Thanksgiving Countdown

We have had much to be thankful for this week! It has been a busy week getting ready for Uncle Matt's wedding, but we have loved being with all of our family. 

We tried to keep up with our countdown activities with everything else we had going on. 

Day 10-Thankful Place Mats

Adam and Tessa made Thankful Place Mats to use the rest of the month. They had fun cutting things from magazines or drawing things they were thankful for.

 Day 9-Thanksgiving Bingo

On Wednesday we played Thanksgiving Bingo and helped Adam with a special project for school.

Each first grader was asked to disguise a turkey. They could decorate or color their turkey however they wanted to disguise it and then they had to write about why they turkey was trying to hide. 

Adam wanted to make his turkey a basketball player. We made a Kings jersey and basketball for the turkey and Adam colored everything else. For his story, Adam said that his turkey ran into the Kings locker room and put on a jersey so the farmer wouldn't recognize him.

On Wednesday I started baking for the wedding. I realized at one point during the day that it was much easier to cater without a 10 month old "helping" me in the kitchen. Here is a glimpse at Gwen's handy work.  

Day 8-Hand Print Turkey's

Adam and Tessa made Hand Print Turkey's and wrote what they are thankful for on the feathers.

Adam was thankful for Teddy Elephant, food, our family, and basketball.

Tessa was thankful for Gwen, crowns, mommy, and cookies.

 Day 7 was sacrificed to wedding preparations. I catered Matt and Briette's wedding and it went so well! The wedding was beautiful and I got so many compliments on the food. I made 2 flavors of cake balls, pumpkin harvest cupcakes, sugar cookies and had a caramel apple bar. All the work was worth it!

 Day 6 was spent with family-being thankful for our family and thankful for the temple and eternal marriage. We are so happy for Matt and Briette! Their special day was wonderful. Their nieces and nephews adore them!

Poor little Gwen was such a good girl all through the wedding festivities. She did so well considering how busy I was all day. She eventually crashed on Eric's shoulder and got a little nap. 

Day 5-Turkey Pictures

We spent Sunday at Mamma and Bampa's house playing with cousins. We took our activity over there for everyone to do. Each of the older kids colored turkey's and then proudly displayed them in Mamma's kitchen. 

 We love playing with our cousins! We ventured over to the park and had fun on the playground. 

 Zeke, Tessa, and Paige

 Zeke, Adam, and Wynn

 Eric got everyone playing Freeze Tag. 

 We played some Duck, Duck, Goose and then Adam was thrilled to play a game of basketball with Daddy, Big Uncle Ben, and Wynnie. 

It's been a fun weekend and we are so excited for a fun Thanksgiving in a few more days!

Thanksgiving Countdown

It's time for another holiday countdown! I love countdowns because they keep me and all of my activities  organized. It's also nice because it takes care of my Mommy School themes for a week or two. 

Last week for Mommy School, we learned about manners. We read several books on having good manner and Tessa learned how to properly set the table, she learned about the polite things to do when we have to sneeze, burp, etc.and had a craft to go along with that, and the final day we had a tea party to practice all of the manners we had been learning about. 

Tessa planned the menu and set our table. We had hot chocolate, popcorn, pretzels, and goldfish. Of course no tea party is complete without a crown and some jewelry. 

 Last Friday we began our Thanksgiving countdown. Before we got started, I found Adam in the backyard playing some snow basketball. 

Day 14-Turkey Hunt

They LOVED this and played it forever! Adam had Tessa and I laughing hysterically when he busted out his "guns" to find his turkey. 

 Then Tessa had to give it a try.

Gwen enjoyed her bananas while the kids were "hunting". 

 Day 13-Pilgrim Cookies

We had a pre-Thanksgiving party with all of my cousins on Sunday evening, so we made some treats to take. Adam was gone all weekend, so it was just me and my little Chef. 

 Day 12-Play the Dice Game

They had to roll certain numbers on a dice to build either a Pilgrim or an Indian.

 Day 11-Play "Don't Eat Tom!"

For our Family Home Evening activity, we played "Don't Eat Tom!" 

Tom the Turkey is looking full of blessings this year. Every Monday in November as part of FHE, we add thankful feathers to our Tom the Turkey. We have one more week to go, but he is looking bright and beautiful! We also have a thankful journal that the kids and I (and occasionally Daddy) write in every morning. I love hearing the things that they are thankful for. 

Adam's Cougar Weekend

Adam's weekend was full of sports. The icing on his cake would have been if he had been able to watch the Jazz play while he was at his other games. That's what Mom is for I guess. I get to keep track of the Jazz score back at home and give him periodic updates. 

Eric was away at school all weekend, so Aunt Katy was nice enough to take Adam to the BYU basketball season opener against Tennessee. Katy said Adam was very enthusiastic and screamed and cheered through the entire game. She said he kept the crowds around them very entertained. I guess at once point he screamed, "Go Cougars! Beat those Tennessee Tigers!" But he did it in a southern accent. 

 This boy loves his churros!

 Since the weather was so bad all weekend, Katy took Adam to Ma and Pa's house after the game for a sleepover. Not before Adam had a good snowball fight though. Katy said it took them 20 minutes to get to her car cause he didn't want to stop playing in the snow. By the time they finally made it to the car, they were both soaking wet. 

Eric picked Adam up on his way home from Salt Lake on Saturday evening and they headed to a very cold and snowy BYU football game. Even the freezing cold can't keep these boys away from their games. 

 They got to hang out in the Cougar Den for a while. 

 Mamma and Bampa were at the game with the other aunts and uncles and Great Grandma Nielson, celebrating Grandma's 92nd birthday. They always go to Uncle Lynn's Loge box for Grandma's birthday. When Uncle Greg and Aunt Terrie left the game they gave Eric and Adam their tickets so they could go hang out in the loge and warm up. Adam thought that was super cool!

The boys had a fun evening together, but their adventures lasted late into the night as our car broke down on their way home from the game. It's all about the memories, right? I'm glad he had such a fun and Cougarific weekend!

Our Snowy Girls Weekend

This weekend we had lots of snowy fun! We had an awesome storm blow through and dump about 9 inches of snow over Friday and Saturday. We hardly had any snow last year, so this has been exciting for the kids. 

Adam had an exciting weekend of his own, but we will write about that later. Eric was up at school all weekend, so it was just us girls. 

On Saturday, when the snow started to let up, Tessa and I bundled up and headed outside for some snowy fun!

 Even all bundled up, something on Tess has to sparkle. She loves her sparkly pink boots.

 While Gwen napped, I shoveled the driveway while Tessa got right to work on her snow angels. It took me over an hour to shovel all that snow.

 Queen of our snow mountain!

 Once I had the driveway cleared, Tessa had some fun with her trusty red tricycle. 

Oh, that face!!! She just melts my heart! 

When Gwen woke up we got her bundled up and went back outside for more snow time. 

 This is Gwen's first time in snow. Between the deep snow and her puffy snowsuit, she couldn't move and she didn't like that very much. 

 No one was prepared for this amount of snow. We still had lots of toys in the backyard that are now buried.  Tessa had fun trying to find some of them. 

 We played a lot of "kitty lost in the snow". Tessa loves to pretend to be a cat. 

 There was so much snow on our back stairs, Tess just slid down them on her belly.

It's been a fun weekend with just my girls. They are both too cute for words!