Our Thanksgiving

It all started on Tuesday with Isaacs class "Fall Party"

Isaac and I were in charge of the decorations.  I let him pick out what he wanted to make.  He settled on corn husk centerpieces made out of liter soda bottles and tissue paper as well as Indian headbands.  He helped me make them all.  

Here he is with his teacher, Ms McLeod.  We both LOVE her! 

And here's what we call the Elm Street posse;)  

These three cute kiddos all live on Elm Street, Slade directly across the street from us and Devin about 5 houses down.  They play together a lot!  It's soooo fun to have neighbors with kids living so close!

On Wednesday night we headed for Houston.  We were all excited.
Zach, Jill and ALy were all going to be there!  

Sweet Greetings awaited us!!

 Hello, Juliet!!

Hello, Gaga!

Can you believe we went swimming on Thanksgiving Day?

The weather was 90' all day and then a northerly blew in a little before nightfall.
Just in time for the HOT TUB!!

Liam, Isaac and Joey's shoulder;)

Jill and Arie Lou
with whom I fell completely in love.  She got to sleep over at our house one night and she is the cutest, funniest little thing!!

Isn't he HUGE!!

The Nina's!!!  

Mom, Jill, Juliet and the original, Nina Grandma!

We quickly switched gears from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Here Isaac is excited to receive 

Toy Story 3!  His biggest gift was the Star Wars AT AT found at Costco.  It is awesomely HUGE!

Georgie is in love with her Bitty Baby!  

Thanks Gaga and Papa!!

And I'm in love with my 3 amazing mirrors!  And my tiny little, gold, wear-everyday peace sign necklace!  You gotta love gifts from parents....they buy us things that we could never buy for ourselves!!

Thanks Mom!  And for Joey it was the Beatles T-shirt you see him wearing below.  

So Joey and so cool.

 Goofin' off at Lupe's Tortillas.

Most of the gang!

The kids helped Gaga put up her Christmas villages.  They really enjoyed it.  It made me slightly regret selling mine.  I hope my Mom doesn't read this!  She'll say, "I told you so!"

Merry Christmas everyone!  More where that came from later!

xoxo

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

It all started with:

Isaacs classroom party.

 It was fun to see him in his 5-day a week, school environment!

Mrs. Madl's Kindergarten class.

We really love his teacher.

Then we waited, not so patiently, for Gaga and Papa's arrival.

Awww, like a breath of fresh air they entered our lives!  I am so grateful for Grandparents.  I can't imagine Isaac and Georgie's world without them!

On Thanksgiving Day, Joey and Dad headed for the football field and Mom and I slaved away;)  Once again, it was so nice to have a buddy in the kitchen.  My talented and resourceful Mom took the kids out hunting for greenery for our centerpiece.  They loved every minute of it, carrying their baskets and collecting earthy treasures!

Voila!

(sort of...before my Mom refined the kids labors)

I didn't take a single picture of the guests at our Thanksgiving Day dinner but it included the Fischers...who made this delicious apple pie with their name inscribed in pastry on the top.  Clever dudes;)  We also had our dear friend Ruth Thomas with us.

We spent part of the weekend teaching Isaac how to ride a bike without training wheels.

He did great but I think we'll hold off our serious study until the spring.

It's been WAY to cold around here to keep it up!

Keeping with tradition we drove 2 hours for a Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving.  I'm thinking we might hold off on this tradition until we leave Oklahoma.  They just don't have good, accessible Christmas tree farms around here.

But then again they love it...what's a Mom to do.

I'll think about that tomorrow, not today!

Our masterpiece...after completion!

...the real masterpiece!

Extra Cream Anyone?

Homemade Butter

 A young girl in my ward here gave me the coolest suggestion.  Every year for Thanksgiving, she and her siblings make homemade butter!  When she explained how simple it is - as simple as pouring heavy cream into a jar and shaking it...no 100 year old wooden barrel required;)- I knew that we HAD to try it!

