Good times had by all!

We had a great Thanksgiving! The highlights were having Casey and Christina (and baby Stella) over, the sweet potato casserole (Thanks to Mommo and Paula Dean) and being all done cooking for a little bit! Craig and Alton Brown helped with the Turkey this year. We didn't brine it, but we rubbed it down with salt and pepper and shoved butter under and all over the skin and put a bundle of fresh herbs and a sliced onion in the cavity. Then we started it in the oven at 500 for the first half hour. We took it out and put a double layer of foil over the breast, lowered the cooking temp to 350 and then inserted a thermometer timer into it to tell us when it reached 161. It came out browned nicely on the outside with juicy white and dark meat! I think we'll do that every year from now on! I think next year I'll do vegetable oil on the skin instead of butter though. I think it'll crisp up better that way. After eating we went for a walk and Casey got to try out Katie's princess scooter (she's great at sharing). Anyhow, the only downer of the day was the berry pie I made. I usually buy one, but couldn't find the Marie Calendar's Razzleberry pie that I love this year. I got a recipe from a friend and it had to have been copied down wrong. It was a solid gelatinous mess! We all tasted it and had a good laugh over how horrible it was. Thankfully the other pies were good so it wasn't a total loss. At the end of the evening I got out the "Pin the hat on the turkey" game that I bought at the dollar section of Target(where all good things come from). It was a fun way to end the evening along with a viewing of Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and a second round of Thanksgiving dinner for me! We have a lot to be Thankful for this year, a nice warm house, Craig's good job, no urping for a while, a healthy family the list goes on and on!

Gobble gobble gobble!

Taylor seemed to be doing better yesterday so we may be out of the woods (we've thought this a number of times in the past couple weeks, so I'm not going to count on it). Yesterday we made this cute little turkey cookies for Katie's class. I got the idea from Family Fun mag. Pretty cool follow up to last years' pilgrim hats, huh? Taylor and I will deliver them today at lunch. Katie got her haircut this weekend. Cute, huh? I love that she went short again. She also found that funny wrist band that I bought for when I mow the lawn(and sweat all over myself, in the summer time)anyhow, she thinks it's a bracelet and even wore it to church yesterday! AWESOME!! She thinks the check on it(the nike emblem) is like the checks her teacher puts on her papers at school when she does the paper correctly(don't ask why her teacher checks things done right). We may decide to keep the kids afterall.

What's up with us...

Here's a little update on our past week. It's been alot like the week before. Taylor is still "sick", but not running a fever or having any other symptoms other than crying about everything and not doing anything but sleeping on the couch. It's really fun. Atleast he hasn't thrown up this week (not since Sunday). Katie did however throw up in her bed two nights and ago and never say anything to anyone. She was up and dressed when I got up at 6:45am so I didn't have to go up to wake her and we didn't find out about anything until last night when Craig put her to bed. GROSS! WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR CHILDREN AND WHY ARE WE HAVING ANOTHER??????? Taylor peed the bed last night. I'm really ready to give them all away and do something else with my life for a bit. I guess I'm not cut out for motherhood(not the puking part of it anyhow). Craig took that pic of me. He came home from work and thought it was really funny that I had spilled all that pancake batter all over my belly. Ha ha. I have 3 shirts that fit, I'd been wearing that one for AN HOUR and that's funny...hmmm... I've been begging him to swap jobs with me. PLEASE LET ME OUT!! On the up side, my new haircut is cute. Something else has got to be good, but I'm buried under the same laundry I did last week (all the duvets and comforters and sheets)so tomorrow I'll be IRONING again. Whoo hoo.

Fariy Tales can come true...it can happen to you!

