Thanksgiving 2010!

Thanksgiving was such a highlight of our year as my parents & Carter came to visit us for a week. We absolutely LOVED having them here for the holiday. And they even brought some Idaho potatoes on the plane with them! That is a sure sign of love, I tell you! And our dinner was all the better, that's for sure! These pictures totally crack me up because I was trying to get at least a few pics to document our dinner and in the one above, my mom is trying to take a picture of Sam and he's totally pulling a face for her.

And then I take this next picture and get this face from Tyler. Sheesh! My children can't make a 'normal' face for a photo, I guess! And Tyler is to thank for the lovely gratitude chandelier gracing our table. :)

Garrett was the king of Thanksgiving this year...he was a busy guy in the kitchen that day. He even whipped up some Andouille cornbread dressing and it was a big hit! And as always, he made the cranberries...and oh boy, they were fabulous! It seems it's all about the cranberries anymore! Our dinner was fabulous and it was so fun to have family to share it with!

After Thanksgiving Day, we thought we would take my parents out into the woods and chop their heads off. Okay, okay, not really, but that's what the above photo would possibly lead you to believe. (back to the fact that these kids can't make a 'normal' face for a picture!!).

So the real story is that we took them to one of our most favorite places...the Christmas tree farm in Pearl River! It was so fun to have them here for our traditional tree hunt.

So, we set out amongst all those trees to find just the perfect one.

But Sam was much happier playing in all the leaves at the end of the field...

and playing...

and playing...

and playing! Pure joy, I tell ya!

We did finally convince him to come over and 'help' us get that tree down, though!

It was a definite group effort!

But with a thumbs up, we got that baby chopped down and ready to come home with us for the holiday season.

We brought her home and decorated her and enjoyed her...for all of 24 hours! Then, when we were playing a game at the table, our dear tree decided to just fall right to the floor with no warning, completely unprovoked by little ones. And of course, there was not a darn thing any of us could do to stop her from falling. So, luckily with a little of my dad's ingenuity, we got the tree back up and tied it to the window with fishing line...you never even knew it was there! And it ended up staying up the entire season until we took it down on New Year's Day. We were so glad he was there to help us out!!

And, as one last hoorah, we hit the Quarter for a little eating and shopping before their trip home.

A little stop at the French Market.

{Having a little snack at the market while the others do some shopping}

But as we headed toward the river to walk down the Riverwalk, the boys found the perfect place for burning off a little energy...they had to jump off of everything in sight. (and these pictures above are the perfect representation of how vastly different my boys are from each other...right down to the way they jump!)

And they had a little performance with Grandpa and his 'band', and enjoyed every minute of it!

And we had our last photo op by the river and headed back to the car and said our sad good byes the next day. Why is it always so darn sad? It definitely never gets any easier, that's for sure! But one thing is for sure, we feel like we are so incredibly blessed to have such wonderful families and have so many who are willing to make the trip to come and visit us. It sure makes for a lot of highlights for us, when sometimes it's so hard to live so far away. Thanks for coming, Mom, Dad, and Carter! We had so much fun with you here and made some great memories!

Because I Don't Want to Forget..

Back in November, Tyler came home from Primary with 3 yellow circles with smiley faces drawn on them. I didn't think much of it and he didn't say much about what they were. Fast forward a day to Monday.

Monday morning, to be exact.

Now, you have to understand that I have never been a morning person, although I do feel like I have gotten somewhat better as I've gotten older. But I think I'll always be overcoming it to some degree and mornings are just a rush, rush, rush at our house.

With Tyler in school now, it's definitely more important to get going and not waste any time, so this particular Monday morning was no exception. I usually do just the minimum things we have to do before I take Tyler to school and come home and finish up the rest. So, Tyler's teeth were brushed, bags were packed, shoes were on, we were set to head out the door. I told Tyler to go get his jacket while I brushed my teeth. After brushing my teeth, I rushed out of my bathroom, right past my bed and Tyler was standing by the couch just smiling.

