We give thanks....better late than never.

Thanksgiving is a great time of year.  It's a good excuse to get together with family, eat lots of food and reflect on the beauties of life.

This year Madeline and I made some pies and buns to take to our various dinners.  Her favourite part was helping me "clean up" after rolling out the pie crusts.

Here's the product.

And the aftermath.

Lucky for us we had two Thanksgivings.  The first was with the Laytons.

Travis made that cheesecake on the BBQ.  

Everything was magnificently delicious as usual!

We snuck in some chilly family pictures before it got too dark.  It was good to have everyone there!

On Thanksgiving Monday we headed over to Pattersons for our traditional get-together.

Noah is such a cute little man.  One minute he can look just like Stephanie and then the next minute, Greg.  

Madeline enjoyed some time in Uncle Robbie's studio (a.k.a. his room) and you could hear her singing and drumming throughout the whole house.

Noah and Claire got better acquainted by beating each other up.

Maddie, Noah and I played a trio on the piano.

Madeline was feeling a bit under the weather for the long weekend, but still managed to get lots of good hugs in.

Now, before you think we're insane, holding a stick with Melanie's head on it, hear me out (or maybe it's our facial expressions that have you thinking that...).  Have you ever heard of Flat Stanley?  It's a character in a children's book who gets flattened (I know, it's horrific, but cute) and can then travel around the world by mailing himself to his friends.  A long time ago, one of our cousins mailed a "flat" version of herself to another cousin who lives far away.  Since then it's become a silly way for us to include family members in activities when they're not able to be there.

 So here are all the siblings - including Flat Melanie who happens to be in Scotland.  You probably can't see it in the small photo, but we're copying her strange facial expression.  Don't worry, there was a Flat Adam too, since he's in South America.  Our stalwart missionaries.

 It was a great Thanksgiving long weekend, despite the fact that Ryan had to work on the Monday.  We had a lovely time with family and friends and loved the great weather. But...

...it takes a long time to recover from a party weekend like that.

Forgive me, for I have sinned...

...it's been 16 days since my last blog. I will attempt to condense our activities, but I think we all know that it will still be too long.

Claire had a special Read-In week at school. They focused on literacy and I got to read her favourite books to the class during circle time one morning. It was fun to see her interact with her friends. We had our first IPP meeting and everything's looking very positive. She's so happy at school!

Claire's been doing great at riding. Yesterday I forgot her neck brace at home, and so I wasn't sure how she would do, but she rode the whole time and held her head up high. I wonder if we'll need to use it as much anymore!

Madeline has also been busy at school. She continues her quest to share with others and not stick out her tongue at everyone. I got to go with her on her Fall Nature Walk.

She loves nature?

I got a nice girl's night out with Kathy. We should do that more often! I've been busy with transcriptions for the university and am now helping with a couple of papers based on one of the projects. It's so exciting! Malmo Preschool stuff is also keeping me occupied.

Ryan's been busy with Young Mens and school. He's also been applying for part time jobs to subsidize our income for a little while. We've got our fingers crossed for one right now. He also helped Olivia and Rob move into their new place in Edmonton! We're glad to have them close!

Meet Ryan's new best friend.

I think M has had just as much fun with the box.

On Thanksgiving Monday we had some family pictures done. We've only got a sneak peek so far but here it is.

We had a great holiday at Mom and Dad's, as usual.

The traditional football game was played and for the first time, did not end in a tie!

Ye olde teame piktures

Madeline and I chose to languidly cheer for the teams after exploring the parks.

Love this picture

Mom. Trying to make us all fat with her pie-y goodness.

This is how Miss Claire spent most of the afternoon. What a sweetheart. :)

We were lucky to have the Jensens come and stay with us for a few days.

While Claire was at school we spent a cool morning at the park.

Eva is such a good story teller!

Nerds squared.

Claire enjoyed having our friends over.

We were also lucky to go see the Wiggles for the first time! Here's my advocacy story. I called about tickets and discovered that wheelchair accessible tickets were 4 times as much as the least expensive ones, since they were closer. Based on proximity alone, this makes sense. But since we have no choice as to where to sit, this seemed unfair to me. After explaining the situation to the proper decision makers, they sold us the tickets for the cheaper price. Huzzah.

I was super impressed with those Wiggles. They were climbing all over the place. Especially Captain Feathersword. Who knew he was such a gymnast?! It makes his annoyingness much more bearable. Murray couldn't make it, so we had to make do with some guy named Ringo. At least he had the accent to go along with that red shirt!

The cool stage set-up.

A family picture, thanks to Ryan's long arms.

This was Maddie's reaction to seeing Dorothy the Dinosaur....awesome.

Claire loved it all - the lights, the music, the atmosphere.
It's very gratifying to watch her enjoy herself.

Can you tell we're having fun?!

Work on the deck is still coming along...we've enjoyed playing with the Patricks while the boys work, but maybe it's been too distractingly fun!

This is what we call "going to the moon."

I can't tell who's having more fun...

I shall my best to keep up with the blog to avoid these long-ish posts. But we all know that's a bunch of hooey.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It's a great holiday with lots of tradition and family events. We go to Wetaskiwin to spend it with family and usually have a football game, play board games, eat ourselves silly and spend quality time with one another. Here is a link to some pictures of the fun weekend.

It is also a good time to reflect on what we are thankful for. I'm grateful for a comfortable home that has all the room and comforts we need. I'm grateful for a supportive and hard-working husband who is a great father to our children. I'm grateful for Claire and for her endurance and happiness. I'm grateful for Maddie's crazy spirit and thirst for learning. I'm so glad we live in this country where we are free to vote like we did today and to make our voices heard. I'm grateful for good friends who uplift and support us. I'm grateful for our employment. I'm grateful for vehicles that work (knock on wood), food aplenty, ability and $ for leisure activities, good books, computers, laughter, good music, household appliances that make my life easier and the beauty of the earth around us.

Whenever I start to feel sorry for myself, all I have to do is count my blessings and it makes me feel ashamed for being down in the dumps!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend!