The Holidays - All of Them!

This year's Thanksgiving was spent with the Rodgers' in Mesa. Everyone, including the Entrekins and Jared's mom, were able to make it. We like to keep our Thanksgiving meal the same, but we decided to try out a few ideas from pinterest for the appetizers this year.

Turkey veggie tray - So cute, but not enough vegetable lovers around to eat it.

 Cornucopias with M&Ms and nuts inside, as our name cards

After dinner we celebrated R.J., Jen, and Conners' birthdays, which are all within 4 days of each other and Thanksgiving. I made these cupcake pies, fitting for a combination of Thanksgiving and birthdays, I thought.

After dinner we checked out the ads, but Black "Friday" just isn't what it used to be. I don't like shopping on Thanksgiving. I can handle midnight, but any sooner is just annoying. And give me a break Michaels, you're a freaking craft store, you don't need to open at 4 pm while I'm still enjoying my feast! Anyway, there wasn't much that I really wanted this year and Cade and I had already bought our gift to each other (a Vitamix). But we still needed Conner's birthday present and I wanted to get out shopping in the crowds. (Yes I like the excitement of Black Friday shopping and I don't mind the crowds, I don't even mind the crowds all of December. But once December 28th hits, I'm ready for people to be out of my way again.) 

Cade and I made a plan to meet up with Carol Ann and go shopping while Conner slept at my parent's house. We started at Walmart for her. I can't figure out why Walmart hasn't copied other stores and gotten a better system yet. We passed all these pallets of electronics that crowds were hovering over like vultures just waiting for 10 pm to strike so they could swarm in on their goodies. It looked dangerous. But Carol Ann grabbed her non-threatening items and we were off to Target. Cade stood in line while I was browsing around for things. I got the crockpot I wanted and checked out the really nice sheets at a great price, but of course my size was all out already. I was still looking through toys when Cade told me him and Carol Ann had already checked out. We decided to part ways then and Cade and I went to Toys R Us. We were wondering around, trying to decide what we could get since what we came for was gone, when my mom called and said Conner was screaming and not stopping. So we drove all the way home, but of course he had fallen asleep by then. Cade had been contemplating going to Cabellas because they were giving out a ton of prizes to people in line, but Blake decided not to go and I had to stay home in case Conner woke up again. We didn't want Cade to drive all the way out there and spend the night in line by himself, so we went to bed.

Conner used to be very cooperative with pictures, but lately he has decided never to smile in pictures and we don't have any good pictures from his birthday.

I've learned that as soon as the Christmas season starts you have to start doing things you want to do or Christmas will come and go and you won't get everything in. So this year we went to the temple lights over Thanksgiving weekend.

For Christmas we went to Mesa again. Cade's parents were coming to stay with his sister in Scottsdale so it worked out nicely. Cade finished up Conner's present on Friday afternoon and then we headed out. I found instructions on pinterest for this great sandbox that has a lid that turns into seats when you open it. Cade doesn't like doing any kind of wood working, but I've always wished he would. I even made him go to Home Depot once and walk around so he could get that great smell of wood to inspire him, but it didn't help. But making something for his son was just the inspiration he needed. He did a great job and hopefully it will be the first of many wonderful projects!

Cade spent Saturday hunting, and my mom and I went shopping (for things I needed to buy of course because she was long finished). On Sunday we just hung out with my parents and Ashley and Blake and even got my dad  to play a game of Scattegories! Cade and Blake went hunting on Monday morning, came home way later than they were supposed to because "we were trailing a deer, we couldn't just leave" but it didn't matter anyway because they still came home empty handed. I think Blake has come to realize how much work (and boring) hunting actually is and won't feel a desire to do it again anytime soon. Then Cade and I visited my grandma, aunt, and uncle and then did a little more shopping. 

Finally it was time for Christmas Eve dinner of fondue and then family presents!

Emma loves her new clothes!

Ashley loves her gift card

The boys like to help Conner out

A rare smile from RJ

Cute Tyson

There's Blake

Conner loves his new train set

Christmas morning we woke up from Cade's mom texting us at 6:45 telling us to hurry and come over, even though we had already said we weren't coming until about 8:30. So we got up, Conner didn't care about any of the new presents, he only wanted to play with the train set he had gotten the night before. Eventually he came around and started helping everyone open their presents. After eating some delicious breakfast burritos, courtesy of Cade this year, we went over to Natalie's. Unfortunately we never bothered to take any pictures, but we had a good time playing pickle ball, playing with new trains, Bop It Smash, and Russ's new Ipad. Cade and I enjoyed dinner at Natalie's and then again back at my parent's house.

Sadly, this is the only picture we took all of Christmas Day.

The day after Christmas we went clothes shopping for my birthday. Although we found a couple of small items, it was a pretty unsuccessful shopping trip. That night we took my mom's buy one ticket get one free coupon from SRP for the Zoo Lights. I thought since Christmas was over it wouldn't be that crowded, but it was packed. When we got there they were already diverting traffic to another parking lot because the zoo lot was full and when we left there were still huge crowds of people arriving. This was our first time at zoo lights. It was fun to do something different but I didn't think it was great and won't need to go again for a few years. Conner wasn't very interested in it either.

We at least enjoyed dressing Conner up in his hat and mittens our friend gave him.

The Sunday after Christmas we had a good snow storm. The Jensens finally came up to use their sleds that they had received for Christmas in 2011! Ashley and Blake came and spent the night Sunday as well. Once the kids were in bed the grown-ups enjoyed playing Wits and Wagers and eating No Bake cookies that Carol Ann forced me to make. Monday morning the Jensens drove to Flagstaff to play in the snow, while the rest of us watched Batman (whatever the last one is called) and then went and had pizza. Then the Entrekins left us and the Jensens came back to celebrate New Year's Eve. The kids played games and watched movies and Emma babysat so the adults could go to Dairy Queen. The Jensen kids were all occupied for over a half an hour playing with play-doh since they don't get that luxury at home, it can't be "micromanaged". Once the boys were distracting us too much from our movie we sent them to bed, about 10:30. Our movie ended two minutes before midnight so we woke Emma up, had a toast with Martinellis, set off a couple of fireworks, and called it a night.

The kids and the play-doh

Playing in the cold

Playing Kerplunk

Our holiday season was great and we had fun spending so much time with our families. We're sad to get back to regular life, for a couple of days before some of us head off to Disneyland that is!