Thanksgiving 2010

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. It was just us and we missed our families like crazy, but we made some good memories and it was nice to not have any pressure if I totally bombed the Thanksgiving meal! Last year I went all out and made a huge turkey all by myself, just to see if I could do it. And it turned out great but it was way too much meat for our little family and a lot of work. So this year I just made a little turkey breast and that's it... it was easy and still yummy! We also had mashed potatoes and gravy, grilled asparagus, corn, homemade rolls, stuffing, sparkling cider and of course pumpkin pie. Of course, we had to laugh when all Tyler ate of the whole meal was a bite of corn and a roll. Go figure!

Brayden had a Thanksgiving party at his preschool. This is right after he shared what he was thankful for...his little brother. Cute :)

A kid in Brayden's class brought a pinata to the party to celebrate his birthday so it was a lot of fun. Brayden missed the first time but on his second swing he got a good hit!!!

The boys and I made another Thanksgiving tree where we wrote on each leaf what we are thankful for this year. Truly we need a lot bigger tree to fit everything we are thankful for on it. We have been so blessed this year!

Brayden taped this feather to his head all by himself to pretend he was an indian

Doing some serious indian fighting moves!
And a little love from the baby indian, who wouldn't let Brayden tape a feather to him.

I don't blame him!

Getting ready to EAT! Everything turned out really yummy!

And then after Thanksgiving we tore it up at the Black Friday sales...well I mean Guy did. I stayed home with the kiddos and was his support team. Go Guy! He went to Toys R Us on Thanksgiving night because they opened at 10. It was outrageous because there are really only 2 Toy R Us's in the area, but he made it in and out and lived to tell the tale. He came home with some SWEET deals. Everything we got for Christmas this year was definitely half off or more! He also stopped by walmart when they opened at midnight and good a few steals there as well. All I have to say is black friday is crazy, but we always get killer deals every year so it's totally worth it. Or maybe I just say that because I am the one at home in my nice warm bed. Although, doing black friday in Florida is nice because it's not cold at all. The real crazy people are the ones waiting in lines outside in the snow!

These are just a few funny pictures of Tyler...Sleeping with the Disney autograph book.

And his crazy post nap hair...
Can you tell which side he slept on??? :)

Turkey Trot

This year we spent our first Thanksgiving in Texas...we've always gone to either Oregon or Ohio and had it with our families ever since we've been married. But this year it didn't work out so we decided that we needed to do something festive since it was just going to be the 4 us. So we signed up for the turkey trot in Dallas. Originally we had planned on running the 8 mile course but after getting there and seeing how crowded it was we stuck with the 5k. We didn't realize that Dallas was the biggest turkey trot in the country with over 37,000 people running it. Ya, it was crazy!!! But it was really really fun and a great way to start out the holiday!!!
Here's Tyler all bundled up in the stroller! It was a nice sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky but at 9 am it was kinda chilly(for us Texans)!!! Ty ended up sleeping for most of the run which was awesome! This was Brayden's view from the stroller before the race started!! It was pretty funny! People could bring their dogs so there were seriously dogs everywhere!!!

Here is the starting line for the race. We had to line up in the back since we were pushing a stroller so we were stuck forever in the chaos of strollers and leashes!!! Since there were so many people we pretty much just ended up walking the 5K but it was still fun and Brayden was absolutely loving it. He told us on the drive down there that he had been waiting for this day all year!

Guy, BB, and Ty
We went by thanksgiving tower which was fitting for the day! There was also live music all along the way which was fun!!

Brayden was such a fast runner!

Almost to the finish line

We did it!!!! When Brayden saw the finish line he got so excited and ran as fast as he could to it. He has been telling everyone that he won the whole race! :)

After the race, we went home and stuffed our faces all day!! We managed to make a turkey all by ourselves for the first time and it was actually really good! Even though the whole turkey cleaning process pretty much scarred me for life! SO Gross!! I was glad Guy was here to take care of that! Hope that everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Trip to Arkansas

We went to Arkansas for Thanksgiving this year and had so much fun! No, we don't know a single person in that state, but we met my family there and stayed in a condo for a few days. I think we got the better deal since it was only a 6 hour drive for us and about a 14 hour drive for them! I have a major overload of pictures on here so be prepared! I'll just let them do the talking...

We had beautiful weather while we were there so on Wednesday we went on a fun hike to this place. It was really cool and the boys had fun exploring!

