Thanksgiving Celebrations!

The night before Thanksgiving we celebrated Brad's Dad's 75th birthday!  It was such a fun party and great to have all the family together.  Brad's sister Dawn did a fun game, Are You Smarter Than Your Grandkids (like the Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader game).  Brad's sister Sonya made an awesome cake that looked like the yellow van that they had while growing up.  Aleah came up with the idea to make a bag person to put his present in.  She worked on it for a long time.  She was sure that it would make him smile. 

Thanksgiving day we got to relax and get ready for the big meal.  Aleah and Cade always love helping Grandma.

These four silly kids spent every minute together.  They had so much fun!

Everything looked so beautiful!

 The kids loved their Thanksgiving place mats.  Aleah is getting so good at doing word searches.

This year I decided to make the sweet potatoes with actual sweet potatoes instead of yams.  The taste was pretty much the same and I didn't have to add much brown sugar.  But, they just didn't look right!

Brad decided to grow a beard for the very first time.  He looked good!

The rest of the evening was spent visiting, relaxing, playing games, and

playing pool.

The next day we ventured out to help Joel and Sonya, and Mark and Crystal find Christmas trees.  The first thing Cade did was plopped down on the snow and made a snow angel.

 I love that these two always stick together!

After we found the trees the kids found a fort to play in.

We tried to do some sledding on a cardboard box, but it didn't work.

 But, sledding down the driveway is always fun!

We made some window clings.

The next day we got to play the bells with Grandma.

Swimming down at the hotel was a must!

These two are way too cute!

We played some old 1980's Atari games.  Those old simple game a still so much fun!

Once again, we had a fun, relaxing vacation at the cabin with our family!  We are so thankful for our family.  The love, kindness and support we receive is a big blessing in our lives.  We have so much to be thankful for this year.

Getting ready for Thansgiving

Since we would be at the cabin for Thanksgiving, we decided that we would set up the Christmas tree before we left.  We got out the train this year.  The kids loved setting it up.  Cade plays with it any chance he gets!

We added some strands of lights because some of the lights on our tree went out.

Aleah and Cade did a really good job at not putting the ornaments too close together.

Aleah and her class made pilgrim hats.  They could choose to wear the pilgrim hat or the indian headdress to their Thanksgiving feast. 

Everyone in Aleah's class had to bring a snack to share for their Thanksgiving feast. Aleah took Chicken in a Biscuit crackers.

Crafts and Christmas Lights

We tried to make fall window clings.  They were a fun project to do, but they didn't work out.  They didn't end up clinging to the window.

Brad borrowed our neighbor's ladder so that we could finish our Christmas lights.  It was so nice to use that tall ladder.  It was much better than having him on the roof leaning over the edge!

 The lights look beautiful!  We love how they turned out!  The trick was keeping Brad and the kids from turning them on before Thanksgiving.

Cade and I saved up all the heals of our bread for a week and on a nice sunny day we went over to the pond by our house and fed the ducks.  It was a fun outing for the two of us.  I am loving spending time with Cade each weekday morning.

For spirit week at Aleah's school she needed a team shirt.  I searched everywhere for a BYU shirt her size.  Well, I didn't go to BYU so I guess that doesn't count as everywhere.  I couldn't find one and so she ended up wearing my shirt.  She looked so cute!

She loved meeting Cosmo!  She said, "I got to give him a high five!"

One of Aleah's gymnastics coaches signed with the University of Utah.  She will be a Ute gymnast next year.  She invited Aleah's class to her signing party.

Aleah said, "It's not much of a party, more like just taking pictures."  She was very right, there were a lot of pictures taken.

She is so excited to watch Makenna next year!  She made a card for her and put in some of her Halloween candy.

We enjoyed making some homemade ornaments.

Aleah made an indian headdress in her class.  After school we went to Costco with Grandpa Stone and she was so excited to show it to him.  She worked really hard on the coloring, it was beautiful! When we got home we realized that it got lost while we were in Costco.

At this point she became very upset and said, "Mom, Mrs. Baca said that we can't lose it!"  Then I found out that she had to wear it at their Thanksgiving feast the following week.  I wish that she had told me that before I let her take it into Costco!  I talked to her teacher and she sent home some supplies so that Aleah could make a new one.  Her teacher is so great.  Cade copied Aleah's feathers and made one with her.