Thanksgiving 2009

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Jaysen's family out in Jerome. We had such a good time hanging out with everyone that was there.

This was the "Girls Only" table. Mackenzee was so excited that she was big enough to sit with the big girls. If you look closely in the back left hand corner of the table you will see a hooded figure....
That's just Jordan trying to hide herself from my flashing camera lense. :0)

Mackenzee and I taught Jeremy the fine art of eating olives off your fingertips. He thought it was wicked awesome and I'm pretty sure he ate an entire jar of olives all by himself.

The men folk got serious over a game of Sequence. I will tell you now that Jaysen and I are a bit addicted to that game. If you haven't played it before....you need to get cracking! :0)

Thanks so much Rita for a wonderful dinner. I'm still thinking about your yummy pomegranite sauce you used on the Turkey. So yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time to play catch up

Has it been crazy for everyone else? Holy cow!

I figured I needed to hurry and catch everyone up on what has been going on this last week.

We started out on Tuesday night with Landon's piano recital. My mom decided to forego the Christmas recital this year and hold it in November instead. The theme was American folk songs relating to patriotism as this year was an election year. So, songs like 'God Bless America' and 'Yankee Doodle' were played. Landon played Yankee Doodle Boy, County Fair, and then You Are My Sunshine with me as a duet. He worked so hard on all of his songs and did such a good job! You Are My Sunshine is one of the lullaby's I sang to both my kids when they were babies. Mackenzee still requests it. So, it was really nice to be able to play that one with Landon this year. County Fair was played by four kids at once, on three pianos. They each have their own part and so the song ends up having the main melody with three different harmonies playing along with it. They did SO good with their counting and were able to stay together through most of the song. Landon enjoyed having his cousin Taryn to play next to as well. At the end of the recital my mom played a medley of different patriotic songs. It was amazing. I haven't heard my mom play like that in years and I know it's hard for her to do. She did beautifully and everyone around me was in awe. {I'm not kidding mom!} It was good to have her students hear it too because not all of them knew she could play like that. :0)

Wednesday night my siblings showed up for the Thanksgiving weekend. My kids were DYING from impatience. We just love having family come and visit and end up practically living over at my mom's house when they are here. We don't get to see them nearly as often as we'd like and I know the kids miss their cousins immensely. They don't get to chat on the phone or swap emails with each other like us adults do. :0)

My whole family {minus a few kids who were with their mom this year} was able to be here for the holiday this year. So, Landon got to hang with the boys and Kenzee got to run around with the little girls. She was so excited when her "nana nana" got here. That is her nickname for her cousin, Savanna, whom she adores. I'm pretty sure she would shrivel and die without her. :0)

Of course, Thursday was Thanksgiving and we went to my Grandma Casperson's house for the day. She roasted an amazing turkey. There was so much food there, it was insane! Everyone filled their tummies, and then filled their tummies some more. Of course, my neices and nephews filled their tummies mostly with my mom's layered jello salad. They can never get enough of that one. :0)

Thanksgiving night is the official lighting ceremony for my Grandpa Casperson's outdoor Christmas display. He has been working for months on it and the kids were SO excited for him to turn them on. Mackenzee couldn't wait, so I took her and her cousin, Alina, out for a walk to check out the displays before it got dark.

When the clock finally struck 5:00 pm it was time! Everyone went out to see the lights on and to see what additions my Grandpa had made this year. He has something new every year and has added so many lights over the years that he actually decorates the entire street. It is awesome. The kids were amazed at the display and oohed and aahed at all the lights. The boys decided to play "statues" afterwards, which involved them posing behind the displays on the front lawn when the cars drove past. Even Shelby got in on the fun and had the boys walk up and down the street singing Christmas carols.

On Friday night my sisters and I went to go and see the movie, Twilight. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that I enjoyed the company, but the movie was kind of lame. It definitely did not do the book any justice. Afterwards, Jaysen, my brother, brother-in-law and my sisters brother-in-law {did that make sense?} went to go and watch a movie of their own. Apparently they didn't want to be left out. :0) This only meant that the kids felt they were being left out of the movie loop. So they were promised a movie night the next day at my mom's house too.

Saturday afternoon, though, we had a birthday party for my neice, Greta, and my nephew, Riley. Greta turned five this last week and Riley turns four on Wednesday. I can't believe they are getting so big. It's crazy!

