So Much To Be Thankful For

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!  Our whole family was together, for the first time in a long time.

Our feast was at Eaglewood, and with 35 family members, it was so nice to have a large place with plenty of room.  As a matter of fact, we could have invited 120 more people!  Probably the best part, though, was the 40 second dishwasher!!!

We made home-made potato rolls, and with all of this help, they were shaped and proofing in no time at all.

My mother made these cute little name cards.

However, somebody ate the candy off of several of them long before we sat down to eat.

Hmm....Does it look like he has anything in his mouth?????

I'm sure it wasn't them.  They look busy.

Guilty?

It wasn't grandma, she was busy playing games with the kids.

It wasn't Anabelle.  But she was busy eating the painted styrofoam berries.  As a matter of fact, she ate a whole branch of them.  Notice the paint-stained face.     

Maybe we should have checked this kid's boots.

                              I'm sure it wasn't this guy.  He was busy drinking all day long.

I don't think that Brent even knew that there were gumdrops,  because he was busy watching Kung fu Panda.

It wasn't any of the boys who were busy playing golf.  They probably had plenty of snacks anyway in the snack carts that they were driving.

I don't think it was this guy.  He looks too tired to be a gumdrop thief.  We might never know who it was.  Next time we all get together, we'll have to watch out for the bandit.

Gumdrops or not, we had a great day.  Thanks to everybody who brought delicious food, helped out with the clean-up, and stayed around for great conversation.

I'm thankful for a wonderful family.

PEEK at the WEEK

This is a great post for all of you who LOVE to watch other people's home movies and look at their photo albums. Yep, this blog's for you. This isn't about any big event, just a peek of what we did this week. The normal stuff.

This little guy did have a birthday this week. I guess that is a big event. Where did this month go, and why do babies grow so fast?

Ethan came upstairs with a new hat on. Coke Zero. They belong together, that hat and him.

OK, where did he get that marker, and what else is green now??????

Walking Carston to school has been a highlight of my day. Rain or shine.

Ethan came to sleep overnight. He brought his mom and sister with him. But I don't really think that we can call it a sleep over, since he doesn't really do much sleeping. Must be why he made himself a bed on these stools.

I had some fun taking pictures of the girls "reaching for stars"

I just happened to "catch" Anabelle reaching for the star all on her own, and I grabbed my camera real quick like to capture the moment. I love the lighting on this one.

Sometimes you just might need a stool. Karley set this one up.

On Saturday we were all together for a wedding. E V E R Y O N E came to our house after, and "hung out". Nichole took Nickolas home, and Tiffany and Ashley needed to run an errand, so I volunteered (?) to watch the kids. Crazy, I know. For the first little while I kept them entertained in between battles and tears by playing every game I could think of that could keep kids from age 1 to 6 interested. Each game lasted a matter of seconds. Finally it occured to me that I could let them watch TV (why didn't I think of that sooner?) This is what it looked like when their mommies came home. They thought that I had them in control the whole time, and that we had fun.

We did.

I just love these kids.

Some Girls Just Never Grow UP

I found the CUTEST cupcake kit at Costco (in the toy section), and when I saw the mini polka-dot cupcake papers, included with the kit, I was sold!!  I left everything in the package for several days, so that I could just look at everything so neatly displayed.  Don't you agree that sometimes the packaging just makes everything look even funner?  After I had made sure that all of the girls had seen this awesome kit, then I had them over to my house, one at a time (aren't I smart?) to make cupcakes.  I love to cook, and I really want them to love to cook also, because, like it or not, they will have to do it their whole lives, so they might as well learn to love it also.  It makes it much more fun!    I went to a cooking class with Chef Todd Leonard from the Garden Restaurant, and he actually got teary-eyed as he thanked each of the women there for cooking for their families.  He felt like it was such an important part of family life.  And he it right.....it is.  Nothing makes me feel cozier and comfy-er than food (and a blanket).   Food satisfies all of our senses.  

    There are a lot of pictures here, but the girls were so darling, that I just couldn't resist taking tons of pictures.  They were so proud of the results.

                Things got messy, but it was easily cleaned up.  All ya have to do is lick!

Lindsey was invited by Karley to join us.  Lindsey is great with cakes and she is so cute with the girls.