Jason, Kyle, Brayden and Guy climbed up on a big rock

I refused to go in this little cave because of the massive cobwebs everywhere...Freaky!

Brayden and his sticks... He's always gotta have one or two on a hike!

Brayden and I

I'm sure my mom will love me for posting this pic but I thought it was funny! :)

Brayden and Kyle mixing up the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving morning. We had a quite a yummy feast! I just wished this baby wasn't taking up so much room in my stomach so I could have eaten more! :)
Brayden right before dinner! I was so thankful that day to be spending time with my family! They are truly the greatest blessing in my life and I love them so much!

Brayden wearing Kyle's goggles in the huge jacuzzi tub at the condo. It was seriously like a swimming pool for him!

The day after Thanksgiving the boys all got up and went golfing. After that we went to this awesome cave called Blanchard Springs Cave. It was seriously amazing! Here's a pic of our tour guide who was so funny! Brayden thought he was Santa Claus at first!

Isn't this picture so cool?! I think it would have been so crazy to discover something like this!

A quick little family picture in the cave


We walked through this cute little town after dinner one night and Brayden was loving all the Christmas decorations they already had up.

Either this chair is really big or Brayden is really small!!


Brayden's first time bowling! It was so much fun. I have to say that my dad is amazing. He seriously doubled all of our scores and he even let Brayden bowl a few of his frames! But don't let that go to your head now dad! :)

In between all of the fun places we went to, we did a lot of eating, playing games, and watching movies. What more do you need, right? It was really a fun little trip and Brayden is already missing my brothers like crazy. We were so grateful to be able to spend the holiday with all of them this year... Thanks Dad! :) Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Turkeys to Christmas trees

Well, I gave in and let Brayden use the paints again... it went much better than last time! We are getting so excited for Thanksgiving next week so we decided to make place mats for everybody to use at dinner. Brayden thought it was awesome that I was actually letting him get his hand all painty to make the turkey. He was truly in heaven!

Now I have to admit that I also gave in and got out all our Christmas stuff already! I just couldn't take it anymore!! We won't be around for some of December so we just decided to get it all out so we could at least enjoy it for a full month! As soon as we get back from Thanksgiving we are planning on getting our tree to put up... last year we waited awhile and were only able to have it up for a short time before we left for Christmas! So yes we are crazy, but I love it and can't wait for all the fun things we have planned for December! If only we got snow here.... :(

Our Thanksgiving Tree

I really wanted to find something that I could do with Brayden this Thanksgiving season to focus on all of the things that we are thankful for. We truly have been SO blessed in our life and I feel like its easy to take it all for granted. I found this great idea online that I thought was perfect. A Thanksgiving tree! We started out by going on a nature walk to find a good "tree" (branch). It took us some time because Brayden was always drawn to the huge ones lying around and was set on bringing home the biggest one ever! But I finally convinced him that this was a good size! We cut out leaves in all different colors and hung them on our tree with little clothes pins. Every day until Thanksgiving we are going to talk about what we are thankful for and write it on a leaf. I love hearing the sweet things that Brayden is thankful for so far. I think we need more leaves for November so he can fit all his ideas! :) On the other side of the leaf we are writing something that we have done for others. It's been fun to not only recognize the blessings we've been given, but to also focus on what we can do to help others. Brayden is such a huge helper so he's enjoyed looking for things to do to help mommy and daddy!
It'll be fun on Thanksgiving to read all of our leaves before dinner (maybe we'll bring them to Arkansas where we'll be for the big feast this year!) I'm hoping that we can make this "thanks" and "giving" tree a tradition with our kids each year to help focus more on the season. We had a lot of fun making it together as a family and that's something I'm thankful for! :)

Thanksgiving

We went to Oregon for Thanksgiving and spent it with Guy's family. We had so much fun and it was hard to say goodbye when we had to go. I think the time change was a little hard on Brayden since it was 2 hours earlier than Dallas. No naps and staying up late every night... yes you can imagine! But he had tons of fun with all his cousins and it was fun to see how much all the kids have grown. It's crazy how much they can change in a year!! So yes, I remembered to bring our camera and video camera but did we ever remember to take them out of our suitcase... NO! We are soooo bad at that!! We pulled it out once to take a picture of Brayden hanging out with Grandma on her bed. He spent a lot of time in there watching Finding Nemo and the "monkey" movie with them. So cute! We're looking forward to heading back out there when Mike gets home from his mission in August so we can't wait!