A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

So how was our Thanksgiving weekend you ask? Well it was very lovely. We relaxed and enjoyed our time. We ate good fun, spent time with good friends, and had great weather.

Here is the feast.
Our crew turned out a bit smaller than anticipated as the Thomas' had to go to Utah for a family situation. We missed them and hope all is well. We were joined by the Hammer family and Scott.
The food turned out fabulously. We had an abundance of pies- reflective of our abundance of blessings. We have so much too be thankful for and we know it. I tried a new pie this year- it was called Maple Pear Heaven- it had a crumble topping. It was a nice alternative to the traditional apple. It may even be worth repeating.And then on to Black Friday. Kevin was the brave soul who woke up at 4 am to get to Walmart. He got almost everything on our list, including this basketball hoop. He spent the rest of the day setting it up. It took hmmm lets just say several hours.
And then he was on to the Christmas lights. We asked to borrow our neighbors ladder and because he is a nice guy or maybe didn't trust us on the ladder, proceeded to put up almost all our lights for us. We are blessed with great neighbors.
So if you remember our controversy over the lights last year, you will appreciate that we have lights on the top peaks this year... and since it wasn't Kevin on the ladder it looks like this year we both got what we wanted.

And while Kevin was outside with his projects all day I worked on finishing this cake (click here) for his co workers parents anniversary.

And then onto Saturday... We had a BYU Utah rivalry party to watch the game. We invited 5 families- some hard core Utah fans and some die hard Cougar fans. It was a lot of fun. The kids had a great time too- there were 16 of them total- P.A.R.T.Y. Here's a few cute pictures.

Go Cougars!

And now onto the beginning of Christmas...
I bought the kids a new tree this year so they could have their own to decorate as in years past. They put it up all by themselves and I had a great time watching them having so much fun. It is full of personality, this tree, and I had no stress while they did it-- just knowing that now I could do my tree my way on my own-- I know that's a bad mother attitude but the two tree system seems to work best for this household...
Brielle has thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas decorations. She has broken several ornaments but her favorite "decoration" is this singing Santa.

And it should be noted this went on for at least a good ten minutes.

And one last thing.

And now you may wonder why a picture of meat would round off my post this evening. Well, this is what may happen to you if you move to Nebraska- I never suspected - no not ever that for our Sunday dinner we would eat something my husband had shot the day before- seriously is this my life?

Well this is venison (a.k.a. deer meat). Kevin went hunting with a co worker and well - like I said...when you move your family to Nebraska... what else can you expect. So seriously if I hadn't known what I was eating, I wouldn't have been able to tell that it was anything different. It was actually (dare I say it) pretty good...

If you want to hear the hunting story or see pictures of Kevin with a dead deer- you'll have to talk to him. This is all I could stomach... hahaha.