Thanksgiving Weekend!

I haven't posted for such a long time. November has been a busy month, but nothing too exciting has been going on in our family. We have all been looking forward to Thanksgiving this month, though, and we have had a great weekend. It was nice to get out of school on Tuesday and not have to worry about it again until tomorrow. Josie had a fun Thanksgiving Day feast in her class on Tuesday and tried pumpkin pie for the first time. She is such a picky eater I didn't think that she would eat anything that they served her, but she came away from the feast loving pumpkin pie. Then on Wednesday we had a nice relaxing day at home and then I took Brenden, Josie and Ryan to see "Madagacar 2". It was a fun movie and the kids really enjoyed it alot. Then on Thanksgiving day we had a nice dinner at Steve's mom's house. The kids love to get together with all of their cousins and aunts and uncles. We all wrote down things that we are grateful for on a feather and put them all together to make a turkey out of a pumpkin. That was a fun thing to do to remind us of why we really celebrate Thanksgiving. The kids gave some great answers. Josie said she was grateful for the Wii. Brenden said he is grateful for technology because "google" helps him alot. The most surprising list was from Taylor. He filled out 2 feathers and listed all of the things he is grateful for. He listed things like the sun, a couch, a tv, his skateboard, baseball, basketball, football, then he also listed things like his family, Joseph Smith, the scriptures, church. I was so proud of some of the things he was grateful for. Being a 12 year old, he is not always vocal about things he is grateful for, so I was glad that he listed some of those things. Kate said that she was grateful for her family.

After dinner we all looked at the Black Friday ads to see what stores we would be hitting. I love Black Friday and really enjoy going shopping and getting a great start on my Christmas shopping.

Then we went to my mom's house. Allyson and Kelli and their families were there. We had all of the kids and us girls make ornaments to put on my dad's Christmas tree that we have for him at the cemetery. The kids really liked doing this and it helped us remember "Grandpa Gary" on Thanksgiving. I am so grateful that he is my dad and that I know that I can see him again someday.

On Friday morning I got up early and went shopping with Sharla, Barbara and Jessi. It was pretty exciting and a little crazy at Target at 6 am, but we got most of the things that we wanted. We went to Old Navy, the mall and Sam's Club and found lots of good deals. After lots of fun and spending LOTS of money, I came home around 3 pm. Black Friday was definitely a success for me.

Steve and I were talking about how we really do love Thanksgiving weekend. It is so great that it is always on Thursday and it's like we have 2 Saturdays that week. We really had a great weekend and got alot accomplished. It was also so nice to spend so much time with our family. We get so busy in our lives that sometimes we don't do as much as we should with our family.

I didn't take one picture this weekend. I have totally slacked off on my picture taking. I'm sure I will make up for it this next month with all of the Christmas parties and activities we have coming up.

We, as a family, have so many things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. We are healthy and happy and are having so much fun together. We hope that everyone else had a great Thanksgiving as well.

As we look forward to this Christmas season, I hope that we can all remember the true meaning of Christmas and focus more on the Savior and all that He has done for us, and less on the presents and material things that we do during Christmastime.