Thanksgiving

Wednesday night we headed to Jill's house for pizza and hanging out until we had to leave so that I could go home and make pies. My job for Thanksgiving was having my house ready, tables set, and make mashed potatoes and pies.

I had four pies on the list: pecan, pumpkin, strawberry jello-cool-whip, and blueberry cream cheese. Not bad, I'll be done by 10:00 (or so I thought). Amy and Madalyn came over because she had to make the same pumpkin and pecan pies so we figured we'd bake together. Madalyn set about making homemade turtles with my caramel I'd made earlier that day and Amy and I set out on pie-making, thankful we'd already made the pie crusts last week.

All and all I don't know what took so long, but we got done about 11:30 and my feet, body and mind were shot. I think it might have been Amy's idea to cut out pie-crust maple leaves to adorn the pumpkin pies. They took forever, but in the end, looked fabulous as does most everything Amy does with cooking/baking (if you don't believe me, check out her purse cupcakes she made for YW in Excellence last month).

So I went to bed and propped my feet up and fell asleep quickly. Nate got up with the girls and started getting stuff done around the house to get ready. With help from Cyndee and Amy, I think my tables turned out very festive for the occasion.

I like fancy because we never do fancy so I figure the holidays are a time for fancy.

Cyndee had the fabulous idea to cut holes into mini pumpkins for tea lights (I did this last year for a dinner party with apples and that was cool too if you ever need a centerpiece idea in the fall). Then the vases with fall pine cones, pumpkins, leaves, and acorns turned out beautiful.

Nate's family arrived and we ate and ate and had a nice, relaxing day. The food was great, as always. The kids played perfectly together -- they loved Nate's PlayStation Cabela's hunting game and played it most of the time. I wasn't feeling the best so I kind of took it easy and somehow missed taking very many pictures which makes me sad, but I did get a few.

Ethan rubbing Uncle Casey's bald head.
(I think this one was taken at Pat's b-day party)

Jill's little boy, Luke. He's so darn cute, but for the life of me, I can't get him to snuggle me - he's a mom and dad snuggler. He's definitely a little Archibald!

Jack, Megan and Travis's little boy. He wouldn't snuggle me either, but was always snuggling the parents. I guess I'll just have to wait to have my own baby to snuggle!

Casey's cute little girl, Chevi wouldn't snuggle me either -- she wouldn't even hold still for me to get a picture of her and her cute curls! I love watching her because she's so dang happy and instead of walking or running around, she hops around with a joyful bounce. I love it! She's full of spunk, that one.

Savy, Ryan (squating), Dallin, Ethan (green stripes), Emma and London.

The highlight of the day (for the kids) was either wrestling Uncle Nate or all the kids taking turns blowing into his varmint calls. Nate loves to wrestle and the kids have no mercy with him. I'm surprised he doesn't get hurt when he does this with all of them. As for the varmint call, we only realized afterward how smart that was when Dallin came up having strep the next day. Luckily nobody else got sick because he must have been contagious that day.

I'll just count that as one of my many blessings.