A little Set-up is in order....

Last weekend we set up Christmas. I love doing it, and usually I set it up on Black Friday but this year we had a baseball tournament so it got pushed back a few days but it was not any less exciting.

Olivia has really taken to the excitement of Christmas. She LOVES all the lights and ornaments and things shaped like Santa and she really loves to play with one of my nativity sets.

She asked if she could put the star on the tree this year so Dan helped her. We left the fake tree in the box and opted for a fresh one. 9 feet! It is huge!! It smells so delicious though and so it is worth it.

Our semi-finished product ~ it is in need of some more ornaments so I will probably add a few more in the next few weeks. Really I am just so excited for Christmas this year. I love this holiday!

Thanksgiving - Part 2

On Thanksgiving day we went over to my parents house and celebrated the day. Just them and us. It was a lot of fun, not to mention nice and relaxing to have such a small group. We didn't skimp of the food though. Just because there was only 9 of us was NO REASON not to have TWO {20 lbs each} turkeys! One deep fried and one oven roasted. mmmmm. delicious.

Before dinner my mother got this crazy idea to go burn off a few pre-Thanksgiving calories by playing a family game of kickball at the park. It was a lot of fun but the next day all the adults were a little sore. [blush]

I sure am Thankful for family and the joy that they bring to our lives. Nothing is more important than family and I hope and pray that that will never change.

Thanksgiving - Part 1

On Sunday we hosted Thanksgiving for Dan's family. Yes, it was at our house. Our 1358 sqft home. We had 25 people all smushed it. It was definitely cozy, but thankfully, we like each other - a lot. So it was actually quite nice.

The nicest part was I didn't have to cook everything. We did it potluck style, which worked out nicely since I only have one oven.

 In order to get everyone to fit, we converted our patio into an outside dinning area. Thankfully, we live in Arizona and the weather was beautiful!

It was a bunch of fun having everyone together, which has been a first in SEVERAL years (okay, we were missing Cory, but his wife and kids were here {3 out of 4 ain't bad!})

Since we have had a new addition to the grand kids since our last Linn Family Grand kid picture we needed a new, updated picture of the crew. Twelve and counting.....

[can you believe that this was the best picture of them after the 15 that I took!?]

I love this time of year. It makes me reflect and realize how thankful I really am. I love Dan's family. We have so much fun together and I am grateful for the closeness that he has with all his siblings and the fun that we all have when we are together.

To be continued.....

(Thanksgiving part 2 taking place on Thursday)

Halloween 2011

Okay - WOW! How did Halloween just sneak up on me this year?? We are usually that family that has costumes planned by the end of August, purchased by the end of September, the house decorated by October and the GOOD candy bought by mid-October (and then hidden in the house). But this year.... I don't know what happened. The house was decorated the first week of October but that was it.

We totally scrambled for costumes the week before. I purchased our bag of lame candy at 2:00 on Halloween afternoon!

We were still finishing dinner when we started getting our first trick or treaters so needless to say, I was rushed! And i didn't get any pictures of my kids.

Thankfully, I took pictures of the kids on my cell for my mom on Saturday before our Ward party. So here they are - the best that I got!

Miss Olivia - Our Southern Belle.

She picked out her own costume this year, she really didn't care what she was as long as she was pink and frilly. She loves this costume, and she is even more excited that it has now made its way to her dress-up box.

Ethan - Zombie.

Every year Ethan wants to be bloody. Since we were super uncreative this year it was the perfect year to allow this. $4.00 for white face paint, black eye paint, fake blood, and brown teeth paint. Some old clothes and we have a costume! It was great. Plus he was in "heaven". Only downside, he couldn't wear a costume with any blood  for the school parade, and since he has blood on all layers of his clothes he couldn't wear his costume to school.

Spencer - Nerd.

This was totally put together on Saturday about 1 hour before our party. Spencer really didn't know what he wanted to be, he really just wanted to wear the Harry Potter glasses from last year. So we talked him into wearing some of Ethan's clothes and pulling them up to his waist, Dan made him a pocket protector to match his pink tie and then we combed his hair. He looked great. Only downside, he apparently is too cool to dress as a nerd for the parade at school. So he also went costume-less to school.

Ryleigh- Dice.

Ryleigh is the only one that planned ahead. I knew that she wanted to go as a dice for the last month. That of course didn't stop me from making it last Saturday. She originally wanted to be a fuzzy dice, but when I went to purchase the fur it was like $40.00, and that was on sale! So she had to go as a regular shiny dice. She seemed happy enough. She and Jayda trick or treated the neighborhood together with some friends and I think they had a great time.

Happy Halloween 2011