a THANKFUL week!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! We started it off Monday night with a "Pie Pig Out" at our home with some friends....and i DIDN'T SNAP ONE PICTURE! IMPOSSIBLE. Everything was delicious and we had good company too!

A pic of our "Thankful Tree"... I copied this idea a little late in the month, so it seemed a little bare, but next year I want to do it again. Each night at dinner we added a leaf to the tree with something we were thankful for written on it. 

Thanksgiving was with Brett's family this year. His amazing parents were on yet another humanitarian trip (Guatemala), so Ryan and Jaimi took on the task of having us ALL up to their beautiful home in Nibley! That's a really big task to take on! Thanks Ryan and Jaimi!

Too many cooks in the kitchen??

 A very cute part of our dinner, made by Megan :)

Another very cute part of the day, made by Katie & Kyle!

 Trev doing the honors of cutting the bird.

 Jet opted for no silverware at pie-time. 

 While the guys were watching football, the ladies got our craft on.... Jaimi is such a great hostess and made sure we weren't bored for one minute!

 Friday we slept in, the put up our Christmas tree! The kids were beyond excited!

 E decorating the tree for her room

 And of course, the star! I kind of don't think she'll ever share this task with anyone else in the family!

 Saturday we drove back up to Logan, dumped the kids of at Ryan and Jaimi's with her YW to babysit, then headed to the Aggie game with Ry & Jaim, Meg & Trev, and Uncle Rod and his girls. The weather was beautiful and Aggies won! This was also a very big day in college sports for our Buckeyes (and Brett definitely supported them too)...

 ...and so did this little dude! Our Buckeyes pulled off a win against Michigan! YAY! 

 Sunday afternoon consisted of this.... and a trip up to Morgan to welcome back Gpa, Gma and Aunt Tiff from Guatemala and to hear about all their neat experiences while they were there! What a great weekend! We definitely have a lot to be thankful for!

Young Women in Excellence

I love my calling in young women. It can be time consuming...but it's always a joy to be around the youth of our church. They are amazing! We just had our YW in Excellence program and it was really neat to recognize the girls' accomplishments for the year. Our theme was "You are God's Masterpiece."

I was in charge of the gifts we gave each of the girls. I found this cool idea to make a "wordle" for each of them. The idea said to frame the wordles, but of course that would have been too easy! ;) Each of the parents gave me a bunch of positive words to describe their daughters, then we plugged them into THIS SITE. My super amazing father-in-law was so helpful in the wood part of the project. He taught me how to cut the wood; while I was cutting, he routered them, and Brett sanded. It was quite the assembly line! Then he took his sprayer and painted them all for me! 

 I mod-podged them on to the blocks with my advisor's help and then added ribbons and buttons. They turned out really cute and unique to each girl individually. The girls loved them! Thank goodness!

Somebody stop me next time I have a "great idea" though! haha! It took lots of time! I was glad to give them away :)

Jet @ 21 Months

 Cute molar :)

 Quite the little personality lately!

Packing on a little winter warmth with Crisco! What the?! And...my pantry is now the play room???

 He's got room for at least one whole pack of fruit snacks at once!

 Some iPad time

Barely making it thru lunch....Sundays wear us out!

At 21 Months, Jet:

• insists on walking down the stairs.
• is getting better at self-entertaining. YAY!
• loves to dip his food in ranch dressing.
• is being sort of a stinker lately when it comes to eating---hence the ranch idea.
• can now open doors with knobs, and not just levers. Realized this one day when I found him out in the garage playing. :/
• daylight savings threw him for a loop for a week or so....finally getting back into our groove.
• has added "lah-ya" (love you) to his list of "words!"

Are You Private?!

Okay peeps.....since the whole issue of having to add another author to my blog, I've somehow lost ability to log into those of you who have private blogs! Yes, even when I try to log back in under my old account! This is all throwing me for a loop!

I don't always comment but I try to check in on everyone occasionally....SO, if you have a private site will you PLEASE re-invite me to your blog?! Pretty please?! I miss you! haha!

Send the invite to andertondds at gmail dot com :) 

Thanks so much! And...sorry I'm so technologically handicapped (but I don't think its my problem)!

xo

sNoW dAy!

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a huge winter fan.... but, there's something about that first big snowfall though, that makes everyone a little giddy! The kids could hardly be contained! And thank goodness it happened on a Saturday when the big kid could go out and play too! Round 1 in the morning...shoveling the driveway and digging out cars.

 I was a little worried Jet wouldn't love it....and he proved me way wrong!

 Round 2 in the afternoon...

There's somethin' bout a man... sportin' a burly Novem-beard, wearin' Carharts (with one strap down), makin' a snow-slide for his kids....that just does it for me!

 Brett built a slide off the side of our garden spot. Perfect! We don't have a saucer, but their slick snow pants worked just fine!

Reinforcing it for speed! :)

 Good thing it's not poisonous... 

 You know the day was a success when the playing outside lasted longer than the actual process of putting snow-gear on. Time well spent!!