All things Thanksgiving

The food! turkey, stuffing mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli salad, cherry jell-o salad, sweet potatoes and rolls....then 6 pies for dessert! I know I went a little crazy on the pies...but they were all so good I couldn't not make one! So I made them all...French Silk, Pumpkin, Pumpkin Walnut, Cherry Cream Cheese, Banana Cream, Kailee's Razzleberry.

Almost ready to eat...one last picture!

So patient to take a picture when all they wanted to do was eat!!

Austin opening the sparkling cider!

Tyson opening the other bottle of sparkling cider.

The turkey cutting the turkey!

The table

Another table shot...I was impressed with myself and the table decor! I made the pumpkins, place cards, confetti, pillow boxes {filled with Andes Mints}, placemats and the scalloped circle placemat in the center all out of coordinating patterned paper!

Our Thanksgiving was soooo relaxing and fun! All the kids helped in the kitchen...there was no schedule to keep, we watched Christmas movies and listened to Christmas music all day! It was fabulous! Shawn took the 3 older kids to the annual Katy 1st Ward Turkey Bowl...they had fun...Shawn was quite pleased when he came home and said one of the young men said he was the MVP!! {a little sore but pleased!}

This is Kyler {an Indian} with his teacher Ms. Rigling {the turkey}. Is she not awesome?! She is so fun when it comes to dressing up!!! This was the highlight of Kyler's day...and he even got to come home early...but he loved the turkey the best!! ;)

An Indian eating his thanksgiving feast!

Kyler made this Indian costume at school...he has a very cool pouch around his neck that holds his bow and arrow. He also made a pilgrim costume but chose this one to wear for the feast!

Snow?...in Katy!!

Here in Katy every November they have the annual 'Katy Tree Lighting'. It's our own little NYC Rockefeller Center moment. The last 2 years Kailee has sung with the Katy Jr. High Choir for the tree lighting. It is a new fun tradition for us to go each year! The kids love it...why?...not for the beautiful christmas music, not even for the candy and treats that are handed out, but for the SNOW. That's right, SNOW. The city and the fire department always crush up that ice and make 2 huge mounds of snow for all the kids to play in! This year it was a little warmer than last...as you can see Ty was in shorts. I think they would have preferred some gloves so they could've stayed there all night but even without them they had a great time! They threw snowballs and jumped around in there until we drug them away to go watch Kailee sing. For the last song the choir sang "Here Comes Santa Clause" and then santa did come...in great style...his sleigh was a lit up and on top of one of the fire trucks! We watched as Santa lit the city tree and then the kids were begging to get back to the snow! It was fun! Makes me want to get my tree out! I will wait till next Friday though!! I will, I will!

Dewberry Farm

Oh my goodness! We had such a GREAT time on Saturday! We went to Dewberry Farm. It's about 15 minutes out from Katy. They have a corn maze, pumpkin patch, hayrides, animals and all sorts of fun stuff! It was a blast! We went with some friends of ours and their kids. {thanks Turners and Flacks!!}

We started the day on this slide. It's made out of pvc pipes and rolls ya down the slide! It was one of the funnest things we did! Even Shawn and I went down! The best part was watching Mike go down and come flying off the bottom when he tried to stand up and surf his way off...he went down...it was hilarious!! {we love ya Mike...it's all good!}These are the pedal carts. The kids loved these...they were cruisin'! Tyson had a hard time working the big ones...he had to be helped out of the tires alot..so eventually he went and did the smaller ones and loved going super fast on those! Kyler started on the small ones and then came over to the big carts and he picked up in no time at all! He zoomed around that track passin' kids up and keeping up with Kailee and Austin! Then we went on the Corn Train. This was pretty fun! We all sat in an "ear of corn". Shawn and I were going to share one but after seeing the room inside we decided to each have our own! We sat towards the back and the kids sat up front. Kyler and I went on that one a couple of times!

This was a huge piece of pipe that was just laying around so that you can get inside and roll people around. Shawn rolled the kids all over. They were all giggling so much...until Kyler got rolled out! Then he was done...for about 5 minutes then he wanted to go back in!!!This was the Kidilla Hopper. It was this giant pillow thing the kids could jump on. Ty and Kyler played on this while Kailee and Austin went to the zip lines. {which I didn't get any pictures of} It took Kyler quite a while to figure out how to get up to the top to jump. He finally had Ashton help him and showed him to run up on the side! Then he was good to go. Inside the corn maze...we went with the boys and Kailee and Austin went on their own with friends.The pumpkin patchWe took a hayride right before dinner. It was nice to relax and be "chauffeured" around after all the walking a standing we had been doing. We liked out "tour guide"...he was a Longhorns fan!

At Dewberry you can rent a firepit and have your lunch or dinner there. It was so cold...in the 40's...when it was dark that it was the perfect night for a fire. We roasted hot dogs for dinner. Then roasted marshmallows and had smores. We were all so cold that the first little bit was rough, everyone trying to get warm and squeeze in around the fire and get their food...but after everyone was warm and fed...it was really nice to sit around the fire and talk.After dinner the kids wanted to play for a few more minutes. It was soooo cold that I knew they were going to last long. They all did the slide a few more times...Austin meditated his way down. Ty said that wasn't meditating...cuz you can't be peaceful when your bum is that bumpy! :)

We saw that they opened up the giant hamster wheels. They had been closed during the day cuz it was too windy. The kids had to try that too. Kyler didn't care for it but the other kids did!Kyler is king of the haystack!

Last thing we did before we left. The kids went on this "swing"...Kailee and Austin crawled inside while Ty and Kyler stayed on top and Shawn pushed them all around!

This was only a little bit of what we did on Saturday! There was so much to do and see! We had a super fun time. As we were leaving the farm Tyson said to me...Thanks for the best day of my life Mom!! Oh so worth it! :)