Christmas Fun!

The other night we decided to make graham cracker nativities.  I saw these nativities on Pintrest and thought they looked cute!  Ours didn't turn out as perfect as the ones I saw online, but we had a great time making them together!  Since we are done with all our shopping, we have been able to spend more time on celebrating the season together!

Pete the Cat

One of our family favorites is Pete the Cat.  It is so catchy and teaches the kids to be okay with whatever happens.  Every time we read the story together, Lily and Logan will answer all the questions in the story.  When it says, "Did Pete Cry?"  Logan immediately responds with, "No! No! No!"  Lily has these stories memorized and so the other day while I was making dinner Lily read the story to Logan.  I could hear them and had to sneak in for a few pictures!  These two are the best of friends ~ most of the time!

Decorating the Tree

We were able to decorate our Christmas tree as a family!  Lily is getting really into where ornaments should go and really helping with the decorating!  Logan likes to help too!  We had a great time decorating and listening to Christmas music!  We are getting very excited for Christmas!  We are also enjoying our time together remembering our Savior Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas.  What a great time of year!

It only took me four years to finish our tree skirt!  I think it turned out super cute! 

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving weekend!  We were able to have some of TJ's family come and spend time with us.  We missed Allie and her family and Uncle Collin, who is on a mission.  Next time we hope to have everyone!  It was a weekend full of lots of food, games, and good times!  The kids were so excited to wake up Wednesday morning to a house full of family!  They both took a special liking to Grandpa, especially Logan!  He followed Grandpa around! 

 Wednesday we spent the morning hanging out at the house waiting for TJ to get home.  He had to go into the office for a few conference calls.  Once he got home, we went to lunch and did a little shopping.  I introduced the girls to the world of Charming Charlies ~ only the best accessory store ever!  That night we played games and did some prep work for Thanksgiving dinner. - I have to say that many hands makes things go SO VERY FAST!!!  Wednesday night Marci and Jeff showed up with their new little guy!  We were so excited to finally meet him! 

Thursday was a busy one!  We had a great time playing games, cooking and eating yummy food, planning our Black Thursday/Friday shopping, and enjoying lots of laughs!  We were able to have our friends the Torres family spend Thanksgiving with us as well!  They have been here in the States for three years and we have celebrated Thanksgiving with them for three years!  They are part of the family!

 Logan got in on the action!

 Lily putting on a show while we cooked!  As soon as music is on, Lily starts to dance!

 The star of our feast! 

 Playing scum while dinner was cooking

 Grandpa's buddy!

 Lily taking care of her cousin Thomas!  She is getting to be so good with little ones!

 Logan squeezed into Rebecca's Bumbo seat!  I am impressed he fit!

 The planning is in full swing! 

 Baby Rebecca

Sporting our little girls headbands!  We look good!  With Aleida

 Logan showing Grandma what he wants!

 TJ and Jorge

 MORE TOYS!!!

Logan also enjoyed Uncle Jeff.  They are reading his favorite book, Meet the Cars, from the movie Cars.  It was a sad day when we took the book back to the Library.  I had to hid it so he didn't cry too much!  While we had it, he carried it around EVERYWHERE!

 Logan found Cassie's boots and thought he would put them on!  I was really surprised he stood up by himself!  The boots are bigger than his little legs! 

  Then came BLACK THURSDAY/FRIDAY shopping!  This was amazing!  Grandma and grandpa stayed home with the kids and all the rest of us went out to brave the crowds!  It was amazing!  There were 7 of us splitting up and conquering the stores!  We started at Walmart and were out of there in 30 minutes after the sale started!  We then went to Target, Baby's R Us, and then it was time for the Mall and the Disney Store!  We waited outside the mall for 20 minutes before they opened the doors.  Once they opened the doors, we ran with everyone else through the food court to the Disney store.  Most of the other people were going to the Windows store and the Apple store or other higher end stores!  This meant we were first in line for Disney!  The Disney store does an opening ceremony in which they turn a huge key and turn the magic on.  I got to be the lucky one to open the store and then they gave me a keepsake key to remember my experience!  It was pretty sweet!  Once we were done with the Disney store, we stopped off for a pretzel to refuel before we hit Old Navy - we left because the line was crazy and went back later that day - and then ended our excursion at Kohl's.  We were able to score big time!  It was fun to have so many fun people to spend the time with! 

Waiting outside the Mall

 Turning the key to the Disney store!

Friday morning we went to Sam's 3 for breakfast!  Lily was lucky enough to get a balloon butterfly while we were there!  Logan popped his two balloons before breakfast was even over!  We spent the rest of Friday resting, finishing a little shopping and playing games!

 

Saturday morning we had omelets and then got ready to go bowling. 

 Lily was excited to pull the wishbone with Cassie!  She was the lucky one and got her wish!  She wished that everyone would have a fun time at her house!  What a sweet little girl!

 Logan loved cheering for all the bowlers! 

 Thomas decided that sleeping through the game was best!  Such a cutie!

 Logan wanted to bowl and bowl and bowl!  He is finally getting to the age where he can!

 Lily took a break from bowling to do a little Gangnam style dancing when the song came on!

 We also played a few games before we headed to Cafe Rio to get lunch!  Then we spent the rest of the time playing games!

Sunday morning everyone left after breakfast.  We were sad to see them leave.  We had such a great time with everyone!  Lily and Logan loved the books that Grandpa brought for them!  We all enjoyed lots of laughs and quality time!  We look forward to repeating this great weekend! 

Thanks for coming to Colorado and making our Thanksgiving AMAZING!  We cant wait to have more visitors!