After cleaning the house this morning I rewarded the kids with a movie.  They chose Star Wars 2.  While watching, the kids took turns shaking the little jar of cream mixed with a tsp of salt.  It wasn't too terribly long before the novelty wore off and I had to rotate in a turn of my own;)  The kids don't yet grasp the coolness of making your OWN BUTTER!!  After about 20 minutes of moderate shaking, mixed in with resting and a few minutes of vigorous shaking, we opened the lid and found this:

YEAAA!!  Butter!!  I'm drooling at the sight of it!!

We poured of the liquid (buttermilk) into a cup and then loaded our fresh butter into our Thanksgiving Day serving dish and placed it in the fridge:

Really and truly, it tastes silkier, smoother and richer than the store bought stuff AND it's fun!!  It's like jumping back in time...and taking Star Wars with you;)

Tip:  At first the cream is, of course, thin and easy to shake...keep shakin'.  After a while it becomes the consistency of frothy cream and seems to hardly move in the jar at all...keep shakin'.  A few minutes after this, small lumps will begin to appear in your cream...still...keep shaking.  Your honin' in on it.  Within a few minutes it will look like the picture above and you can separate it from your butter milk and enjoy!  Hope my suggestion is worth something to you and you give it a try!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

All Aglow!

We finally got around to decorating the tree on Sunday evening after our dinner of Potato Soup and Cornbread...yum!  Isaac was so excited he could hardly stop talking about it all day long!

Here's Georgie and the little puppy Mojo that we puppy sat for the week.  She tortured the poor little dog and carried him all over the house.  Surprisingly, Mojo loved her anyway and ran around at her feet whenever she allowed him to get down! 

We had Elder Urick and Elder Young over for Dinner that night as well.  I hope no other Missionary that we've known over the past few years reads this because I'm about to admit that Elder Urick is our favorite missionary EVER!  We LOVE him and will miss him dearly when he goes.  He is such a cool kid.

Pop Pop finally got some time with the grandkids!  Mimi and Gaga take a little more of their share;)

I thought this was a cute picture of Georgie and Jenny enjoying each other.   

O Tannenbaum

Hands down, my favorite Christmas tradition growing up was going to a real Christmas Tree farm and cutting down our own fresh tree.  I can almost feel the vibration of the long bumpy hayride that took us deep into the farm and dropped us off whenever we spotted something we liked.  I remember Mom and Dad sizing up each tree, checking for holes and height and then, finally, taking a saw to the perfect one.  With the big beauty strapped to the top of our big blue Suburban we headed home to decorate it while listening to Christmas music.  Slowly, over the years it became hard to find any Christmas tree farms at all until one year, despite our protests, Mom bought the enemy...a fake tree.  More than any other tradition, this is the one I would like to keep in my little family for as long as Christmas Tree farmers will let us.  My thoughtful neighbor, Josh, with no knowledge of my love for Christmas Tree farms, brought over a flyer advertising the last year in business for the local Christmas Tree farm.   I wouldn't have missed it for the world!  And so it became our Saturday afternoon activity with the Grandparents! 

Here are some pictures of the fun we had:

Hike and Hamburger Heaven

Hike and Hamburger Heaven

After our short hike and drive through the Oklahoma Wildlife Preserve we stopped in at the local, legendary hamburger joint, Meers.  Known for their Longhorn Beef raised and killed right on the sight, these Hamburgers were listed in Gourmet magazine as being one of the 10 best in the nation.   Here we all are after our big juicy meal:

And here we are after waiting in line for over an hour to get a table:

Loving my Lizzy:

And here are pictures of our hike.  Isaac and Georgie played Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker all the way down the mountain.  Isaac even stopped several times to hold Georgie's hand, help her down a steep step or just to check on "the Princess".   It was adorable.  

Pondering on the Mountain Top:

Some of my favorite people all in one place:

It truly was a joy to have both of our parents together.  If our siblings had been there it would have been perfect!  Thanks for coming you guys!  It meant a lot to us!