Ho, Ho, Ho.....a little early!! :)

The Friday after Thanksgiving we celebrated Christmas with Mike's family. We had such a good time! The kids LOVED playing together. It was so fun to see the 3 little boys just fall right into place with each other and Stella of course ADORES Grace and Grace is so good to Stella! The only thing missing was Chris who was unable to get time off work and join us. But we'll be in AZ in December so we'll get to see him then! :)

Grandpa and the kids reading stories before bedtime one evening. "Christmas" night. Grace, who turns 13 (who is that possible!!?!?!?) next week.

Guy opening a gift.

Grant was VERY excited about the Mario Cart game he got for the Wii from Grandpa and Grandma. He and Guy dressed up as Mario and Luigi for Halloween and are big fans!

Stella with her gift from uncle Chris. She's had her eye on this at Target for some time now!

Porter with the Nerf gun from uncle Chris. He loves it, of course!!!!!
Linda

Not the best pic, but I have to explain the gift. Last summer Mike and Scott committed to biking RAGBRAI this coming summer together! Linda picked out bike jerseys for them Iowa and Iowa State accordingly and padded biker shorts for them. Now we'll see how serious they get about training!! LOL!

Stella, Nora and Grace

Scott with the Bathroom Reader Mike picked out for him!

Stellie and Gracie

Grant and Guy received light sabers from Uncle Chris, they were over the moon about getting these!! Nora, Grant and Porter playing with them on Saturday morning (Porter already had one).

The Fab 5!! Grant (age 5), Stella (age 6), Grace (age 12--13 on Dec 5th), Porter (age 4), Guy (age 3, will be 4 on Dec 1st).

Grandma and Grandpa with their "babies"!!!

Santa Visit

Since Steve and Linda were in town and the kids were VERY excited about seeing Jolly Old St. Nicholas, we headed to visit him on Sunday afternoon. Saturday afternoon they spent a lot of time writing their letters to him. They did a great job with their letters and both decorated them very cute! They both asked him some cute questions, Stella wanted to know how he was able to deliver gifts to all the kids in the WHOLE world in one night and Porter wanted to know if he was allergic to cats now that we have Rex!! LOL!!!

Writing their letters.

Going over her list.

Best buddies!!

Grandma and Grandpa with Stella and Porter

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Steve, Linda, Scott, Nora, Grace, Grant, Guy and my mom and dad were all able to spend the holiday together at our house.
We had absolutely AMAZING weather the day of Thanksgiving! The kids were able to play outside a TON without even wearing jackets! (Unheard of in Iowa in late November!). Just one more thing for us to be Thankful for!

I decided to brine the turkey this year, it was the first time I have ever done it. Everyone said it was delicious, I don't know if it really was or if they were just being kind!! (Being vegetarian makes it hard to taste test the main course!).

I soaked Theodore (our bird) the night before in a water/salt bath. Linda and Mike were nice enough to help me out doing that, as again, being vegetarian it grosses me out sticking my hand up inside a turkey! But I was all on my own the next morning getting him ready for the oven so I had to do that anyway!

Linda getting Theo ready for his salt bath:

Where I spent most of my time, in the kitchen, reading my recipes! I loved every minute of it. Hosting is so much fun!! :)

Resident wino! Oh wait, that is cooking wine. Bummer!

I didn't really get any photos of actual Thanksgiving. For those of you who have been to our house I set up our dining room table in the sun room. It worked out perfect. Then the 3 boys sat at the boys table right next to us. They looked so cute all dressed in orange (that was not planned, BTW!). I love that the light saber made it to the Thanksgiving table. LOL!!

My mom and I have a tradition of Black Friday shopping every year!!! Woot! We LOVE IT!!!! This year Linda was able to join us. Here's mom surrounded by all the ads, getting our night all planned out! :)

The men enjoyed taking it easy and watching football.

Nora was the smart one of the bunch and did her Black Friday shopping from the comfort of home via the Internet! She scored some awesome deals!

A few random photos

I was pretty bad about taking photos the month of November. But here are a few from our busy month!
Porter dressed up for cowboy day at preschool. He actually was very excited about this, but didn't want to smile for this picture! We got snow mid month and the kids were EXCITED about that to say the least!! Stella was at school during this pictures, but she had a blast playing in the snow at recess.

Rex came outside for a little bit, but was pretty hesitant about the snow. It was his first time seeing it or touching it!

A couple Sundays ago Stella and I went downtown to celebrate the 100th year anniversary for our diocese. Of course Stella wanted to get all fancy! She loves dressing up and being fancy these days! :)

Better Late Than Never....Halloween!! :)

Finally updating my blog! Halloween seems like ages ago and this past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with Mike's side of the family, so I'll have lots of post coming soon. But needed to start with Trick or Treating first! :0)

We lucked out with fabulous trick or treating weather! It was awesome outside that evening. The kids were very excited to put on their costumes and knock on doors and get some candy!
Here they are getting ready to go out.
Stella was an ice cream cone and is posing with her pumpkin.

Porter the mighty Red Power Ranger! (They are wearing their mittens, not because it was cold, but because they were new and they insisted they have them on!)

Stella's friend Kaylen and Kaylen's brother Nate joined us again this year to trick or treat. Nate's mask was bothering him by this point so he had it off.

With all their loot!