                                                  You can see, this was  serious business.
                             Sophie did this masterpiece.  And she sells cupcakes.  $4.00/dozen

These cute plates were included in the kit, (even napkins!) So we had "tea parties" when we got all done.

Mixing the frosting was the best part.

Grandpa likes to get involved, too, though usually just by teasing them that he is the best cupcake maker in the world.--Karley agrees.  Sophie doesn't.

Sophie chose Lemon Cupcakes.  She is learning how to "zest a lemon".

The tongues come out when it is cupcake time.  (Which is why I send ALL the cupcakes home with them.)

Yep, All of the cupcakes go home

                             Do faces get any cuter than that!!  That is one happy pastry chef!!

Anabelle...........was anabelle!!!  You'll see what I'm talking about later.  

Yep, ALL of the cupcakes go home.

She was just so into this.   I was really surprised at how long this held her attention.  She totally helped with every step.

Uh-huh, I didn't get tempted to eat ANY of them.

Sophie did these when I was on the phone.  She got a stool, got the things she needed and just proceeded while I was pre-occupied.  Did they turn out cute or what??

Anabelle was so proud of herself.  And then she started to get VERY creative.

By the time she was done, we had a mess that Anabelle is so good at doing.  She can take the most unmessy thing in the world, and still turn it in to a disaster.  A cute disaster.

Thanks, girls for a fun time.  I can't think of anybody that I would rather be in the kitchen with. (except maybe, um......never mind.)

Horse Cents

My friend, Jolene and I were exercising a few days ago and she told me about a friend of hers that was struggling financially, but then she started boarding horses, and now she makes big bucks (no pun intended). So after her telling me about this, I got this brilliant "think in my brain", about, why don't she and I start a horse boarding business, I mean how hard can it be??

All you have to do is feed them, and I know how to feed people, and I'm sure that people are WAY harder to please than horses. We just need to find a little plot of land, and maybe our husbands could build a little barny type thing, or get a really big "tough shed", and then we'd be in business. I know you're all thinking, what do they know about horses, but here's the thing.....

my mom wrote a paper about horses when she was in high school, and like the teacher told her that it was really good and that she should even publish it!!, So there you go, she could help us.

Plus, my brother who lives in St George just actually bought a horse, so I could call him if I had any questions about horse stuff, and I'd say that we are really close, as far as siblings go, so I know he'd help us. And, this thought just popped in my head right now, but it's really a big thing, I just remembered that my daughter actually lives across the street from a horse pasture, and every time I go to her house, we sit and stare out the window and watch the horses, because we love them. And not only that, but one time she called me and told me that one of the horses actually got caught in the barbed wire, and it pretty much ripped its guts out, and they were just hanging there, and the horse was going crazy with pain, so they called the cops and the cops came and put the horse down (thats horse talk for KILLED IT). So, of course I would know better than to use barbed wire. So as you can see, my family is all about horses! And I figure anything else we need to know we can just find on the internet because doesn't the internet make an expert out of everybody?? The way I see it, since I seem to have all of the know-how, then I would be the brains behind the business, and Jolene could do the labor part. Even with the delicate economy and all, I think we could still make a lot of money, because, think of it--The horses aren't just gonna all go away because of wall street, if anything, they are going to reproduce little horses even more because, you know, that's free. Then think of it, we'd have a whole lot of new customers/ponies/colts. I'm just posting this so that if you know anybody with a horse, you can tell them about us.

What can I say...I'm in LOVE!!

What a fun couple of weeks!! We have been taking care of Anabelle and Carston and loved every minute of it!! They are such cute children!! (do i really sound like a grandma?) I especially loved it when Kevin came to take them home last week after they had stayed at our house for several days, and they were both crying because they didn't want to go home. Now that is SUCCESS!!

Just look at this little guy. Isn't he darling? He is only 6 days old in this picture.

I tell you, I have a thing for feet. Especially baby feet.

I caught this moment with Anabelle kissing Benson. This is totally unstaged, favorite kind of picture. I love to just capture the "real" tender moments.

Don't report us for baby abuse. Honestly, we warmed up the pumpkin first, he just didn't like being undressed. We HAD to take this picture though, because we have a tradition of taking pictures of the babies IN a punpkin for their first Halloween. Benson should just be glad that we didn't put him INSIDE the pumpkin.

The "thing" about feet. Aren't they little! I love them.

FEET

This was another one of those "tender moments".