Thanksgiving 2011

Wow. Where do I even begin? Thanksgiving was a blast and boy o boy to we have lots to be thankful for. Food, Family, Friends, a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, a Loving Savior who forgives all our nasty sins. Those are just a few off the top of my head, but lets face it, we are blessed beyond belief.

Brandon and I hosted our 5th Thanksgiving dinner in our home this year. Thanksgiving is my absolute #1 favorite holiday of all. I just love the season, the cool weather, the beautiful fall colors, the family and friends all gathered around eating some of the most delicious homemade foods, and most of all I love all the thankful hearts reflecting on the many blessings God has given us. Its just an amazing feeling to me. Anyway, we had 12 adults and 3 kids this year. So much fun. It was us and our two kids, my parents, my mother-in-law, my aunt and uncle from Nevada, my sister, brother-in-law and niece, and our very good family friend Gavin and his mother. It was a wonderful day and we had tons of delicious food.Best of all there was a lot of laughter which is always so much fun! Okay, enough rambling and onto the pictures. As always, I have way way way too many pics so there are a ton, you have been warned.

I seriously have about 140 pictures from the day so I will try and narrow them down but you all know me, it almost impossible for me to make decisions, so more likely than not there are gonna be a lot. Anyway, I will start off by showing you all the Thanksgiving table….

The main centerpiece on the table was Owen’s Thanksgiving Turkey. He got to chose 5 things that he is thankful for. So precious to see and hear what a 3 year old is thankful for.

It was so nice to have everyone sit at one table together, no kids table in this house! We put a 6 foot table on one end of our dinning room table and it worked out perfectly.

A few table highlights. On the left we have personalized place setting cards and on the right are flower vases made out of wine bottles. I wrote a few of the fruits of the spirits on them and then spray painted them one solid color. Guess where I got these two ideas….Pinterest!

My three favorite kids in the whole world!

So, before all the guests arrived I attempted to get a nice sweet picture of my kids together. Yeah right. It is nearly impossible to get a picture with a 3 and a 1 year old looking at the camera at the same time. The picture above was the best one I could get. Here is a little clip of my attempts…

Hahaha. They are the picture perfect siblings. They equally drive each other CRAZY!

Owen being silly. His specialty.

Left: My adorable Mom and Dad in their nasty Cowboys cooking gear before dinner. Right: Me and My Hubby after dinner (hints why I look bloated & exhausted!)

 

My Beautiful Mother-In-Law Becky and Brandon. I am so so so happy Becky got to make the trip down from Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with us!

Ham & Turkey….The main event!

My parents homemade Red Chili, gravy and the delicious ham.

Stuffing, Lemon Green Beans with Almonds, Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallow Topping O My!

And of course you can not forget Cranberry Salad and Dinner Rolls.

Thanks to Pinterest, I could not have normal pies this year for dessert. I came across this idea to make mini pies in a muffin tin. I loved the idea because it was a great way to portion control your thanksgiving dessert after you over eat your dinner. And it was an added bonus that no one had to argue over who was going to cut the pies. They came out super nice and delicious but I do have to admit they were a bit time consuming to make.

I made Apple and Pumpkin mini pies. Yum yum yum!

The Feast!

After dinner there was lots and lots to clean up and things to put away. Some were on kid duty, some were on cleaning duty, and the rest were on relax and watch football duty. My mom and I, the major clean freaks, were on clean up duty, go figure!

Auntie JoAnn and Mimi were on Kid duty. My kids had a blast playing with these two. They played babies, dress up, and even went on a pretend camping trip. Lol.

Here is part of dress up time.

Poor Auntie Kiki wasn’t feeling very well. She did a little clean up and a little play. She was a trooper!

Abigail LOVES her pampo!

Left: Our very good friend of the family Gavin and his Mother Cathy. Right: Autumn and her purse and Uncle Chris in the background on Football duty!

After dinner, play time, football and clean up we played a very intense game of Catch Phrase. A Thanksgiving favorite. We had so much fun and laughed hysterically which was a great way to burn a few extra calories since we all ate way too much!

Owen insisted on sitting on Gavin’s lap during the game. He said he was “helping him win the game”. Owen just loves and adores Gavin and I believe the feeling is 100% mutual!

Once the games were finished, we all kind of melted into the couch and complained about how full and tired we were. A sign of a very wonderful and successful Thanksgiving.

A big Thanks for all the wonderful Family and Friends who traveled to spend Thanksgiving with us in our home. We love you all more than words could ever express. Also a huge thanks to everyone for all the wonderful delicious dishes that were brought and for all the help cleaning up. 

I hope you all also had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Safe Travels.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

My Birthday Dinner

Monday was my 27th Birthday. Wow, I am creeping up to the big 3-0! I guess for now I will enjoy still being able to say I am in my 20’s. Anyway, we decided to celebrate my Birthday on Saturday the 19th because that seemed to be the day that worked best for everyone’s schedules not to mention that Mimi would be in town to join in on the celebration. Owen and I went to pick Mimi up from the airport Friday night at 10:45pm. He was so excited when I woke him up to go to the airport with me. He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs so excited that he was going to pick up his Mimi…

Here he is on the escalator aka moving stairs in the airport. So cute!

