gratitude: the rest of november

I'm grateful for

cherished times with family.

we spent Thanksgiving in Dixie (my home sweet home)

with four of my six sibs and their families

and G&G hinton.

we rented a little condo in Green Valley.

 the kids slept all over the place: cousin's, grandparents condo

and the little ones with us.

my sister, Heidi hosted the big feast.

over 40 people at their house!

good thing the weather was in the high 60's!

it was divine.

half of us ate outside.

and the other half inside

love my cute new neice, kalkidan. She stole my heart.

actually they all did. 

who is this geezer guy, anyway?

sad story:

jeremy was upstairs wrestling with his nephews.

all of a sudden we heard a loud noise

then a bunch of gasps.

jeremy had thrown big 15 year old Sam

right into the wall.

luckily, he wasn't hurt...

but it made a 2'X3' hole in the wall!

mmmm hmm. cost us some bucks to have that baby repaired.

so did the locksmith the next day, when the keys

were locked into the van by one of the kids.
gotta love those incidentals.

dad was so tired after all that cookin'

he didn't even take his apron off for dinner!

the day after Thanksgiving,

we went to the sand dunes in Snow Canyon.

again, we had gorgeous weather.

anya and eli were in heaven.

so were the rest of the kiddos.

all kids love sand!

kason was so cute with anya.

i'm still finding this fine, red sand in our belongings, a week later. :)

that stuff gets into everything!

after the dunes, we went back to the condo and

let the kids release all their sand into the swimming pool. :)

they were cold afterword, so they jumped into the nice warm bath.

that night, we ALL packed into my parents little two-bedroom condo

and ate Grandpa's signature

Turkey-Noodle Soup over Mashed Potatoes.

Comfort food at it's finest.

sadie wanted to eat up little ruth right along with the dinner.

i love my family so much.

i am so extremely blessed

to have such incredible siblings and parents.

they are all an inspiration to me

in different ways.

we watched old home movies from the 60's and 70's

mom and dad had them put onto DVD's with music

for our christmas present this year.

watching old family movies

sure makes you think about how fast life flies by

and how we need to cherish every day

...and keep records!

the four-hour ride home was history in the making!

chalk it up as the FIRST TIME

in Eli's 2 and a half years of life

that he didn't cry most of the way!!

WOO HOOO!!!

so maybe the secret is to travel in the morning

when he's not tired??

so...that's the end of my November gratitude project.

this was kind of fun.

we have SO much to be thankful for.

so. much.

it's going to be a crazy month.

we're down to the busy part

of our basement finishing project.

building shelves, caulking, painting, laying flooring,

then moving everything downstairs.

fun stuff. but not so fun on top of christmas.

heaven help us.

oh, one more thing, then i'm all caught up!

yesterday was Jeremy's 41st birthday.

he's officially "in his forties."

to celebrate, we had a romantic candlelight dinner

with all the kids in the dining room.

doesn't get much better than that!

happy Birthday, sweetheart! i love you so much.

tomorrow night, we're going out on a real date. :)