Well, it was a crazy week leading up to Craig's reward night at the Biltmore House. Taylor was fighting off the never-ending virus and we had stuff every night and nothing was going the way we'd hoped it would go. Luckily, we did make it Friday to the Biltmore. It was so beautiful! Our room was super nice and the view from our window was awesome. Dinner was wonderful, but I think we liked breakfast the next day better. It was so cool to get away for an overnight. The drive up was gorgeous. All the fall leaves had changed and driving through the mountains and the fog and little bit of rain made the leaves really stand out, and made the Inn feel really cozy! I still can't believe we got to go! Friday night we got up to the Inn at about 4:30 and checked in and had dinner at 5:45. Then we took the shuttle to the Biltmore house and just looked around the shops. We took the shuttle back to the Inn and got some hot cocoa. Saturday morning we loved the breakfast, then we went over the Biltmore house for our tour. The tour was really interesting and it was fun to see more of the grounds. After our tour we grabbed a wrap and some croissants to take home with us, then we hiked around and took pictures of the house. It was the most perfect fall day. Cool, sunny and windy. We got home just in time for Craig to change clothes and make it to the Priesthood session of Stake conference and I went up afterwards to trade kids and stay for the Saturday session. Sunday morning I was sick in bed. Thanks Taylor for sharing. So far this year, my flu shot has really helped, this is the second time this month I've had the flu! Luckily, I'm on the mend today. Pregnant women, shouldn't have to get sick. It's like having the flu and getting kicked in the stomach the whole time. Well, we're back to real life here, but I still feel like Cinderella!

Happy Fall!

The colors were at peak last week down here and it isn't lasting long enough. Around every corner are fabulous scenes of red, yellows and orange leaves. They are all blowing off way to fast though. Here is one picture of our walk down to the park last week. It got up to 80 a couple days so we were outside as much as possible. I would have taken more pix but after taking the one pic, the battery died on the camera so I had to wait and charge it when we got home. The next pic is one of Taylor's creative dressing days. I really liked this look. Often he wears basketball shorts (mesh nike like shorts)with cowboy boots and the hat. The goggles and mittens(that he can put on by himself, HURRAY) are new additions. I guess they got into the swimming stuff for their bath the other night so that's what inspired the goggles. I like it.
The last pic is of our Turkey that mommo gifted me(the wooden parts just stuck in our $1 post-halloween Lowe's pumpkin). The kids were excited to show it off!

Look how cute!

Since most of you who check the blog don't live close enough to visit our house, I had to include this pic of the mantel decorated for Halloween. Thanks to the cute little Halloween decorations that Mommo has given me, I was able to come up with something cute to put up! Hurray!I've changed them out for Turkeys and pilgrims now though. The kids really get excited about the decorations. After I put out the Halloween stuff katie said "you are so nice, thank you so much for hanging the pumpkins!". Funny girl. Taylor does think that everyday is Thanksgiving now that we put out Turkeys.

Trick or Treats!

Here's our Halloween week in pictures! (Start at the bottom and work up)The first pic is of the kids at the ward Trunk or Treat on Wednesday. Then Taylor all dressed for his preschool class Halloween party on Thursday. The next pic is of Katie dressed for Halloween Day at school. They don't let them come in costume at her school (BOO!)so they had "spirit Beach day" and let them by Lei's from the school for $1.00. Since we already had a lei and since Craig is convinced that somebody is lining their pockets with spirit day money that is supposed to put grass in the school yard (or they're buying the wrong sort of "grass")we sent her with the lei she's wearing. I missed seeing her at a Halloween party at school like I remember having with a costume parade and dry-ice rootbeer. Anyhow, the last pic is of the kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood last night. It was 58 degrees. Pretty darn perfect. Katie made it through almost the whole upper part of our neighborhood in her "glass slippers" before she had a huge blister. Lucky for me (and her), Craig was back from his business trip and he piggy-backed her home. The video is us enjoying the spoils! Craig and I sorted it all and handed out another half of it last night! Hurray! Another perfect Halloween in Greenville. I'm sure gonna miss this neighborhood if we have to leave before the kids are done trick or treating!