"Did you notice, Mom?" he said.

I am thinking, 'what?! We have got to get going? What are you doing instead of getting your jacket? (you know, those kinds of thoughts!)' and I asked what he was talking about.

He said "look at your bed. I made it for you. I just wanted to do something nice for you." I thought he might possibly burst from excitement.

And my heart melted, and I could feel the sting of tears behind my eyes. I felt bad for rushing through this morning (like I often do through life) so much that I completely missed my sweet boy doing something to make his mama smile, and I was overcome with a little more love for my firstborn. He is always thinking of others, always...and I fear that I don't recognize this enough sometimes. As you can see from the picture above, though, it was a little easy to 'miss' the fact that my bed was made--he was only 5 after all! :)

And sure enough, there on the bed was a yellow smiley face, placed where a good deed had been done. And a good deed it was. My rush, rush, rush through the morning slowed down just a little and I knelt down to give my boy a big hug and the atmosphere in our house changed that day by a very simple little act by a very sweet little 5 year old (but almost 6!) little boy. Wow, the power these little ones possess!

It's things like this that I don't want to forget and I'm always so afraid that I'm going to. I have to remember to slow down sometimes and it's not an easy thing for me to do sometimes. It's things like this that also make it easy to look past things like this picture above...a lamp with no shade, due to the shade being broken into a thousand pieces (it was glass) due to said boy who made my bed! {sigh} Lovely, isn't it?!

Kids in the Quarter...one last hoorah!

Our last day with the Packer family was forecasted to be cloudy & rainy, so we opted to have it be a day with mostly indoor activities...BUT we started out with beignets in the French Quarter and a walk down Bourbon Street before the rain hit.

Kid+beignets=one good messy time!

We finished our beignets and headed toward the cathedral as we walked deeper into the Quarter. Sam was very insistent that I take his picture by this fountain. So I obliged.

And we walked right on to the set of a filming of 'The Young & the Restless'. So if you thought you saw someone familiar in the background while you were watching, it was us! Since I am sure that all of you are soap opera watchers and watch that show! :)

And here we have Bourbon Street...our guests were not impressed by the dirty stinky street. :) But they can say they've seen it at least! And for some reason, our children wanted to stop and have their picture taken on every doorstep.

And, just as the rain started to pour, we hopped on the streetcar to take us down to Canal Street to hit up the Insectarium for the remainder of the day. It worked out perfectly! {other than my lack of pictures of it!} We then headed home for the evening while they packed their bags and got ready to fly back to Idaho the next day. We begrudgingly took them to the airport, said our good byes, cried lots of tears (ok, crying as I type this now...ugh!), and remembered how grateful we are that they came to see us! We seriously loved, loved, loved having them come here! My kids constantly talk about it and want them to come back. We treasure these memories...a definite highlight of our 2010!

Global Wildlife Center

Another day, another fun time with our visitors. (believe it or not, I am almost done blogging about their visit...who cares if it's 4 months late!) When I confirmed the good news that Marilee's family was coming to visit me, I knew that we had to hit up Global Wildlife Center while they were here. It was something we hadn't done yet since we've lived here but have heard rave reviews about it. And if you know what an animal lover Gracie is, you would know this is right up her alley. So, off we went!

We enjoyed our beautiful drive up to Folsom and loaded up the wagon for a safari tour. And it was crazy! There were animals of every kind out there and we had cups full of food to feed them, so it was definitely chaotic but the kids were loving it!

I couldn't even begin to name them all... :)

Now they warned us to not let the zebras eat out of the cups because they are mean and will bite you or take your cup right away from you...I never would have guessed!

Appetizing, huh?

And yes, the closer they got, we realized just how aggressive those zebras could be. It was definitely a better idea to throw the food on the ground for them to eat!

I'm not sure if I've seen Gracie girl ever so fulfilled and happy in her life. :) A true animal lover!

Such a fun adventure--so glad we had a good excuse to try something new! (And yes, that would be my son with his fly wide open! Yep, he's all mine!)