Merry Christmas!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Now that most of the Christmas cards are sent out I can post our pictures from the family photo shoot we did.  I sent out a bunch and then gave up, so if you read this blog and didn't get one that's why.  Sorry!  I took all these pictures or set them up then set the timer, but Mikayla took the one of me and Jeff.  These are the best out of MANY and despite the smiles the big kids weren't really into it.  Landen was being pretty goofy which turned out well, but it was crazier than it looks!  I'm always shocked that I ever get anything good and afterwards I feel like it went terrible.  I am so glad we went through the trouble though, because I love them!

Landen 4 yrs. old , Mikayla 13yrs. old

Zachary 11.5 yrs. old

Christine & Jeff~ ages unknown

                                                                         

                                                                                 

 Thank you God for my precious family and for a wonderful 2013!                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Thanksgiving Feasts~

Here's Landen at his first Thanksgiving feast at school where they actually cooked 2 giant turkeys!  And guess what!?!  I didn't see one kid take a bite of turkey!  Well I am sure someone did, but those room moms really went all out.  We are so blessed by Landen's preschool.  He only goes Tuesday and Thursday mornings and on the other 3 days a week he wakes up and cries because it's not a preschool day. :(  

 We had some grandparents over the day before Thanksgiving, so we decided to stay home on Thanksgiving day.  We watched the parade  and ate way too much food.  Check and check.

Mikayla decorated the table this year and I just love what she did with it.  And it was really nice to delegate that job.  She also helped Landen get dressed that day and I have to say it can be really nice to have such a sweet, helpful teenager around.(most of the time:))

I braved Costco the Monday before and barely made it out alive with my 3.5 pound turkey breast.  But boy did that thing plump up!  It is southern California after all.

Jeff always makes the best turkey!

Landen went around giving everyone cranberries in their cute little fox and owl boxes.

I don't even know how I managed to get this picture.  Both of them happy and willingly smiling at me! Together! My babies!

All three!

Reenacting the turkey picture!  The baby grew and the turkey shrunk.

It was a wonderful day and I am so thankful for my sweet family!

Landen said he was thankful for his cousins!

Thankful~

 I probably won't have time for blogging this week, so I'd thought I'd post my favorite Thanksgiving picture of all time.  Landen was 5 months old here.  He's about the same size as the turkey!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

3 years ago~

Well it was actually 3 years ago on Sunday, but I think about this day every year!  The day we moved from Indiana back to California--November 10th, 2010.

Waiting in the airport and getting the call that our house sold. We were relieved, but sad was well.  We loved that house!

 6 hours later and we were in Cali!  Land of palm trees, pollution, and traffic!

 Those were all the pictures from my very old phone and these are from my camera.

I can see the moving van reflection in the window.  Bye-bye wonderful big house and yard!

 We made it!

 And a few days later, we finally made it to the beach!

Pumpkin Carving~

It looks like Landen is cleaning out the guts of this pumpkin, but really he's is saying, "It's disgusting!!"  He wanted nothing to do with the guts.

 I ended up carving Landen's.  He chose Lightning Mcqueen.

 Once all the guts were out, he was fine to clean out the little bits.

 I had a bunch of different things for Landen to decorate with.  These stick on googly eyes were a hit!

 My favorite one turned out to be this Yoda kit I got on clearance last year.  I had chosen a beautiful blue/green pumpkin and it turned out to be the perfect color for Yoda.

 Zach painstakingly carved out what he says was a skull he saw on one of the Food Network carving competition shows.  We all thought it looked kind of like those little ghosts from Pac-man.

 The motley crew!

 Mikayla picked this pumpkin and it was like a buttery, creamy color.  I just loved it.  She started to just do a "skin" carving, but ended up carving the design into the top.  This pumpkin actually smelled just like a watermelon when she carved into it!

We all had so much fun carving this year.  A great memory for sure!