Christmas at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week begins!

Monday....

Getting ready for a fun week

Linda begins making goodies and.....

finishes wrapping Christmas presents.

Tuesday....

Kevin's family arrives late in the evening

Wednesday.....

Crews Birthday Celebration

the kids play with the Christmas

flannel board stories,

Snowmen, Christmas Tree & Nativity sets

Crew decorates his birthday cake with

Paw Patrol characters

Yay!  4 year old Crew and big brother Connor

think this birthday cake is pretty fun

a tablet for everyone and

everyone playing on their tablets

(grandpa did a pretty good job of keeping up with his)

tech savvy grandsons

Time to put the Christmas Tree together

then.....

put the packages under the tree

and search for one with your name on it!

Two little boys can't wait to celebrate

Christmas at Thanksgiving!

After dinner, Crew blows out his candles.....

has ice cream & cake with his cousins and.....

opens his Birthday present from

grandma & grandpa

Yay....more Paw Patrol vehicles!

Sydney shows off her cute smile!

Thursday

Thanksgiving Day

We began with a pancake breakfast, then....

playing some games together.

Camrynn went with us to pick Debbi up

at the airport

On the way home from the airport we

stopped off at Matt & Jen's new house in Boise.

The whole family met there to see

their new digs!

Time for some coloring.....

making place cards for dinner and

colorful turkeys.

Time for a delicious Thanksgiving Dinner.

After dinner we let each family open one gift

Kevin's family opened the game

"Jumping Jack"

they knew this game from the TV ads and were

so excited when they saw it!

and Matt's family opened the game

"PIT"

These girls had no idea what this game was

but it would soon become

one of their favorite games to play.

Trying out the "Jumping Jack" game

After the gifts it was time to start checking out

the Black Friday ads

and....

eating dessert!

Sydney wanted some dessert too....

does rice cereal seem like a fair dessert dish?

Sydney didn't play any games, however,

she had fun UN-decorating

the Christmas Tree!

Trudi's family was missing from our

Christmas at Thanksgiving

week so this afternoon we skyped them.

Everyone gathered 'round and

we had a fun time visiting via the internet.

now it was time to give the game of "Pit"

a try.....it was soooo fun and

quickly became Jetta's favorite game!

while the girls were playing games the 

Big boys were relaxing

and watching some football.....

And grandma volunteered to 

hold the baby.....lucky grandma!

Later, some of the girls went out to

do some Pre-Black Friday

shopping....a little bit crazy!

After a very busy day,

 everyone was finally in bed and the house

was still and quiet.

Friday....

a day to relax and.....

enjoy playing games together.....

sinking each other's battleships....

singing Christmas songs.....

laughing at You Tube and 

slow motion pictures.....

just being cute and

cuddling with Sydney. 

Saturday.....

Christmas Day at Grandma & Grandpa's

Matt's family arrived bright and early for

 fresh baked cinnamon rolls

and our Christmas Celebration!

These six kids are sooooo ready

to open their gifts

but first all the gifts had to be sorted

and distributed to each person.

 Linda & Cami pulled the gifts out 

from under the tree and

All the little kids took care of 

handing them out.

Once that was done we began

opening the gifts.....

one at a time....

beginning with the youngest

Sydney with two of her gifts

Next came Crew...

very cool shirt

and Connor with his

electronic book reader.

Sienna was excited to get this

set of "learn to draw" books.

and Jetta was surprised with

an electronic journal.

the Unwanteds, Island of silence book was

just exactly what Camyrnn was

hoping for.

After the kids had opened all their gifts

it was time for a "Family" gift.

We purchased and compiled a set of

six Gospel Art books

for each family.

Everyone thought they were great and

hopefully they will love

reading them and looking at the

beautiful pictures.

Next it was the grown-ups turn

to open their gifts

Nestled inside a nice storage case were

several small items along with

some greenbacks to take shopping.

The last gifts of the morning were the

quilt pictures

We were pleased that

 they seemed to be a big hit....

We got everything cleaned up

and the Christmas dinner cooking.

Matt had to go to work

and all the kids went over to his house

with Jen to feed their three rabbits.

Look at these cuties taking a 

selfie while they were out with the bunnies

(Debbi, Jetta, Sydney)

About 6ish we were ready for

our Christmas dinner.

A little fancier than thanksgiving dinner

setting the table with the fine china

and a cute, personalized

 Christmas Stocking

filled with goodies at each plate

As usual, there was plenty of food

for all to enjoy

even Sydney was hoping for a

handful of those yummy looking,

marshmallow covered sweet potatoes

(which, by the way, had to be toasted twice)

(inside joke)

We played a few more rounds Pit

and some Apples to Apples

before having dessert and then heading

off to bed.

Sunday....

Winding down

Kevin's family left for home around

10:30 a.m. with a very full

carload of Christmas memories

and arrived home safely by late afternoon.

Once again, with leftovers for dinner,

we had a real feast and ate

too much.

Debbi was going to leave this evening

but couldn't get on a flight.

She tried again Monday morning, but

still no luck so 

she just rented a car, drove to Salt Lake and 

was home by early afternoon.

It's very quiet around our house now

but we have some

wonderful memories of our fun week 

and....

we will be off to Iowa in

just a couple of days!