THANKSGIVING

I'm too far behind to give an update of all that went on November. I can't remember most of it so it must have been good. I did want to share our California Thanksgiving hosted by my in laws. It was yummy and wonderful, they were kind enough to invite my parents and brother over. I was lucky to have the best of both worlds.
Here is our cook of the day. Thanks Candy it was delicious.

My brother Matt and Kevin. I'm not sure what they are laughing at. Maybe it was Kevin's mustache.

Max and Lilly sporting Thanksgiving olive fingers.

Megan bringing over the rolls.A game of Thanksgiving poker.I can't go to California without getting to the beach. No matter how short the trip I have to go see my happy place.

We were lucky enough to find a sand dollar.

Max and Lilly remembered how much fun the beach is. Lucky for us the water was warm and the weather was perfect. This is Max is showing off his rocks. He ran into the water the whole time we were there. We got to my parents house wet and sandy. YES, a perfect BEACH day.

This one is for Lilly

I have been seeing oodles and oodles of this around my house. It is in the kitchen, loft, Lilly's room, the classroom and the bathroom. She can't get enough of drawing. I love how she explains the pictures to me. She shows me that she is being detailed by having to have a sky and a floor and anything else that she adds to the picture. She loves to draw and tell me the stories behind them. She is getting so much better with her writing. She can almost always get the initial consonant for all the words in her sentence, and throws in a few words that she knows how to spell as well. I love these pictures, she will not always be drawing and writing like this,so I had to post some of her best work. As a bonus I think the Grandmas and Grandpas would like to see it as well.

Really just for me

Not that anyone cares but, I did some scrapbooking this week. I love the way they turned out

Giving thanks and awesome art!!!

At our house we are gearing up for Thanksgiving. Yet again I just love the holiday. I was having a discussion about Thanksgiving the other day with my sis in law and realized that I mostly love Thanksgiving not for the dinner but I most look forward to the leftovers. I love the turkey sandwiches on a homemade roll with cranberry sauce and lettuce. I love the fruit salad, and I the love the pumpkin pie that I allow myself to eat whatever time of the day I choose, or for a meal substitute. As much as I love the food, it is secondary. My favorite part of Thanksgiving is spending the day with family and friends and counting my many blessings.

This year I wanted our family to gain an attitude of gratitude. So I had the kids paint a thanksgiving tree. I cut out several fall color leaves. (even though I have not seen one leaf of color around my neighborhood). Every night at the dinner table each of us is given a leaf, and we are to write down what we are grateful for. Then the leaf is taped to our tree. By the time Thanksgiving is here we will have a beautiful colorful tree. The kids look forward to it every night. Miss Lilly is insisting on writing the words herself, which brings me so much joy that she loves to write.

So here is the beginning of our thanksgiving tree.

I have a great art tip from school today. I had this idea working in my head but then my friend Bethany (art teacher extraordinaire) helped me perfect it. It's marble painting. You will need a shallow box, (I asked for mine at the market) paper, paint, marbles and tape. Tape the paper to the inside of the box. I used painter tape it came off the paper really well. Just squeeze a few lines or blobs of paint onto the paper, add the marbles and have the kids roll it around the box. Little mess and easy clean up. The kids loved the project and were happy to do it for several minutes, most of them did not want to stop.

Halloween Week

I like Halloween it's just fun. It's fun to dress up and fun to eat junk food. We started out this week by carving our pumpkins. Every thing went nice a smooth. Happy kids.

On Thursday and Friday was my preschool parties. Both days I dressed up as Little Red Riding hood b/c I didn't think that the kids would really know who Olive Oil was. There were only a few kids that knew who Little Red was. I think I will be reading that story in the near future. All the kids came dressed up and we played fun games like toss the goblin and don't eat the spook. The kids had the best time when we made a witch's brew with ghost toes (marshmallows) skeleton teeth (dried pineapple) lizard skin, (Frito's) bat eyes (m&m's) well you get the picture.

Friday afternoon was Lilly's school party. I was a little sad to find out that the kids don't come in costume to school. I can totally understand why, but I was just bummed. The kids had a great time at the party with the games and food. For my contribution to the party I made worms in dirt. I made them in the little Jello pudding cups just to be easy. I found out that it is not that easy to pull 25 tops of at one time. Maybe it was just me, but my fingers were slipping or maybe it is just b/c I'm thumb challenged.

Next up was our ward Trunk or Treat. Here we are before we are headed out the door.

This one is taken while we were getting some loot. On Halloween we decide that we would hang out with the cousins and trick or treat with them and go to their block party. But first we had to go their Fall Festival where Lilly and Max enjoyed games, prizes, popcorn and snow cones.

I was happy to find out that all of the cousins were there. Jack met up with us and we went trick or treating with him too. Yes, we had a great time and yes, we have all had enough candy and treats but we are already talking about what we want to do next year.