Our Thanksgiving Week

The day before Thanksgiving, Will had Native American Day with all of the kindergarten classes at school.

They did all sorts of fun activities including bow hunting buffalo  eating, making necklaces, getting their faces painted and games.

The rest of the day was called "pie day."  I thought the kids would LOVE helping me make pies.  For the most part it was fun and I tried not to freak out about the messes being made.  The weather was so nice they wanted to play outside and didn't help me make the last pie...

...which was an Oreo pie.  Yum.

 Our Thanksgiving day was a quiet one this year!  It was the in-laws year for all of my sisters so they were off with the other sides of their families... we weren't making the trip to Cali so we spent the day with my parents, Kathleen & Jonah and my brother Eddie.  The food was AMAZING!

My mom really went above and beyond and made a wonderful thanksgiving dinner.

 After dinner and before dessert, Mae taught us how to make Squanto Snack.  Its a fun way to teach about Squanto and how he taught the pilgrims how to plant their crops.

Squanto's Snack

Then it was time for dessert... we had way too much for our small group, but can you really ever have TOO much pie?!  I don't think so.

 On Friday we decided to have a family party for two reasons:
1. We didn't get to see each other on Thanksgiving
2. it was Diane's birthday!

We ate pizza, played games and the kids ran around like crazy.  It was the perfect black Friday  if you ask me.  And no, I didn't do any black Friday shopping except for getting some groceries that day.

 Happy 41st birthday Diane!

On Saturday we slept in after being up way too late on Friday night, and started getting out the Christmas decorations.

Then we set out to get our tree but heard Santa was in town and made a stop to see him!

Will asked for a "mote-control car" and Mae asked for a pony.

After that we went to Vario's in Tooele to pick out our tree.

Whenever I ask Mae and Will for a picture, Will holds Mae... not sure why, but its cute.

 Once the tree was all set up and decorated, we just sat there and looked at it for awhile.  Then we'd fix the lights, fix some ornaments and look again... this went on all afternoon.  We watched White Christmas together and the kids actually really loved it.  I'm so glad its Christmas time!

On Sunday we went to church and did our usual Sunday stuff-- like napping.  Later that night we were doing some FaceTime with Kyle, Brittany, Nonny & Poppy.  Mae and Will wanted to show them their Gangnum Style dance so this is a picture of Matt show the kids off... pretty funny, except right when I Took the picture he turned it towards me!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I love having time to really reflect on all of my many blessings.

 I am most thankful for Heavenly Father and the sweet life he's blessed me with.  Its not perfect, its not without hard times, but I have these three with me and couldn't be happier.  Heavenly Father knows us each personally and I have all I've ever dreamed of with my family... I don't need anything else.