Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a good Thanksgiving with my parents, Marci and my Grandpa Bill. It was pretty low key with just a few of us. The turkey took a lot longer to cook (don't ask my Mom about that, she wasn't too happy, ha). But once we ate it was delish! I'm thankful that my Mom is a good cook.

I loved my Mom's mantel and all the decorations she had on it. With the fire going and it being all foggy outside it was very cozy. 

Lindsey loves to dress up at Grandma's house. Notice the cute scarecrow and pumpkin decorations outside.

My Dad, Grandpa, Marci and Kyle

We had fun laughing together and watching football. We played games together like Settlers of Catan and even a long game of Mexican train one night. 

Chelsea's look/scowl is funny to me. Her face is all dirty and she has bruises on her forehead. haha.  

My Mom had some Thanksgiving games for the kids to play. They played pin the hat on the turkey, Thanksgiving Bingo and Don't Eat Tom the Turkey (like Don't Eat Pete). 

 My Dad is good to let the kids play on his iPad. He is also good at letting a bunch of kids come sit on his lap or climb all over him while he's trying to take a nap on the floor. He is the most patient person ever!

On Friday, Marci and I went up to the HS gym to work out. My Dad was already up there from playing early morning basketball and so he let us in. Marci had me do squats with a bar plus weights and I was super duper sore afterwards. Like right after. It was a long next 3 days! ha! But now I'm going to try to do them more at the gym. My Mom, Marci and I got ready and went into Tri Cities before lunch. We dropped off Kate at Jeni's and picked Jeni up. Then we went shopping. It was pretty low key since it wasn't super early in the morning. We found some good deals and got things crossed off our lists. We ate lunch at Costa Vida then did some more shopping. The longest line was at Old Navy and I think it was a 20 min wait so overall it wasn't bad.  While we were shopping away Kyle and my Dad were watching the Apple Cup- WSU vs UW and UW won so they were both happy. They brought the kids into town and Dee Ann babysat them while all us adults went to the movie Catching Fire. Melanie joined us too. It was a good movie and yes I screamed at the scary part. Afterwards, we all went out to Red Robin for dinner. It was like 10 pm by the time we picked up the kids from Dee Ann's house. She had put Chelsea down in her porta crib so we woke her up and drove back to my parents house (1 hr away). I'm thankful for Dee Ann for watching them so we could go to the movie. 

On Saturday, we headed back into Tri Cities after lunch to go to Melanie's house. Kate had spent the night with Jeni and Kevin so we swung by there first to pick her up. We were supposed to do Thanksgiving with Kyle's family this year, but Melanie didn't have the kids for Thanksgiving this year so we ended up doing our Thanksgiving with them on Saturday. Dee Ann made yummy ribs and potatoes and Melanie made ham, rolls, and green beans. For dessert Melanie made delicious coconut creme pie cupcakes. The recipe is from Jamie Cooks it Up and they were yummy. I liked this picture of everyone in the kitchen because between 2 families there are 9 kids! It's pretty crazy at times, but fun for the cousins.

Dee Ann and I played some games with the kids- Apples to Apples, Spot it and Twister. Well we didn't play Twister with them. I spun the wheel. Melanie's kids are ultra flexible so they are pros at this game. Nathan won hands down. He was making me laugh. 

I'm thankful for a lot of things in my life like my kids, Kyle's job, our little home (yes I want a bigger house soon! But hey, it's less to clean.), the Gospel, our Prophet and his guidance during these changing times, my Parent's, my extended family, the kids' school and our good health. It can be easy to get discouraged, and at times I do, but then I remember all that I have and how I should be grateful and not think of what I don't have. When I was giving my Uncle Jim an update about our life last month at Ryan's funeral he was saying, "so you have a good life." And I thought yeah you're right, I do. And I want to enjoy it now because you never know what's going to happen or what trial will come along.