Thanksgiving weekend festivities

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Here's our finished Thanksgiving tree for this year.

The top half . . .

and the lower half.
Apologies to Sam, I just couldn't ruin the color scheme with a blue leaf. I also love that Chuck and I unknowingly each made a 'BSU football' leaf (I did place them together once I noticed).

We also attempted to spruce up the walls with some Thanksgiving-inspired decor. Both of Will's turkey pictures embrace the 'less-is-more' approach, whereas Clyde clearly prefers the 'more-is-more' train of thought.

Thanksgiving itself was really nice and (almost alarmingly) low-key. As Chuck and I sat around all morning watching my Packers and the parade and reading the newspaper, I kept feeling like we should be more stressed out . . . but we weren't! We spent the afternoon doing food prep and our esteemed guests (my dad, Cody, Quinn, and Eden) arrived just as the turkey came out of the oven.

Chuck's turkey was sooo delicious! The little boys helped me compile the fruit salad, all the while singing loudly "Rainbow salad, rainbooooow salaaaaad, rainbow salad!" Unfortunately all of those tips about kids eating food that they help prepare was a LIE because Clyde still ate only the apples and Will still ate only the grapes. Nutters.

Our after-dinner entertainment consisted of a lengthy baby name debate, the 49ers on TV, SET and Monopoly Deal games, and an old VHS from Cody and Sam's storytelling days.

Will helpfully kept a close watch on the bowl of Reese's Pieces, on occasion having to go hands-on.

Before everyone left I had Chuck take a quick picture of me with my dad and brothers, and the next day I was sooo glad I did - just mentally photoshop Sammy in :). I feel incredibly blessed to have been sent to a family with such good men to influence me and protect me and teach me (both what and what not to do!) and care about me. I sure do love you Dad, Cody, Sam and Quinn!!

My dad never comes over empty-handed - this time he brought this incredibly large teddy bear for the boys. He has been christened "Mr. Bear" and he bridges the slight gap between the boys' mattresses and he is already a quite beloved addition to their room :).

The night after Thanksgiving we convened at my mama's house for some incredibly delicious homemade soup courtesy of Eden and a rousing game of Settlers dominated by Grandma Pam.
And then Chuck sweetly played photographer once again, this time in an effort to snap a shot of my mom with her two favorite, errr, youngest children.

Ohh, Quinn.

Luckily he cooperated for this one :).

Saturday night our ward Elder's Quorum had a special 'Prom' Activity so Chuck and I booked Grandma Pam to babysit and made plans to attend. Just for fun I pulled out one of my old high school dance dresses (I think this was from Homecoming junior year) and tried it on . . .

Thanks to the giving material and lack of zipper I was able to squeeze it over the bump (it was a much more arduous task to get it off, trust me). Super hot, right? It fit like a second skin... which is appropriate since my mom pointed out that the flesh tone looked a little too much like skin. Apparently she didn't have a problem with that aspect when we bought it ten years ago, probably because it was a smokin' deal on clearance at Dillard's :).

In the end I opted for this recent Savers find instead. A cute girl in our ward provided me with a few 'action shots' of me from the dance floor - yeah, I sing while I get my groove on. It was a very fun date night, though - Chuck might be my favorite prom date so far :).

And those are some of our memories from Thanksgiving 2011!