Thanksgiving

We had different plans for Thanksgiving than what we did. We had planned to go down to Houston with my aunt and uncle and my cousin who lives down there, and we were going to have a big huge group of us and a really fun weekend. But then a few things happened and it fell apart, and my cousin came up here for the weekend before Thanksgiving instead. So we ended up hanging out with them for a few days at the beginning of the week, and the kids were in heaven! I always think I'm so glad that my kids have so much extended family. Their own cousins all live so far away, but I have some cousins who are their age that live only about 45 minutes away, and we see them once a month or so, and then some of my other cousins' kids aren't far either. There's nothing quite like playing with cousins, and I want my kids to have as much of that time as they can. 

Just like heaven for these kids!

On Thanksgiving Day we started off the day with our own Turkey Trot around our park. Dane really thinks he's the fastest person ever, and we are trying to give him more chances to actually work on it instead of just talking about how amazing he is... It's a tricky thing to balance. It was pretty fun though. We ran around the park and then handed out medals for the top three--but the three kids just ended up with all of them at the end.

Cole and I went a little overboard on the pies and made four of them--from scratch, even the crusts! It was really fun to have someone to help me with the cooking. We made an apple, a chocolate pecan, a pumpkin, and Tommy made his aunt's French silk.

We did Thanksgiving with some of our friends in our ward who ended up not having plans like us. It was a great afternoon, and then they had other people come over for pie later. 

Thanksgiving night.

We have done this "grateful tree" each November for the last few years, and the kids LOVE it. Dane was begging us to keep doing it after Thanksgiving. 

Cole Visiting

Things were so stressful and crazy over December that I didn't get a chance to upload our pictures or update my blog for the last few months. I'm finally feeling like our lives are a little bit back in control again, so I'm trying to get back on top of everything. 

In November we got to have my brother Cole come stay with us for three weeks. He was doing home school in Ecuador, so he just worked from here while my parents were traveling a ton for mission stuff. We got to have him here for Thanksgiving, and it was a great time. Graham loved Cole a ton especially this trip, but Lucy was NOT a fan until the last few days before he left. Then as soon as he left she started talking about him all the time, and wanting to call Cole. She's a fickle friend, that girl. We tried to do some fun things with him, but a lot of the time we were just sitting around doing regular life, and he was nice enough not to be bored with us.

When we picked Cole up at the airport, Graham and he were matching!

Graham spent a lot of time sitting in Cole's lap and snuggling with him. 

Whereas Lucy wouldn't let him get any closer to her for the first few days.

We had lunch at Dane's school several times while Cole was here.

"Save me from this crazy guy, Mom!"

Cole was a good sport and slept in the toy room so the boys would come wake him up every morning. 

Tommy and Dane went rock climbing with Cole one afternoon.

We went to the Dallas Arboretum to see their Christmas exhibit, which was nice but kind of underwhelming for how much it cost ($$!).

Tommy and Cole went to a Mavericks/Jazz game with some men in our ward.

A nice long bike ride one Saturday.

Cole was just an excellent guest. We were all really sad to see him go. 

Family Pictures 2018

Okay, okay, we took these back in November but I want to share them, because they're so great. 

I did not think they were going to turn out great, because our kids were being so naughty that we had to bribe them with candy DURING our pictures. This was what they looked like from my phone:

But the photographer managed to make them look cute regardless. I was really hoping for a cute picture of the three of them, but this was the best she had of them together. She's not a magician, after all. 

But I was really happy with how they turned out.