Thanksgiving 2019

Boy - 2019's Thanksgiving was certainly one for the books!  It didn't go AT ALL as planned, but it ended up being pretty cool.

We were totally planning on going to Idaho for the holiday.  David didn't have any time off, so our plan was to drive up early in the morning on Thanksgiving, spend the whole day there, and drive home later in the evening. Past experience had shown that the joy of the holidays and the excitement involved made it not a big deal to spend six hours in the car.

However, a day or two before Thanksgiving, we looked out the window, and saw this. It was snowing. A lot. And it continued to snow. A lot. We kept watching weather and road reports, but by Wednesday night, David and I had to make the tough decision to stay home.  It just wasn't smart to try to make that kind of a drive TWICE in one day.

Once the decision was made, we had to pivot in a major way.  My parents were on a mission and my siblings all had other plans, so we were on our own.  I woke up very early and drove to the grocery store (just a few blocks away, and I slipped and slid all over the place - staying home was a smart decision). I bought a turkey breast (no time to thaw a huge bird) and all the trimmings.

Then I went home and got. to. work. I worked in the kitchen all day.  Luckily, I had two special helpers with me.  Together, we created a beautiful meat and cheese tray that the family enjoyed throughout the day. 

I obviously had to alter the traditional menu slightly.  We had Rhodes rolls instead of homemade and frozen pies, etc. but for the most part, we were able to have everything pretty close to the way we're used to it. 

I made the boys take their shirts off to help me with the pomegranate seeds.  Those things stain!  But just look at how much fun we had! 

Alison is a vegetarian, so I made her a special turkey.  Hee hee!

Here's a picture of our cozy little spur-of-the-moment Thanksgiving feast.

Later in the evening, once everything was cleaned up, we had a turkey decorating party.

This has become a tradition in our family - not necessarily on Thanksgiving, but sometime around it.  We create turkeys out of oranges and candy.

Bronson

Alison

Nicole

Joshua

Quinton

Even though it was nothing like expected, I think 2019 Thanksgiving turned out to be a lot of fun.

November Extras

 Here's a few more thoughts about our days in November:

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I won tickets from a radio station to a Royals soccer game, so I took the boys. 

So.Much.Fun.

The Royals are the minor league team for the S.L. Real team.  They are good!  This was the semi-finals for their league.  

They won the game.  A few days later, they won the title too!  Go Royals!

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Just a really pretty November sunset.  Knowing that cameras never do the real thing justice, try to imagine how spectacualr this was!

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David and I took a nice long walk together one autumn morning.  We took a few pictures.

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I dragged my daughters with me for a Black Friday vendor event.  They were the best sports about it.  Selling lipstick at a vendor event is not their idea of a fun weekend. But I paid them a couple bucks, so they came along.

It wasn't the best event.  I didn't sell much and we were in some sort of freezing garage-like structure. But we had lots of fun together.  And we were close to my brother Scott's house so he came and took the girls away for a couple hours.  They had fun with their uncle Scott.  

And that's all for now.

Bronson's Eighth (er...Ninth) Birthday Party

With five kids in the family, David and I decided early on that we didn't want to throw a million birthday parties every year.  So we set a birthday party schedule.  Our kids can have "friend parties" on the year that they are in kindergarten, when they turn eight, twelve, and sixteen (if they even want to by then). All the other years are family celebrations. At least that was our plan.  However, plans seem to always get messed up around here.  Between all the crazy things going on in our lives, I MISSED Bronson's eighth birthday party!  Just totally spaced it!  By the time I realized it, we were MONTHS late and it felt strange to invite people over to a birthday party months after the birthday.  

Bronson was an INCREDIBLE sport about the whole thing and patiently waited to have a friend party for his ninth birthday instead.  It's a good thing I have such a chill child for my fourth.  I have a feeling he's going to have to be patient with me a lot!

I think Bronson really loved his party.  It was worth the wait for him. We had about six or eight kids here.