When asked what I wanted to do for my Birthday I honestly just wanted to keep things low key. As in make no fuss over it. So that is exactly what we did. My parents hosted dinner at their house and made my absolute favorite Red Chili Enchiladas with Pork, a big pot of beans, and my sister brought over her amazing calavacitas. For dessert Brandon made me a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate drizzle. Yum yum yum. Since I really wanted to keep things low key I decided that I wanted it to be a pajama/sweats dinner party since we planned on staying up late to play games after the kids went to bed. So that was the plan.

Before I get into the very fun pictures I want to start off by saying the day leading up to my bday dinner was a big huge stressful mess. I started the day off okay. Autumn was up very early, as in 5 am early. Yucky. My brother-in-law dropped off my niece at 6:30am since it was my day to watch my niece. I have to note she was an absolute angel yesterday. When I finally brought Autumn down stairs about 7am she was very warm and had a very runny nose with bright yellow boogies. Ugh. I couldn’t get her in with her normal doctors office since it was Saturday so I had to wait to call After Hours until 2pm. Needless to say it was a very very rough morning since she was not feeling well, would not eat and more importantly would not nap. I called at 2pm and got her an appointment at 4:30pm across town. So we packed up and I dropped off my niece, Owen and Mimi at my parents around 3:30pm so I could take Autumn to the doctors. We got to her appointment late since we got a little lost on the way so I was a bit frazzled once we finally got there. When we got in the room Autumn was loosing it because she was so sleep deprived. She was throwing such a tantrum and would not let anyone touch her. Not even to take her temp or listen to her lungs. She was so mad. She worked her self up so much that she nearly passed out, as in eyes rolling back in her head. It was pretty scary to watch as a mother but apparently this is normal and lots of kids pass out from tantrums. Anyway, the doctor was trying to check her oxygen levels and she kept holding her breath so it ended up being an almost 20 minute task. After finally getting it and checking her all out we discovered she has a double ear infection and a sinus infection on top of that. (On a side note, we are now counting her ear infections since she just had one 4 weeks ago. If she gets 2 more before mid January they will be recommending we get ear tubes put in just like we had to with Owen. Fun Fun!) She was a mess. After the very frustrating and looonnggg trip to the doctors we headed to Walgreens to drop off her Rx and just my luck they were closing in ten minutes. So we headed to another Walgreens, dropped off the Rx and ended up being late to my own bday dinner. What a way to start a fun night. O well, it could have been worse. After Motrin and Tylenol, she pepped up enough to enjoy the rest of the night with the family. Okay on to pics, we had a wonderful night. It was exactly what I wanted, minus the Autumn drama prior to, and all my favorite people were there. I am so so so thankful for such an amazing family!!! Warning, there are a ton of pics…

Pampo playing with his girls and Owen and Mimi enjoying some computer time before we ate.

Our attempt at a family pic. Lol

BCF’s aka Best Cousins Forever!

All the grandkids LOVE the vibrating message chair at Nana & Pampo’s house. Too bad the chair broke later that night. Hahaha, you had to be there, it was hilarious!!

Owen and Autumn playing/wrestling in the spare bedroom bed. They were being so funny.

Siblings crack me up! They were having a blast.

I forgot to take pics of dinner, but let me just tell you it was amazing!!!! After all that fun we moved onto cake…

Let me just brag on my hubby….he MADE me this cake from scratch. He is amazing and so was his cake. Yummy!

We forgot candles so all we had was an old 5 and 3 to use. Lol. I had some wonderful helpers to blow out the candles.

Abi could not get enough of the cake. She loved it!

After cake…I got to open my presents. I got so many wonderful things. Thank you everyone so so so much.

Here is Nana, Owen and Mimi watching me open gifts.

My wonderful husband got me my much needed Sunbeam Electric Mixer. I know everyone says Kitchen Aids are the best, but I am a total Sunbeam girl. My mom had a sunbeam for over 20 years and it got handed down to me and I LOVED it, until I broke it! Which was my fault so it probably could have made it to 30+ years. Oops, my bad. Anyway my Mom has a Kitchen Aid and wishes she could go back to a sunbeam. Just a brand I LOVE and always will. Thanks a million B!

 

I put on a mini fashion show, in other words I was acting super silly trying on my new stuff so Owen decided he wanted to join me…

He cracks me up. We were all laughing so hard at him trying to model my New Eric Decker Broncos Jersey!

After the kids went to sleep us adults played some fun games.We stayed up too late and are paying for it today, but it was so worth it!

Me & My sissy. Cheers.

What a GREAT night! Thanks again to all my amazing family who made me feel so special and spoiling me on my Birthday. I love you all so much and Thank God for you each and every day!