Turkey Day

Deck the halls once again! Another Christmas season just started. The weekend before Thanksgiving we had a nasty cold/flu bug come through our house. Luckily we were feeling much better for Thanksgiving day. We also had a crazy snow storm which blew in, dumped a few inches of snow within a couple hours and blew out again. They were closing down everything and telling everyone to stay home because of the blizzard. It was crazy, but Tom got off work early so we got to enjoy the snowy evening as a family. We got another couple FEET last night so we are definitely feeling the beginnings of winter. Here's Lily standing next to a snow pile as tall as her.
Here she is touching a very long icicle!

Thanksgiving day started out with the traditional Turkey Bowl. That is, a tradition for Tom and anyone else that wants to play football (this year it was in the snow and the temperatures were in the teens). I'm so bummed I don't have a picture of Tom playing football, wearing his old high school football jersey from 18 years ago! It's a little snug, but it's tradition!
We had Thanksgiving with my family this year (we alternate every other year with each other's families). The kids had fun playing toys in Grandpa & Grandma's basement, as well as a Christmas game Uncle Mike made. Jeff even won the game!
Cedric was showing off his new trick. Let's see you lick your nose.
My parents were great hosts.
We also enjoyed the presence of my brother, Nate via Skype.
Nate currently lives in Germany so it was fun to have him with us, even if he couldn't eat the food.
And of course it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a football game to watch.
I love Thanksgiving!
Friday, Tom had to work so it was a pretty normal day. I did do a little Black Friday shopping and that night we had a second Thanksgiving dinner with Tom's aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., followed by Tom's guy friends coming over to play Wii until all hours of the night. In fact, Tom got up at 4am to try to hit some unsuccessful Black Friday deals and didn't go to bed that night until 4am after his "Guys Night Out". Crazy boy!
Saturday was also crazy with another football game for Tom to play, this time with the ward guys, more shopping for me, a trip to the temple for Tom's cousin's sealing, and topped off with a Christmas show, featuring the Rockettes from New York's Radio City Music Hall.
My favorite dance was the soldier one where they got "hit" by a cannon in slow motion.
Poor Tom missed all of the BYU/Utah game, but he wasn't excited about the end result anyway :)
Sunday we finally had time to decorate the house for Christmas. The kids had fun decorating the tree.

And Cedric even turned the ornament box into a hat.
Overall we had a very fun Thanksgiving weekend!

Any Gypsies?

Are there any gypsies around? Normally when our kids do something or act in a certain way that makes them... let's say, less cute... we say we'll sell them to the gypsies. Luckily there have never been gypsies around to buy them, because we do really love them and are truly grateful for the three wonderful children we have.



But lets face it, when your child does this
it makes you wish the gypsies were around! (yes, that's a whole roll of toilet paper that his brother so kindly got off the roller for him to just drench in water.) Unfortunately this is one of the more mild things that our children have done.

One Day in Wendover

Last Saturday we took a day trip to Wendover. Tom's sister Maren invited us to go on the "fun bus" that her work was supplying for whomever wanted to go. We went last year, and it was pretty boring, but how could we pass up such a good deal? For the bus ride to and from, an all-you-can-eat buffet, $5 in cash for gambling, and a free drink at Starbucks it was only $15 a person! So we went along with Maren, Tom's brother Kurtis and Maren's friend Cassie.
On the bus ride there, Tom sat next to Kurtis so they could both listen to the football games on the radio.
I sat by myself and had brought a bunch of preschool stuff with me that I cut out the whole time, while listening to a book on tape.
When we got there the guys wanted to watch some more of the football games (even though BYU was winning their opponent by a landslide and the U was totally loosing to theirs) so us girls went and did the penny slots. We had talked about going to see a movie while there for something else to do, so that's what we decided to do next. Here we are, I'm in Nevada and Tom's in Utah.
We walked the few blocks to the teeny tiny movie theater to watch the movie RED. The movie was pretty good and we had almost the whole little theater to ourselves.
Then we went back to eat at the buffet, which was tasty. After dinner Tom, Kurt and Maren wanted to play some Blackjack. Now I do not understand the thrill of placing REAL money on a table to watch it turn into little chips which can disappear in a second, so I just watched. Tom kept calling me Jiminy because I kept saying things like "look how fast you lost that money" or "you should stop now before you loose any more", etc. Tom finally made me leave since I was apparently causing him bad luck (both Kurt and Maren were doing great and Tom had almost lost everything) so I went and sat somewhere else and played FREE blackjack on his IPod. When I came back over he admitted he had lost all but one chip, but won it all back. In the end he walked away with $5 more than he started with so I couldn't be too mad. Secretly I was hoping he'd win back enough to pay for our babysitter, but between the free $5 we got with the fun bus coupons and the money he won, it at least covered the cost of the movie. We ended the night with a free hot chocolate and headed home. It was a fun ten hour getaway.

Halloween

This year for Halloween we had two vampires and an Elmo.
Cedric hated his costume and would cry "no Elmo" every time we tried to put it on him. However, when told he'd get to go "trick or treat" if he put it on, he complied. He figured out what trick or treating meant real fast. However, since it was raining on Halloween he only lasted for a few minutes then I took him home. He had more fun passing out candy to the other kids. Lily and Jeff stayed out despite the rain and Lily was begging to be done by the end, not because she was wet, cold or tired, but because there was no more room in her pumpkin for any more candy and it was too heavy to carry. Poor girl!
Before they went out, the kids got to eat worms for dinner (hot dogs sliced length-wise and cooked in ketchup).
They also participated in many other activities for Halloween including their school parties (Jeff even got to go with his friend, Brysen and his mom and help in Lily's class while I did preschool), the ward party, Tom's work party, Lily's theater class party and of course trick or treating.