Thanksgiving this year was with the Graves family. We had everybody there. It is so fun to see the cute little cousins playing together. Ridge has a train playing partner in Hadrian. Brynlee has girls to color and primp with. Tucker and Kyleigh find all sorts of adventures. Katelyn and Payton spy on Tucker and Kyleigh. Every single one of the kids adores Alma and she can show them all up with her Ipad games, which they love to watch her play. My personal favorite was when Tucker, looking all sweet, put his arm around Alma, then coyly tried to take the Ipad away. She would have none of that. GG and Gpa have a little crawl space type storage area that the kids think is magical. They spend hours under there. It helps that GG has stored some of our old toys under there to make it even more magical.
Besides good company we had good food. GG made the works for Thanksgiving dinner. And that was just dinner. We had dips, chex mix, and about a million other appetizers. When it was all over we ate pie and then started again with leftovers.
Thanksgiving day there was a backyard football game to get all the energy out of the kids (and Dads). When all else fails there is always Gpa's helicopter to entertain the kids (and Dads). We also went roller skating and to the outer limits fun zone, a new Pocatello favorite. To top off the weekend we had an early Christmas with cousin presents. They drew each others names and got to open the gifts when they were together. Every single one of them loved their gifts.
We ended our time together with family pictures. The photographer did a great job. I'll post those later.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving this year was with the Graves family. We had everybody there. It is so fun to see the cute little cousins playing together. Ridge has a train playing partner in Hadrian. Brynlee has girls to color and primp with. Tucker and Kyleigh find all sorts of adventures. Katelyn and Payton spy on Tucker and Kyleigh. Every single one of the kids adores Alma and she can show them all up with her Ipad games, which they love to watch her play. My personal favorite was when Tucker, looking all sweet, put his arm around Alma, then coyly tried to take the Ipad away. She would have none of that. GG and Gpa have a little crawl space type storage area that the kids think is magical. They spend hours under there. It helps that GG has stored some of our old toys under there to make it even more magical. 
I already wrote a little about Kyleigh's birthday this year, but then I found some of my lost pictures. It's been awhile so I don't recall why all of the kids are stripped down to diapers and in pajamas? I do know that Kyleigh wanted a tic tac toe birthday party. Hence, the tic tac toe cupcakes. We drew tic tac toe boards on the plastic tablecloth and had a little tournament. Kyleigh looks darn cute with her bow, if I do say so myself. She is such a fun girl with so many fun interests and hobbies. We love her and appreciate all of her big sister help. She is SO willing to share and give what she has. She saves like her Dad, especially when it comes to candy. But she is a little firey and speaks her mind. There is really no question where that came from. We love our Kyleigh!!!
Our sweet little Katelyn is already 6 years old. Time flies. My birthday goal for all of my kids is that they will remember how special they felt on their day. Katelyn still talks about the day she got breakfast in bed. It happened to be a day I got breakfast in bed and Rusty walked in her room with the tray and her eyes lit up thinking it was for her. Rusty couldn't say it wasn't for her went so he went and made her a breakfast, too. Ever since then she has wanted breakfast in bed again. At the same time she had chosen to make pancake men on her birthday. Since you can't make pancake men from bed, we took her a piece of pie in bed prior to pancake men. Doubly special. She loved it. Her birthday fell on a general conference Sunday so we had all day to play. In the afternoon we decorated the house up. By we I mean Kyleigh. She took over the decorations while I made the flower cake. Kyleigh went all out with streamers and signs throughout the house. Katelyn wanted dorito casserole for dinner so we made her that. We also made strawberry lemonade to drink and home mixed peppermint ice cream with the cake. Mike and Holly and girls joined us. Katelyn decided to have "dinner" early so she could go over to Grammy's (Rulon and Kathy) house to play with the kids, which she always loves. And that is how her birthday came to an end. 
