Thanksgiving 2015

This Thanksgiving was a good one. It was Cale's last holiday with us before he left on his mission so it was also bittersweet. Sending a brother off for 2 years is so hard! We managed to fit in some quality time over the long weekend though and made some good memories. We started a day early on Wednesday and went bowling & batting. It's one of those activities that everyone kind of complains about until we actually do it and then everyone ends up having a grand old time. Ellie even got her first strike.

On Thanksgiving morning j.rue headed off for his annual Turkey Bowl and the kids and I hunkered down and watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and read some Little Critter Thanksgiving. We loved The Peanuts and thought the Little Critter book was just ok. Honestly, the only way I could get Ellie to read it was bribing her with the stickers inside. If anyone has any good suggestions on children's Thanksgiving books, I'd love to hear them!

In between movies and books I was snagging some online deals and I noticed Ellie was sneaking upstairs where Fitz was sleeping. I tried to shut her down but she turned on her Ellie charm and told me she was just going to "go upstairs to growl Fitzy, like moster". Again, I tried to put the kibosh on that but she said, "no worry mommy, me growl at Fitzy, I nice monster." Of course I couldn't resist so I followed her upstairs and she did as she promised and only growled tiny nice growls at her little brother. He humored her with a few smiles and then ended up crying even though she was "so nice". And her hair, monstrous, yes? After her growling antics were over she looked at me and said, "monster want tiny mango!" So we headed downstairs for some delicious Costco dried mangos. She's such a sweetheart. I love watching her imagination run wild.

Once we were ready for the day we went on a tiny walk. Ellie is still trying to get pedaling down, thank goodness for the pusher! It was frigid though so we didn't last long. Then we packed up the car (which I'm pretty sure included about half the contents of our house -- kids!) and headed up to Ogden to start cooking.

While we cooked we watched the parade and the dog show. Like always, my mom did a great job with the dinner and it was fun being in the kitchen with her. She makes the best stuffing. The best. The actual dinner was a little chaotic with 3 kids but we all managed to eat our food while it was still hot. It's the tiny victories.

After the clean up we spent a couple hours playing games. This is the original good time gang right here. j.rue made sure every rule was followed and Cale and Micah had it out for each other. Ellie made sure to color on everything and mess up all the pieces. Traditions, traditions.

On Friday j.rue had to head back to work for half a day and then we spent the rest of the day putting up Christmas lights, stuffing our faces with Chinese food, and watching The Duff. Have you seen The Duff? It's worth a watch. Oh! we also put up the tree! It's still not decorated, but gosh she's pretty.

On Saturday we went to j.rue's family's annual Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, we get at least 2 Thanksgivings every year. It's delicious. It was so fun to catch up with family that we don't see nearly enough. Sadly this is the only picture I got, but as you can see, the kids had a blast too. Ellie loved running around with her cousins.

I'm so thankful for our families. The older I get, the more I love and cherish the time that we get to be with them. We seriously missed the family that we didn't get to be with this year. I'm especially thankful for my little family. I'd be lost without them. Oh I love them, so much actually that my heart might burst. Look at those faces. Heart eyes emoji. Also, here's a random smorgasbord of snaps from the weekend. Enjoy!