Thanksgiving

I pretty much love all holidays and a reason to celebrate with family and friends!  We spend Thanksgiving morning in the kitchen cooking and watching the Macy's Day parade.  LOVE IT!  This year Joshua helped Jay with the stuffing and the turkey.  The rest of the crew helped me make all the sides and desserts.  Jay's sister and kids were staying with us this year so there were lots of helpers in the kitchen.

On the menu: Turkey (of course), dressing, deviled eggs, cranberry jello salad, corn pudding, pumpkin pies, pecan pies and apple pie, green beans, rolls and homemade bread, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and a relish tray.  Those are all traditional favorites.  I tried a new recipe this year.  It was a baked apple brie.  Definitely a keeper.  They great thing about cooking all that food is then I don't have to cook the rest of the weekend!

My mom and dad and Jay's dad and Donna joined us for dinner.  After we eat it is our tradition to get the Christmas tree up (so that Freddy our elf can arrive).  The kids also then pick names for which sibling they are going to get a gift for for Christmas. Jutem, and my mom looked at all the Black Thursday adds with Anastasia and got her all excited about going shopping but then they both bailed.  So I ended up taking her.  It is not my thing since it all starts on Thursday now.  So Jutem stayed with the kids and Jay was our chauffeur.  It was Anastasia's first time going on Black Thursday/Friday.  We hit Wal-mart and Target and got a few good deals.  I would much rather shop on Amazon in my jammies.  : )

Savannah made the deviled eggs all by herself!

Cousins!

The girls didn't want grandma to leave!

Shopping with Anastasia

Playing games

Packing lunches

This was our second year being able to help pack lunches with Acts of Hope.  It is a ministry that passes out lunches to the homeless on Thanksgiving day.  We were really wanting to go as a family this year and help pass out the lunches but Jay has hurt his leg and a couple of the kids were fighting illnesses.  It is definitely something we will do next year.

A friend of mine coordinates this each year.  We just hosted it and several families came over to help.  The kids all make assembly lines, putting stickers on bags, making peanut butter sandwiches and filling the bags with fruit, water and a snack.  We were able to pack 150 lunches in just under two hours!  What a great ministry.

Jadon's Birthday

My baby is SIX today and as child number six he is the perfect "caboose" for our family.  He is such a blessing and brings so much laughter to our family.  He fully likes his place as the "baby" of the family but watch out if you call him that.  ; )  Jay was out of town for his birthday but came home the next day.  So for Jadon's last night of being five he got to sleep with me.

Here he is on his last night of being five:

Now here he is as a six year old.  LOL  He got pretty spoiled this year with all the gifts he got for his birthday.  But his siblings didn't care they wanted to get the gifts for him.  I love their hearts for one another.

It was a Paw Patrol, Super hero, Imaginix kind of morning.

We hung out at the park with cousins (they are in town for Thanksgiving) and friends.  Then that night we had hot cocoa and watched our first Christmas movie of the season.  It was a great day celebrating Jadon.

But wait....there's more....Daddy got back in town the next day and we took Jadon out to breakfast.  It is our tradition to take the birthday child out to the restaurant of their choice.  Jadon wanted to go "where they make face pancakes" so Denny's it was.

Happy Birthday Jadon!  We love you and are so blessed God chose you for our family!

First Lego League Competition

What an amazing day!!  Today was the day the boys have been working for the last 2 and a half months.  Competition time!  There were several of these competitions going on around the state.  At this location there were 18 teams.  The boys gave their presentation, met with judges, had 3 runs with their robot.  The only score we knew before the closing ceremonies was their robot runs.  They boys placed 4th!  We were pretty excited about that. 

 So fast forward to the end of a long day and it was time for awards.  We were getting pretty nervous because the boys were not getting called for any and we knew they had a good project. Well..... they ended up winning the WHOLE thing.....1st place GRAND CHAMPIONS!!!  WOW!  We knew they were good but that was a surprise!

Now they go on to state.  They will compete against all the winners of this first competition.  The boys have a really good project plan and I think they can win state! They are a good group of boys who have all worked really well together!

Here are some pictures from the day: