Our many blessings

For some reason I forgot how much I truly LOVE Thanksgiving. This year was extra special because we had my mom and dad and sisters Laura and Kelly here with us. While we waited for the Turkey to cook we made turkey pictures and watched a lot of football.

We enjoyed delicious appetizers. I think I made too many because when I was setting them out Trey and Kaden both thought it was the actual Thanksgiving meal!!

Since it was 70 degrees that day we enjoyed our appetizers outside and then took the kids to the park.

The Feast! As much as I love all the deliciousness of the holiday nothing compares to sharing it with family.

Actual proof that our meal was a success!

Not only did we all gain 10 lbs we also went swimming, saw the new Muppet movie, and attended Trey's first annual White Elephant party. My family has a W.E. party every year at Christmas and since we can't be there Trey really wanted to have one here. We had an amazing weekend and are so grateful for our many blessings!

Extreme Table Makeover

We have been in need of new chairs for our table for quiet some time. I found 4 on Craigslist that I really liked but knew we needed more than that so I was really excited when I found 3 more at Goodwill that matched. The only problem, they were all different shades of brown so, let the sanding begin!

I didn't think about how fun, and how long it was going to be to sand all of the little parts. Luckily, my good friend Lisa was nice enough to come help me sand them all.

I decided to paint them white and then antique them with a dark stain over the top. I, of course, had the time to start painting them the same day we got hit with 12 inches of snow. A little too cold to be out in the garage so the kitchen became my workshop! We got all the chairs done and placed them around the table but I wasn't really loving it. I did love the new chairs but thought the table was too light which got us started on project #2. We decided to sand the table down and stain it darker and here is how it turned out...

...TA-DA!! It was a lot of work but I think it turned out great. Just in time for our Thanksgiving visitors!

Family Night Fun

The other night it was time to get ready for bed so we told the boys to go get their pajamas on. They had a different idea. Running out of their room with ammo in hand, the pillow fight begins!!

Lucky for Avrey & me it was attack dad night!

Kaden's call of the wild before he attacks!

Avrey could only sit by and watch for so long. These kids held nothing back and fought hard till the very end...

...and earned their victory!

Halloween Weekend

This year Halloween turned into a weekend's worth of activities. We started out by carving pumpkins. Thank you to Grandpa Gillespie's garden!

Little Miss so excited about her pumpkin!

Trey felt pretty cool when we said he could carve the pumpkin all by himself!

The finished products proudly placed on the porch for viewing.

The three cutest kids I have ever seen ready for trick-or-treating!

Mobster Police

Batman

A Dragon...with a girly touch.

Our first stop was at the fire station. They always hand out fun halloween bags and treats. The kids were especially excited when a call came in and they got to see the fire truck in action.

We had such a great time trick-or-treating. So many houses go all-out even building full-on haunted houses in their front yards.

We also went to the ward trunk-or-treat. The kids scored a bunch of candy there since they went through the line about 9 times. Kaden loved the car dressed up like Lightning McQueen!

Our Home Depot also had a fun Monster Inc. night. The kids got to come and meet Mike & Sulley and have another round of trick-or-treating. Trey was really excited that he got a "dirty rat"!! We had such a great weekend and have enough candy to get us through 'till Easter!

Ready, Set, Jump!

When we got home from our little trip Fall had set in. Our massive tree in the front yard had dropped half of it's leaves and the kids could not wait to jump in!

The boys showing off some of their killer moves!

The kids had a such a great time even though we only had a short time to play in them before the snow came in.