When we were done, my sister Crystal had to get home. After saying our goodbyes and giving hugs, the rest of us girls went to get the boys their movie and a promise of movie candy was made. Each kid was promised they would get their own movie-sized candy. Holy cow...there was a lot of candy being passed around. The girls piled all of their onto a blanket like they were having their own little candy picnic. Of course, due to the rush from the sugar intake my little Mackenzee and her cousin Alina went psycho! They were running around screaming and giggling. It was crazy! But, they had so much fun together.

Saturday night was our night to say goodbye as everyone was heading home the next day. Though it was a whirlwind of a weekend, we enjoyed seeing everyone. With the Christmas holidays now in full swing, I don't foresee things slowing down any time soon. It's time to break out the Christmas music and to wear our pretty Christmas dresses. :0) Landon is already playing Christmas carols on the piano and we are putting up the tree tonight. Tis the season!

Turkey Time!

Yes, Thanksgiving is over....but yesterday we made our turkey cookies anyway! Unfortunately,

the orange frosting tube got lost before we started making them and so we had to improvise a little bit with the beak. Savanna is super creative for a 6 year old though...and came up with our awesome candy corn beaks.

The kids had fun getting "creative" with their sugar cookie creations, and soon turkeys turned into candy concoctions. The older kids didn't mind eating them though!

Honestly, without the orange frosting they look a little more like wierd faces...people who are having a really bad hair day and in desperate need of a nose job. ;0) Oh well.

Thankful for.....

FAMILY! The best part about the holidays is the time we get to spend with our families. This year we spent Thanksgiving with Jaysen's family out in Jerome. We were lucky enough this year to have Jaysen's Grandma Leppert here as well. We all ate A LOT of yummy food and were bursting at the seams by the time we were all done, but it all tasted so yummy!

Grandma Leppert wanted to make sure that we brought our camera with us (like I would forget!) so that Jaysen could take family pictures of each of her grandkids' families for her family record. Though there was much groaning involved, we were able to accomodate her wishes. ;0)

Stacy, Jordan, Jeff

Haylee, Gage, Breanna

Kaden, Steve, Beckie, Meghan

Whitney, Jesse

And you know us!

Jaysen, Kenzee, and myself

Landon was unfortunately gone this weekend.

So, yes.....I am thankful for family! To be a Burnham! For Jaysen..who is a wonderful husband, for Kenzee who makes me laugh, and for Landon who always has a hug when you need one.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving full of food and family!

I'm Thankful for.....

So, it's the Family Home Evening just before Thanksgiving. What do you do? You talk about what you are thankful for. Having a 2 year old and trying to get her to participate makes FHE a little more difficult in the preparation dept. for me, but I much prefer her being a part of it, than to have her squirming away to play something else. So, go team!

Anyway...this year, with Landon being practically 8 I really wanted to help him understand what it meant to be thankful. So, as soon as he got off the bus I ran them to the dollar store with instructions to find things that represented the things they were thankful for. Check out what my kids got.....

My dear son Landon.....

He is thankful for skateboarding, riding bikes, and snowboarding (though he doesn't snowboard). He is also thankful for Superheroes, school, money, food, books, and sports. The M&M's represent Mom & Mackenzee. I thought that was cute. The things we couldn't find representations for we just wrote amongst the other items. We got family, friends, Primary, Our Country, Music, Prophet, Jesus, toys, house, art, tv, and Toby.

I think he did pretty good.

And not that she really understood the whole idea....these are the things Mackenzee picked, and which were honestly about accurate for what a 2 year old little girl would be thankful for! ;0)

Stickers, flowers, pink, food, money, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Choo Choos, ice cream, suckers, princesses, Toby, dancing, ba-ba's, and pretties (for her hair).

We did ask her who she loved and so we wrote down Mommie, Dada, Landon, and Kenzee. Yes, she said she loved herself about three times. ;0) And Landon wanted to make sure we wrote Jesus on hers to so that she would know "he existed".

So, after we did all of this, I did try to explain to Landon about being grateful for those things he was thankful for. That there were those among us who didn't have the things we did. Like our home, food, clothes. When you are young, you just assume that everyone has the same stuff. Like it's just a given. Everyone gets a house with their own room full of toys, right? Once I explained that it was not so, he seemed a little shocked. But, I am hoping with this realization he will be a bit more grateful for what he has and what he gets.

So, not to jump the gun here, as I know we are still two days away from the big day....but....

I am TRULY thankful to all of you! My friends and family. You make my world a little bit brighter. And thank you for letting me tell you time and time again that my kids are cuter than yours. I'm sure by now, you've seen that I was only being honest. But still...thank you! ;0)

Happy Thanksgiving!