Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we spent Thanksgiving weekend away from home.  Matt's brother David had invited us down to spend the weekend at his house in Rosamond, California.  We arrived late Tuesday night so we had the entire weekend to relax and have fun.  Grandma and Grandpa Denning also made the trip to spend time with all of us. Wednesday David took us to his school to show us where he works.

Chase enjoyed sitting in his office pretending he was the principal...giving out punishments to whoever sat on the other side of the desk.

We spent the rest of the day at the Antelope Valley Mall.  They had the cutest Santa there but the little kids took one look at him and decided they would just sent letters to Santa rather than sit on his lap.  I had to settle for this picture outside in front of one of the biggest Christmas trees I have seen.  It felt a little weird with the weather being so warm to be seeing Christmas everywhere.

Thanksgiving day was wonderful.  It was a little weird to be out of the kitchen, but I rather enjoyed it.  The girls spent most of the day playing on David's I-pad and phone.

Sadi spent most of the time on the I-phone playing games...and trying to eat all of the bowls of candy Uncle David had all over the house.  Pretty sure she and Chase depleted most of them before we left.

The boys spent most of the day outside playing football and couldn't be bothered to stop for a photo.  Uncle David slaved away in the kitchen making all kinds of dishes for us to enjoy.  I'm not sure if this photo I snapped of him with the knife was a happy one or not.

When the turkey was done it was time to carve!!  David gave the honors to Grandpa who I'm pretty sure had way to much fun!

It was such a fun, relaxing weekend spent with some of our favorite people.  We wished we could have spent it with all of our families, but thankful we were able to be with some of you.

Twilight forever

Yesterday was the day....the day some of us have been waiting a long time for.  The final Twilight movie.  Kelsey has loved this movie for so long it only seemed appropriate that we keep our tradition of going to the midnight showing...or so she hoped.  What she didn't know was that I had secretly bought tickets to the all day marathon.  That's right a marathon for all 5 movies!!

I wasn't really sure I wanted to sit for that long, but surprisingly the day went really fast.  They had short breaks between each movie, and we got all day discounts at the concession stands which was an added bonus. 

2 large sodas, 1 large popcorn, 2 boxes of candy, 3 hot dogs, and 12 hours later, we said goodbye to Bella, Edward, Jacob, and the rest of the Twilight cast. 

They did a great job of ending the movies throwing in a few twists  I didn't see coming, but we left happy with how it played out.  This has been a tradition I will miss doing with Kelsey, but I hope it's something she will remember forever.  I know I will.

Election Night

Last night was Election night.  I'm sure lots of you were doing the same thing as we were...watching the t.v. as the polls closed and the results started rolling in.  Because it was a school night and we had to do homework and reading I purchased some books for the kids to talk a bit about the election.

For Sadi I bought Vote for Me! by Ben Clanton.  Hilarious!!  It is about a Donkey and an Elephant who will do anything to win your vote.  They call each other funny names, and even throw mud at each other!  I won't spoil the ending, but it is pretty funny.

For Chase I bought Bad Kitty for President by Nick Bruel.  This book is also very funny, but also surprisingly very educational.  We haven't finished the whole book but it does go through the whole process of a campaign.  Old Kitty is leaving office, and bad kitty is going to run for President.  To pick the nominee's they have to see which kitty is best at kissing a baby!  Bad Kitty is trying to get an endorsement from Old Kitty who has been having a really long nap.  Now we are reading about the campaign trail and bad Kitty is trying to give away fish to get the votes...uh-oh that's illegal!  I also had made each of the kids maps to fill in as they showed which states were won by Republican or Democrat parties.  They loved this!

It was fun involving the kids in the excitement and anticipation of the results.  I only wish we weren't interrupted by SO MANY phone calls!  The bad part about being a swing state is the ringing of the phone!!  Can you believe they were still calling 15 minutes prior to the polls closing?  The evening ended quicker than I had planned, and with results I did not anticipate.  So....here we go for another 4!

Tricks and Treats!

HALLOWEEN 2012

This year for Halloween we had a black cat who hissed and meowed at me all day,

and a miner.

 As with every holiday our kids are super excited and can't wait for the "party" day to arrive.  Chase came up with the idea of a miner all by himself, and was pretty insistent that was what he was going to be.  You have NO IDEA how hard that hat was to find.  The idea stemmed from our visit to Calico ghost town and the mine tour we took.  He said he needed a real pick axe like they had.....I convinced him I was sure they would not allow that at school.  Halloween morning we got ready for school and packed up all our treats...

The class treats this year were snack pack puddings.  I simply turned them upside down and added a ghost face to them.  The teachers treat idea came from pinterest.  We made bats and Dracula's.



They were also very simple, and turned out really cute.  When you open them up they are holding Halloween treat.

I made all of the kids a special lunch for their lunchbox and told them to be sure not to peek inside until lunch because I had cast a spell on their lunch and if they opened it before they would be cursed!  They had a mummy juice box, pumpkin (peaches), ghost (yogurt), spider crackers, and monster eyes.  I had also slipped in a Halloween riddle. 



After school we got ready to trick-or-treat.  We headed up to Virginia City for the parade and some trick-or-treating.  Chase became somewhat of a local celebrity and quite a few people wanted to take his picture.  The great thing about a miner in an old mining town is there is lots of picture perfect locations.



We headed back down the mountain after the parade and left Dr. Denning behind to pass out treats while we took the little ones out around the hood.

The weather was perfect, and there really wasn't too many kids out.  I kept commenting how quiet it was.  After an hour or so we came back home for some deliciously creepy dinner.  We had spider woven bean dip,

 with ghost floats, and jack quesadillas.

And finally it was time to unload the pumpkins!  This miner struck gold....

 Our kitty did pretty well this year, and only had a few sour-puss moments.  Including my favorite : "WHAT ARE THESE PRETZELS DOING IN MY PUMPKIN, THAT'S NOT A TREAT!!" 

It was a spooktacular day!  Hope you all had a Haunting night!