Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend started for me at noon on Wednesday!  My boss is awesome and let me skip out early since I was done with my work and nobody was in the office.  Love it!  So, I naturally went and got Clara and then we finished making a pumpkin cheesecake and rolling out a gazillion pie crusts at my mom's!  We alternate which side of the family we will go with every year, and this year it was at my family's.  Anyhoo, I should have taken more pictures this weekend, because you would seriously be amazed at how many pies we had.  Let me count them up...3 cherry, 3 apple, 2 lemon, 2 pecan, 3 pumpkin, 2 chocolate, and 1 pumpkin cheesecake.  I think that's it...but holy moly, lots!  Then we did other prep stuff.

Here are some cute pictures of Cole and Clara playing - Karen was nice and made them a little fort (red blanket draped between chair & couch) one of the nights.  Fun!

Thursday, we had Thanksgiving at noon.  That basically included me eating a little bit of almost everything (not the onion casserole, yams, or other gross stuff...yuck) and having to take out my belt one notch.  I haven't been that stuffed in a really really long time.  Then of course, on to dessert...lets not even go there.  Then Thursday night was a family party in Middleton.  It was lots of fun - games, jump rope, basketball for the boys, etc.

Friday Adam got up before the crack of dawn to go bird hunting with Rob and Eric.  Clara and I went to my mom's to help with the annual decorating of the gingerbread houses.  Not only does my mom prepare most of the Thanksgiving meal every year, she is determined to make (I said make...as in making dough, rolling it out, cutting it out, baking it, and cooling it, then making a buttload of frosting - I understand buttload is a potty word, but it is the only way to describe it) gingerbread houses during all of it too.  She used to make one for every grandkid, but since that would be 19, she opted on kids working in teams and giving the houses away to cheer someone up this holiday season.   Then we had potato soup in bread bowls and some of the family went to Festival of Trees to perform their violin music.  The rest of us didn't...we gave kids naps and were lazy.  The boys came back from hunting with 30 quail...they maxed out by noon.  Then some came back and we had pizza, then the boys went and watched the BSU game. 

Saturday Adam and Eric installed a garage door opener at our house (it broke a while ago) and then we went and visited Grandma Nina.  Later that afternoon, all the adults went to the temple and then out to dinner while the older grandkids watched the younger ones.   Here is a picture of Julie and James while we were all sitting at the dinner table waiting for them.  They paused at the window and looked at us for a while.  Nerds.

Sunday we were excited to be back home and get some housework done since we'd been go, go, go for a few days.  Then we found out Karen and Eric were staying because the roads were closed, so we came and partied for one last night. 

Clara is now much better at saying her cousins' names and was a good sport through all the crazy running around.

This weekend Adam and I are off to Portland with Adam's work - super excited.  I'll remember to take pictures this time!