Thankful Tree...

And FINALLY I am posting about our:

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CABIN TRIP in Pinetop for Thanksgiving!

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We went up there with our family BFF's the Statens.

They have 5 kids ranging from 3-17, crazy people like us.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving they got to the cabin late at night after us... but don't worry we still stayed up until the wee hours of the morning making pies for the next days feast.

And you KNOW its Thanksgiving cuz the fellas set their alarms to put the TURKEYS in the oven -AND- they're startin potatoes below...

**P.S. Mashed potatoes is just so a "Man Job" at our house.

**P.S.S Yes, 2 turkeys, 1 regular bird and 1 Turducken,

of course the Turducken was Bruce's.

Wanna see why the kids, Christine and I are too busy to help

with the cooking at this moment? Its in the video below.

hint hint: thankful tree

I loved that we did an 8+ foot thankful tree. So beautiful to have on the wall all weekend symbolizing our gratitude. Everyone there had to make 10 different leaves saying what they were thankful for.

Everyone was pretty proud of our CREATION.

WINTER FORMAL

Ahhh, these ladies are so DARLING! Haley came to get Ashlin so they could go together to pick up their dates for WINTER FORMAL!

Then they went to the Cordners house for pictures with all the group and dinner before they hit the dance. Ashlin's date was a charming young man named Brandt.

(my personal favorite below, ha ha)

Aaaand the whole group...

**I cannot get enough of how classy and elegant and beautiful these girls look in their modest dresses. And TRUST me, it is not an easy task to find dresses this modest. It is not the norm, so to see all of them in the same room dressed as classy as this warms my heart.

After the dance they all came back to our house to watch "The Grinch" cartoon on the projector/big screen in our living room, with the fire in the fireplace, and hot chocolate and cookies waiting in the kitchen. So fun to have all these beautifully dressed boys and girls at our house.

(I had to take this picture to stop all the snuggling going on...

ha ha, just kidding, I just wanted a picture)

Sing Out again!

Tonight Lily's school had a Christmas Concert. She has been so excited about this for weeks. She is in love with her music teacher (you can see the adoration in her eyes below) and she loves to sing. I had to pick Emma up early from piano, Dallin had to postpone guitar lessons and Ashlin came straight from a nail appointment... but Bruce, me, all our kids, plus Aunt Chrissy went to see Lily sing with her Kindergarten class!

Look how she shines.

Those were the closest pictures I could get with my camera... then my sister-in-zion Alisa emailed me the below pictures she took of Lily from their front row seats. SO CUTE!

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(I don't know who the boy is on her left, but he's so cute, I want her to marry him)

I love Christmas Concerts.

(Especially when they really sing about the baby Jesus,

and especially when its my little Lily singing)

Sing Out!

For the last few months the youth in our Stake have had practices most sunday nights for a beautiful choral performance. They learned songs about the restoration of the Gospel.

Ashlin loved the music and would sing the songs she was learning all the time. Dallin thought the practices were boooring, but always went, and even put the songs on his ipod to listen to at night going to bed in his room.

The performance was the week of Thanksgiving at the Higley Performing Arts Center. My dad, both my sisters, Lex-a-lee and Namber-Namber came to watch. It was beautiful, and neat to see all those kids singing songs about gospel truths and that we are never alone when we stand with God.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is this little 6 yr old girl who lives across the street and plays with our little Lily sometimes. She is always riding her scooter out front with her little helmet on waving at us when we come and go.

And whenever she sees Bruce she gets excited and says to him, "Hi Mr. Lily!"

I think it is the cutest thing ever that she calls him Mr. Lily.

PS- HAPPY THANKSGIVING to me, because I got our family pictures back and EEEEK, I am SO happy with how they turned out. HOORAY ELENA!! Now to decide which ones to print....

11:00PM

DELIVERY!

Last weekend we were doing the typical:

SLEEP-OVER-SWITCH-EROO

with my sisters and our kiddos... and I had some of Carrie's kids, and

Chrissy had some of my kids and Carrie's kids, etc...

We are all late people... so no surprise that we were all still awake when our doorbell rang at 11:00pm... with the above YUMMY delivery. ha ha. (of course from the kids who were staying at Aunt Chrissy's house, no surprise there was a late night party car over there)

I think the rule is:

ANY TIME is a GOOD TIME

for Krispy Kreme donuts!

FAMILY PICTURES!!

I am sooo nervous waiting to get our Family Pictures back!! We haven't done a nice family picture since Sophie was born.

This year we brought our couch.

(which you just know Bruce was grumbling about...)

Thank you to Ashlin's friend CariAnn,

who came with her truck to help...

I am going to have to say that we had so much fun. Last year half the family was crying when we tried to take a family picture for a Christmas card. This year I vowed to have a different experience and keep spirits high. I told the kids we were like models at a photo shoot. During the individual shots, we were honestly laughing and kept saying

"Work it, Work it!"

Elena the Photographer was awesome.

thurstonphotographs.blogspot.com

The lighting and colors were beautiful...

now fingers crossed she makes me look skinnier!!!

The reward for good behavior...

going out to eat as soon as we finished.