Thanksgiving Fun

Once upon a time.... Thanksgiving feels like it was soooooo long ago. But I'm still allowed to do a Thanksgiving post because it's not yet Christmas, right?!? At least this time I'm not two years late, like my last post. That's progress!

We had such a good Thanksgiving!!

My sister, Kaylyn (a.k.a. Nyn) came for most of the week. We loved having her here! Caleb was her constant little jibber jabber shadow. That boy can talk nonstop. :) Just ask Nyn. But I'm sure she enjoyed it. :) I know Caleb did. She is always so nice to my boys and sure knows how to spoil us! Caleb loved that she would watch movies with him and do puzzles with him and play every game on the planet with him and all sorts of fun stuff!! I love my sister! And I love how much my boys love her too!!

We made some good food, went out to eat some good food, went to the temple, did lots of Black Friday shopping, bought some stuff so we could do some fun projects that we ran out of time to do--we had so much fun and I'm sad our time is over. I love love love when she comes to visit!!

Let's see--the actual Thanksgiving Day. Chris decided to start a new tradition on Thanksgiving. A Big Breakfast. I thought he was joking. He was serious. We had some family over first thing that morning and had a big ol' breakfast.

That afternoon we got to go to our adopted family's house for the other big meal. We just love them. I love them. Chris loves them. My boys absolutely love them. Always so fun! Thanks again, guys!!

On Friday we were also able to go downtown to the River Parade that they have here the day after Thanksgiving.




And then we rode the boat around the Riverwalk so we could see all the lights


(Another one of those pictures where you need to just use your imagination and pretend you can tell this is a picture of the boys riding that boat... :)


That week we also hit Seaworld. Carson got to finally meet the dolphins. That boy gets SO excited about animals. I think it is SO cute!!

Aren't you glad I provide so many opportunities for you to use your imagination? See that dolphin right there?

This year our family did these turkeys for the whole month of November.

Every time someone did something nice for someone else, we would write down what they did on a feather and add it to their turkey. As you can see, Caleb got just a little bit into it. Ur uh...actually--that boy was SOOO into it! Now everything is discussed in our house in terms of feathers. Caleb will tell me..."Mom, you don't get a feather..." when I tell him he can't do something. But when I tell him he can do something he wants to, he says, "Oh mom! Thanks! That's so nice! You get a feather!!" It's pretty funny now.

As a side note, Caleb has been really into writing words and drawing and coloring pictures lately. He has notebooks just filled with words and drawings. He wrote everyone's names on their turkeys for us. He is also doing a lot better about coloring in the lines and coloring the entire picture.



We were pretty much chomping at the bit to decorate for Christmas this year. Caleb had a countdown chain until Aunt Nyn came and until we could put up our Christmas decorations. Here is the annual picture of Chris and Caleb putting up the tree:

Nice touch in Halloween pajamas, right? :)

The tree went up with Carson's careful supervision



And the annual picture of Chris and Caleb putting up the lights outside



With Carson's careful supervision:

(as a another side note--that rock pile in the background is Caleb's prized possession. And it must be kept right there front and center on our porch for all to see. :)

Carson has especially enjoyed the lights in his window. This is how I found him the other day after his nap

He must have done quite the Houdini act to get these from the window to his bed. We've since made sure that even a Houdini act will not allow this to happen again. Crazy kid.

And that's all I remember. That's why I like to do the post soon after the events...my recollection of things seems to be fuzzy after just a few days. :) Not that I'm getting old. At least that's what I keep telling myself.