Happy Thanksgiving! (And I'm only a month late!)

Hello! Now that I've fulfilled my procrastination obligations, I'm ready to blog!:-)

This Thanksgiving was phenomenal! Dad and Casey had to go all noble on us and save lives on Thursday, so we had Thanksgiving on Wednesday. Pete and Missi endured hours of "Are we there yet?" to join us for some good times and tasty goodness. Grandma and grandpa Murray traveled from afar to partake of the insanity. Even Casey joined us on Wednesday for some L-Tryptophan and carb overload.(of course, the day I forget my camera!). Thank goodness for blogging sister-in-laws! (Thanks for the extra pics, Miss.)

Here's a couple of my favorite people in the whole world! (Don't let him fool you, folks. He looks like the best grandpa ever, but really he delights in feeding children plastic grapes and laughing at them when they spit it across the room.) ;-)


Here we are trying to get dinner on the table. It was a feast to be remembered. And Missi brought the BEST cranberry chutney. Yum! And mom's tablescape was gorgeous. She gave Sandra Lee a run for her money!


The food was fab and the fam was fun. We wrapped it up early and headed home to sleep off the gluttony.

Thursday (Thanksgiving), I promised I would make rolls for Darrick's parents, so I planned on spending the day in the kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole crew showed up to hang out with us while I cooked.

Alex took Grandma and Grandma straight out to the garden to show them his bounty. And then he ate all his bounty (sweet peas), one by one.
"See Grandma? This one tastes good...and this one...and this one too!"

Here's Steve in his tragic teenage boredom flinging dinosaurs at Nate. At least they were both entertained. :-)

I love this picture! I wish we lived closer to Pete and Missi so we could take many more just like this.

Alex LOVED having Spencer around, but he'd try to drag him whenever Spencer didn't come on his own. I can't imagine what would happen to a puppy if we got one. lol

The inseparable princesses. Katie was so happy to have Claire around. It was like finally getting the little sister she's been asking for that Mommy said she was never going to get, because if Mommy has any more babies, our carbon footprint on the planet will be too big and it will kill more Polar Bears. And we can't have that, now can we? :-P

"Look, Spencer. This is my red shovel. You can play with it. Just kidding. Give it back."

Dallin, our family soccer champ, was very gracious while playing soccer with Ethan and Nate. Even though Ethan and Nathan started making up their own rules, Dallin went along with it anyway. He's a good sport!

Grandpa and Spencer playing ball. Uncle Pete gettin in on some of the soccer action.

Grandpa played "I chase, you scream" with the girls the whole time. It was VERY cute.
"Grannnnpa! Come and get these oranges! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Eeeeeeek!" Run. Scream. Repeat.

Friday was amazing. We haven't seen our cousins in something like 20 years! They were nice enough to make a trek out to Tucson to come see us. We went out to Dad's airfield to have lunch at the cafe and then let the kids have a helicopter field trip. The cutest thing was when the kids were all done eating, they wanted to get up and go outside. Dad and Jack went out there with what looked like 20 little ducklings following them around while the rest of us ate. (Yeah, I know. A picture would have been good, Kirsten.)

The whole crew: Angela's boys, Christian and Wyland. Jennifer's daughter, Sophia. And Pete's and my crew of monkeys.

Spencer was so cute. He and grandpa had fun exploring the helicopter.

I was going to photoshop Dad out of this picture because, well, that would just be funny! lol But I didn't...so... Rotating pilots.

Family picture time! Jack's family + 1. (I forgot her name! But Jennifer brought the German foreign exchange student that was staying with her. She was a sweetheart.) Good lookin' crew right there.

Our family. Nothing like a warm Thanksgiving holiday in shorts. :-)

Later that day, all of us regrouped at Dad's house for some visiting time. Angela brought her puppy and Katie couldn't get enough of that little chihuahua.

We sat outside and chatted for a bit. Then, Peter and Missi came back from visiting friends and we played Loaded Questions. It was a fun way to get reacquainted with everyone. Now I know that Susan worked at a dime store and the movie of Grandma's life would be played by Lucille Ball. ;-)

While saying our goodbyes, I had to take a few last-minute goofy pics. Here's me and my favorite Grampa playing kissy face.

Thanks to everyone who came to visit for Thanksgiving. It was an amazing holiday and we had a blast. We miss you all and hope we can see each other again soon.

The Blog Before the Thanksgiving Blog (Yes, that's my title.)

I'm seriously lacking in the time and creativity department at the moment, but I know some of you really wanted this picture, so here it is! My beautiful baby girls! We just need Sophia and Emily in there! ;-)