is with his teacher, Mrs. Isaacson. So glad I got to spend this special time with my boy!

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.