Thanksgiving and December 2013

I know it's really late to be posting about these holidays, but I didn't do it, and I have some amazingly cute pictures that I want to share, so I'm going back and correcting my mistake of not posting.

I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving. I know: epic fail, right? If Jason took some with his phone I'll come back and post them. We went to my youngest brother's house for Thanksgiving. We all brought something so it wasn't a burden on anyone. Jason LOVES to cook the turkey each year. (Seriously, if he isn't assigned the turkey for the family function, we eat turkey there and then he cooks one when we get home, too. Not that I mind; his turkey-cooking skills are awesome. Mmmm... it makes me want turkey just thinking about it!) Our children got to play with cousins and we got to play board games, table tennis, etc. with my family. I'm terrible at table tennis, but I gave my brother a good laugh with how hard I tried!

For black Friday, we all stayed home until about lunch time. Then the girls went shopping! It was a blast to have some girl time with my mom, sister, and sisters-in-law. I finished my Christmas shopping that day, which was amazing.

That Saturday we went to a football game. I bought tickets for Kai and Seth even, because I didn't want them to think football was just a TV show since they'd never seen it in person. It ended up being the most boring game I've ever seen in person. We left early. But the boys got to see football, we got vendor food, and it was at least an experience.



On our drive home, we passed an LDS temple. We stopped and walked around the temple grounds. It was great to be able to give our boys one more chance to feel the Spirit of the Lord and to explain to them the reason we are here on this earth, the purpose behind everything we do here.

Sometime during November we went to a mall and saw Santa Claus. The boys were so excited. There was absolutely no line, seeing as it was still November, so we got right in. This wonderful Santa spent time with the boys, really talking about what they want, whether they had been good, and the true meaning of Christmas. He even sang to them. My heart was touched. I love adults that will take time for children. It's so easy to get caught up in the day and the mundane. We miss out when we don't listen to them, because they are smarter than we give them credit for.

On December 2nd, we decorated our tree. It's always so fun to see Jason get as excited as the children! Usually I set up the tree, shape it, and string the lights on. Then it's time for everyone to pitch in. I usually have a color scheme, but some things always make it on the tree, like homemade ornaments from Seth's past years. I can't wait for Kai to get into preschool so he can have his own ornaments also.

Mid December, Seth had his preschool program. It was so sweet to see them sing all the songs they had worked on so hard and say the parts they had memorized.

I'll post about Christmas another time. There is just so much going on during these months! It's pretty crazy!