Give Thanks...

For family that would drive 14 hours to come and visit us and happily sleep on air mattresses and futons only to be woken before the crack of dawn by happy children' voices!

For late night games and treats!

For a home to share!

For our family that is far away (and cute packages they send)! We love you!

For aunts and uncles who love to play with their nieces.
For books and the ability to read!
For a peaceful evening out, without the kids.
For beautiful weather and playgrounds!

For healthy bodies and good competition! (It was a tie)

For warm weather (just not quite warm enough for the pool)
For dog piles and tickle tortures
For simple backyard games that bring peals of laughter! Did we mention the beautiful weather?
For good food and family to share it with!
For Grandma! Oh how we love her!
For giant cactus slides (Only in arizona :)
For cousins!!!
For sweet little girls!
For moms and sisters!
For my dad and his great ideas!
For a very fun trip to the zoo!
For knowledge that our family is forever!
For a Thanksgiving holiday that brings family together and reminds us of the bounteous blessings we enjoy!

Let the Festivities Begin!

We have had so much fun the past week and so much more lies in store! I love this time of year. Even though the beautiful Arizona weather does not feel like Thanksgiving to me - having family visit and anticipating the fun season puts me in the Holiday spirit.

Where to begin - I guess we could say the official "start" of the holiday was going to see the Capitol Christmas Tree. It comes from Arizona this year. We heard about a party to see the tree and wish it well on its journey across the country. By "see" the tree, they meant see the semi that is carrying the huge tree. There was the option of waiting in a rather long line to peek in a door at the front of the truck and look down the dark interior at the tree laying horizontally. We opted for decorating sugar cookies and signing the plastic signage covering the truck. Curly and Lou and are expecting that their Aunt in Washington DC sees their name on that truck! Gook luck K-Rae!

Lou's cookie art

The famous tree in the truck

Curly signing her name

Definitely more exciting than seeing the Christmas Tree, was the arrival of our cousins later that evening! Fisher's sisters braved the long drive to bring their children and themselves for an extended weekend visit. It was endless fun, noise, playing, eating, and not much sleeping. We all loved having family here.

We visited the Mesa Temple one day and had a picnic. Our 80 degree weather ended with their arrival and we all donned jackets for our outings, except Curly - she put on a spring dress.

Curly's budding photography skills...

On Saturday we checked out a Hot Air Balloon Festival. This is all the ballooning we saw. The wind prevented any balloon from launching, but it was a beautiful day!

Oh how we love to dress up!

And as all good things must come to an end - the family headed home Monday morning. All the kids were exhausted from endless playing and I heard it was a quiet ride home. We also caught up on some sleep and now we are gearing up for the next party!

Confession

Actually - Three confessions -

1 - I have eaten more of my kids Halloween candy than they have. I have been digging to find the Butterfinger and Twix bars, but I am sad to say they are gone - and they have all gone in my tummy. YUM!

2 - I adore my little Lou! She is so hilarious. I with I could capture on video the funny faces she makes, the funny voices she uses, and the funny things she says! Her two favorite words right now are "actually" which sounds so strange coming from a little two year old mouth (even though I remember Curly doing the same thing) and "never!". The latter she pronounces with a flourish whenever I ask her to do something...
"Lou, it's time to put on your panties."
"NEVERrrr!"
"It's time to eat lunch."
"NEVERrrrr!"
She sounds like a pirate!

3 - I am so ecstatic that my family is coming to visit! We spent yesterday trying to finish up the cleaning (that still hadn't been finished since moving) and the projects (that will never be done). Fisher's sisters and their children are coming this week and most of my immediate family is coming for Thanksgiving a week later!!! I can't stop thinking about it! I am so excited!

One of those days...

or at least lunchtimes. Lou managed to knock her bowl of tomato soup on the floor. I had not idea how far soup can travel. Even after I thought I had cleaned it all up, I found red splatter on the ceiling and walls nowhere near the table. Not five minutes later, Curly managed to knock her bowl into her lap. Not a good day for tomato soup.

Pumpkins, Potatoes, and Projects

Halloween is big here! I don't know if it just our neighborhood, but people go all out! Decorations, haunted houses, tons of trick-or-treaters, and tons of candy. It was Curly and Lou's first experience trick-or-treating at houses and we all had a blast. People pull their freestanding fire pits onto their driveway, put out a buffet of food, pull up the camp chairs and chill. There were lots of "three for one" houses. Three neighbors "chillin" at one house, but each with their own bucket of candy and they aren't shy about giving it out either. When I was little you took once piece and said thank you, but two is the new one, and a handful is pretty normal. Curly and Lou came home with plenty of booty for the whole family...

Hmm...which one do I eat first?!?!

This pumpkin took about five minutes to carve, speedy compared to our monster pumpkins of the past. It's so cute and little.

This is our huge Halloween sweet potato that my Phoenician uncle grew. That is a large butcher knife stuck in it! Impressive eh - We made fries and a lot of potato soup out of that baby! Three meals from one potato.

And here we have our Date night/Halloween project. We painted Curly and Lou's room. Two walls were blue and the other two still had the nasty, grayish, dull paint that the contractor put on. Curly REALLY wanted pink, so we compromised on pink and green (which we put on the lower third). When we first finished it looked like an easter egg and we went to bed hoping it would look better in the morning - fortunately it did. Finished project pictures to come shortly.