Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day up here in Alaska. No snow and the sun shone through the clouds making it a beautiful day. We had appetizers at 2:00 and Caden was the first to put an olive on all 5 fingers. He had to wrestle Grandpa for those. Not sure who loves olives more...Caden or Grandpa! Ed's sister Caryn came with her family and his parents Ed & Barbara were here too. After everyone arrived, I handed each a leaf with their name on it. On the back I asked everyone to write what they were thankful for this Thanksgiving. Before grace, we all read the back of our card (I cried of course) and then hung our leaf on a branch in the middle of the table. It was very touching and very nice. After that, we ate and ate and ate (hay...that is what it is all about right...good food and family?). We watched "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation" and laughed and laughed. It was a very nice day. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Toot Toot!

Yesterday I heard lots of noise coming from the dining room and front entry way. I was in the kitchen and yelled, "what is going on?". Caden replied, "MOM! I am making a train!" I wandered over that way to find that, in fact, he had made a train out of our dining room chairs. There they were, all in a row. He even had a few friends join the ride. Elmo and the Big Dog are his latest pals he sleeps with and obviously he wanted some company for this big trip!

Day in the Life

Was hoping to have an uneventful weekend, but no! Is it EVER uneventful? I am beginning to wonder. To start us off, Caden came down from nap with a rather interesting design in the front of his hair. He found scissors (or something) just in time for holiday pictures. Aunt Erin....we need you!

Colton got some new goldfish to replace the ones that Caden, umm, "set free" down the sink last weekend. Yeah...I could blog about that incident all by itself.

Finally, I made a double batch of pumpkin bread to freeze for holiday gift giving. I had soo much batter that it came up over the top of the mixer in my kitchenaid. I was frantically trying to figure out what to do when Colton walked into the kitchen to assess the situation. He just gave me a look like, "what are you doing Mom?" and walked off. Thanks for the help! I figured it out and even split the batter and added cranberries to one half and chocolate chips to the other. Smart or what?

Like I said...never a dull moment around here. Caden himself keeps us all hopping!

Oompa Loompa

Halloween at my workplace is all about the costumes! This year my office decided to be Oompa Loompas from the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". It was great fun pulling the costumes together and we really didn't get the final touches done until the day before! We even practiced a short "skit" for the event (dance moves and all). Needless to say, we won the "Best Work Unit Theme" category. Too fun!