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.

Christmas lights

If any of you are looking for a great place to take your kids to see Christmas lights....look no further! My grandpa takes this stuff SERIOUSLY! Every year it gets bigger and better. And though the pictures are great....up close is quite the experience. So, get going! 2507 Twin View Lane. Take Addison heading west (Like you are going to Filer)until the 2500 mile and take a left. Go down another 2 1/2 miles or so until you get to Twin View Lane (it's on your left). But trust me...once you go about a mile....you'll see the lights. I promise. You won't be able to miss it. ;0)
Merry Christmas!

Grandmas!!!

Mackenzee adores her grandma. No matter what Grandpa Burnham says! ;0) She loves going out to Jerome to visit.

Grandma Leppert came to visit us when Mackenzee was born. But since then, we haven't had the opportunity to see her as she lives in Utah and doesn't come up to visit very often. So, it was great to hear that she was going to be here for Thanksgiving this year! Mackenzee was able to "officially" meet her great grandma and she didn't hesitate to ask her for a hug right off the bat. And of course, her great grandma didn't mind at all. In fact, she ate it up. ;0) I couldn't resist taking a picture like this one. I mean...who spoils you with more love and attention than a grandma? And there were two there today just for Mackenzee!

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!

Homeless

So, I'm a mean mom. Today was mom day in the car, which means no DVDs just my music. Isn't that horrible? And to make matters worse....it was Christmas music! Just trying to get into the spirit of the season here! Anyway...we're in the car, the kids are laughing LOUDLY because Landon is tickling his sister. So, I crank up the volume to level 23 so that I can hear the words to the songs. And then...this happened. The song "Homeless" from Michael McLeans the Forgotten Carols starts to play. I'm singing along and then suddenly I realize the car is silent. The kids are listening. Mackenzee is humming along. Honestly, how do you describe it? Warm...fuzzy....good stuff. It's Christmastime everyone!
By the way...this was the only video I could find for this song. Fast forward to the last couple of minutes of this families Christmas movie to listen to the song if you haven't heard it. It truly is a beautiful song.

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!

New Blog!

I know...I know...another one? But I was thinking....I originally set up this blog to be about my kids and family stuff....but I feel I've been posting more random stuff than family stuff....So, I thought

Why not make a blog full of the random stuff?

Why not? It doesn't cost anything extra. I can write down the musings of my brain and not have it interfere or take attention away from my adorable children? So, check it out! And don't forget to stop by my recipe blog!

www.random-ashlee.blogspot.com

www.burnham-baking.blogspot.com

Enjoy!