His friends really spoiled him. I thought it was cute that one of his friends bought him a lunchbox. She had noticed that Bronson always brought his lunch in a plastic bag and she was worried about him.  She didn't know that I banned Bronson from using lunchboxes after consistently finding slimy or moldy food in them.  

What a cute bunch of kids!  

We ordered pizza from Little Ceasar's for them. Boy - it was so LOUD in here.  I thought our house was noisy all the time, but this was pretty spectacularly loud.

One of his cute friends called me in advance and said that he wanted to make a home made pinata for Bronson's party.  How sweet is that!?!? So I was prepared with pinata candy to fill it with. Of note is that this cute boy's mom used to live a few doors down from me when we were children, and now here we are 30+ years later living in Layton and our kids are friends!

Here is a picture of the pinata madness. I kid you not when I say that we found candy in our back yard for a year!

We loaded all the kiddos into the car (along with our adorable Nicole, who came along to help supervise) and went to Fiiz. We bought everyone a fun drink and a "sour shot" which is just a small amount of straight sour liquid. For privacy reasons, I won't post the pictures we took of everyone as they drank their sour liquid, but it was a ton of laughs!  Most of the kids were pretty tough.

But not Quinton!  He about died!  He said it wasn't sour it was just disgusting.

I don't know if I believe him.  That looks like a sour face to me!

The birthday boy took it like a champ!

He didn't even flinch. But I think he's crying on the inside...

Then we ended the party by going to the Kaysville theater and watching "Dora The Explorer." Thanks for showing us your popcorn, Quin!

It was quite a fun night for our adorable little Bronson!

Rhapsody Review

Nicole's show choir, Rhapsody In Blue, put on their annual show in November.  They called it the Rhapsody Review.  It was very cute!  The entire show consisted of three long medleys, each lasting 10 to 15 minutes. Let me apologize for the quality of photos.  My phone's camera just didn't do very well in the dark theater with lots of movement.

The first number they performed was a medley from The Lion King. Nicky is in the top row.

You might notice that my shots look like they are from different angles.  That's because they performed for several nights (and one matinee) in a row and I went to all of them.

I didn't bring the whole gang each time. I broke it up a bit. That way we had at least someone at each performance.

The second medley was from Little Shop of Horrors.

I'm not as familiar with this show as I am with Lion King, but they sure did a great job!

And this is the medley that Nic's big solo was in.  She seriously stole the whole show.

The third medley was from White Christmas.  

Those were some pretty darling numbers!

I mean, does it get any better than "Sisters?"

After the show(s) we all smothered her with affection in the hallway.

Here is the fan club from one show. (Bronson and Quinton) 

And another night when we brought Charly and Josh with us.

And there's Ali, so she came that night as well.  I think Bron went with me to the matinee.

It was a really fun show to watch.  Even the little kids liked it because of the costumes, lighting, dancing, and music they were familiar with. Usually we have to drag Quinton to concerts.  And I'm not just being a mom when I say that Nicole was the BEST!!! She was amazing!  

Will I Ever Be Healthy?!?

I thought we had my thyroid under control, but nope. We didn't.  At my annual check-up,  my bloodwork showed that Graves Disease had returned.  I also had to go get a scan of my thyroid.  It was a pretty cool, if slightly unnerving process.  The scan found a couple of nodules that may have been cancerous, so I had to get a biopsy.  

Getting a biopsy was the craziest thing!  They laid me out on a table and stuck a huge needle in my neck to suck out some tissue.  They numbed the site, but I could feel the needle in my EAR and my COLLARBONE!  Crazy! I do not recommend it. 

I had some interesting bruising for a week or two.  Looked like a hickey.  Ha ha!  The biopsy came back saying that I didn't have cancer.  So there wasn't really a rush, but I still needed to remove my thyroid.  We decided to do the surgery after the new year when we had our Flex Spending money again.