Too Busy To Post!

I can't seem to find the time to post betweeen snow days, buying, making, and wrapping Christmas presents and volunteering at the kid's school, but for some reason Jed has lots of time to blog so I'm going to refer you to his blog to see what our family has been up to in the last few weeks. His blog is The Universe According to the Original Iowa Sea Captain (don't ask I don't know why he is so crazy, but I still love him) click on the link to see us in action http://iowaseacaptain.blogspot.com/. Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season.

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Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!Here are some pics from Thanksgiving. What a great time!!! After giving our house a much needed cleaning we were excited to have at our place Jed's parents, Mac and Janice, his sister Gina, her husband Jeff, and their five children: Zach, Megan, Nathan, Tyler and Trevor (yes, three year old twin boys!), Jed's sister Cara, and his sister Jenny and her guy Ben. 19 people, including us! We had a great time cooking the meal, which in my opinion is one of the best parts of Thanksgiving, and stuffed our faces the rest of the day. Jaeden gave the Thanksiving meal prayer, and he did a fantastic job of it. I have to say I thought my mashed potatoes and cornbread casserole were fantastic! I made a 20 pound turkey and despite everyone's best effort (well, besides Gina who just didn't help out much with the bird at all :), we still a week later have quite a lot of it left! We had pie, Turkey cookies (see the picture below!), and frog eye salad galore.

Friday was spent with people shoping (Gina and Janice left before 4, Cara and I around 5). This was my first foray into Black Friday Madness and I'm not convinced that I will do it again. Although I did get myself a new scrapbooking cutter at a fantastic price. Hannah and Megan also spent most of their day playing guitar hero IIi on the Wii and almost made it through the entire co-op series. What a bunch of rock goddessess! Anyway, I made Chili for supper and then we played Scatergories. It was tons of fun! Then everyone who had gotten up early passed out and we called it a night!

Saturday everyone else left in the morning for Ames and then drove to Des Moines to see the Nutcracker. From what I heard they had a great time. Of course that night they all went to Taco Time for supper. Jed got a turkey and stuffing crisp burrito that you dipped in gravy. Strange, but he said it was tasty!

The girls helping peel potatoes with some pointers from Grandma. I don't mind doing it, but it sure went faster with all their help and I must say the mashed potatoes turned out fantastic all eight pounds of them!

Ten of the thirteen grandchildren gathered to give thanks by eating a lot of food! This is (from the top) Liam and Logan, Nathan, Jaeden, Zachery, Annika, Megan, Tyler, Hannah and Trevor)
The buddies who look here like they are very much enjoying their food only made it a few more minutes before wanting out of the high chairs.

Hannah. If you look carefully, you'll see Braces. She got braces on her front four teeth the day before Thanksgiving. They didn't hurt much, she said, and she did get to put black and orange bands on them, which are her school colors.
Jenny with her amazing plate of food. She did such a great job of separating her food that I used her technique when I filled my plate. Later we ate Turkey cookies made by some Kirkwood students not me.

Annika getting ready to do Dance Dance Revolution
Hannah and Megan setting up Dance Dance Revolution.
Hannah and Megan rocking out! They had so much fun together. I can imagine them starting up a band in high school and taking the world by storm.
Logan also wanted to be a Rock God. I think he pulled it off!
Logan and I watching the girls rock out!
Cyber shoping can effect even the best of us. Right Ben? Ben? Ben? Snap out of it, Ben!
As Jed was leaving to go to Ames Annika was ready to go. She found this walkman and listened to CD's almost the entire weekend. She even had the headphones on while brushing her teeth. She also wants a car for christmas. Did she somehow turn 16 without us realizing it?

I have to say I wasn't sure I would survive hosting Thanksgiving for that many people, but I did and I enjoyed it. Maybe next time I will volunteer to do it instead of Jenny volunteering for me. Love ya Jenny!

Halloween

I know Halloween was weeks ago, but school stuff has finally slowed down for the time being and I have time for a post. The weather for Halloween was record setting. I actually thought the boys might be too warm in these farmer outfits. It was beautifull no coats, hats or mittens and we didn't blow away like last year. I was so nice we went to all but 4 house in our development and that's only because it was a long walk to those houses.

Liam and Logan are dressed as farmers. I stole this idea from my sister-in-law who did this with her twins one year. I figured it would be the last year I could keep them contained in one place. Next year they definately won't want to sit in the wagon or the stroller.

Annika wanted to be a cheerleader which was fine with me since it only involved getting her some pom poms. Jaeden was a baseball player, sports is his new obsession. Hannah was Julie an American Girl. Her and her friends from school picked American girl dolls to dress up as.

October Update

Sorry long time no post. I should have known that I didn't really have the time to keep up in the blogging world. October has been a great month. Jaeden turned 8 on the 7th and got baptized on the 11th. Then all seven of us drove out to Utah for business and pleasure. Jed presented at a conference and the kids and I got to play and have lots of fun. Hannah kept saying "this isn't Iowa." Yes the mountains are beautiful, but I'm glad to be home in my own bed. Now it's back to the grind and playing catch up at work and in my ASL class.

Making the Plunge

After months of reading my friend's blogs I've decided to take the plunge for myself. I hope this is as easy as all of you have said it is. I will invite all who's blogs I've been reading to read my blog.
Most posts will involve my kids as my life pretty much revolves around them. With three kids in soccer, one in dance, and two two year olds that try to destroy everything in their path, life is never boring at our house.