November Catch-Up

Alright, got October up, so now let's see what we were up to back in November.
B had a conference in Atlanta in November, so I decided to take a road trip with the boys to visit our friends who recently moved to Vegas.  It's a 6 hour drive, but went really fast and the kids were fantastic on the drive.  It was my first trip to Vegas and I can't wait to get back!

Andrew made a furnace room with the etch-a-sketch

Got synced naps on the drive down. Yes!

Near St. George, 4 hrs into our drive. Love that there's palm trees!

Andrew and his buddy, Jonah, being goofy at the Mandalay Aquarium

The boys in a casino. :)

Synced naps on the way home too!  Andrew had a little bit of a stomach bug on the drive home, so we had a bit more adventure than wanted/expected.

I spent lots of hours in November scrambling to get Andrew's Christmas stocking finished (he's 4--I'm so behind) and enjoying our fireplace.

 On a mild day, we went for a walk in the neighborhood while B did a summit hike to that peak in the picture (Grandeur Peak).  He was up there when I took this picture.

We did a big combo trip to see family for Thanksgiving at the end of the month--flew into Pittsburgh for 6 days and then flew to Illinois for 3 days.  It was great to see both sides of the family in 1 trip!

Matthew's reached the age of easy travel! Yes!!  

Got together with James, his best buddy from Pittsburgh 

Learning about magnets with Grandma

Train-obsessed Matthew got some new tracks and switcher from his Grandpa--he was in heaven!

Bowling with some help from Uncle Mick

Christmas Juice (egg nog) on Thanksgiving morning tradition!

Um, Matthew chugged about 3 cups worth.  This boy LOVED his Christmas Juice!

Now in Illinois for Tortellini Making Day (M.I.T) with 2nd cousin, Molly

My cousin Paul letting us know he was proposing to his girlfriend the next day--she said YES!!

Lots of hard work making the dough!

This year's M.I.T. group.  Matthew was at Nana & Papa's house napping with Papa

Thanksgiving trip to Illinois!

The kids and I took off on Friday after Thanksgiving and headed to Illinois.  Sadly, Matthew was really sick for the trip.  He had a high fever the night before the flight and we started him on antibiotics because we suspected his cold had turned into an ear infection.  Andrew had a bit of a cold too and we had a pretty rough flight to Illinois--I had my first experience changing a diaper on a plane and my first experience with a crying child during landing.  But, as I always say--once they shut those doors and you take off, you have no choice but to make it to the other side!

Once in Illinois, we had a wonderful time!  On Saturday, the extended family came over (we counted over 50 people) for the 15th Annual M.I.T. (Maggie's Institute of Tortellini).  We all get together Thanksgiving weekend to make our homemade tortellini that we use for Christmas Eve Dinner.  I look forward to this gathering all year.  It's the only time I get to see a lot of my 2nd cousins and my mom's cousins and it is just such a cherished family tradition.  Andrew was pretty excited to have so many cousins to hang out with--13 of his 14 cousins were there!

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Papa working to get Matthew to take a nap so that he's healthy for MIT:

We managed to silence about 30 people to get this little sleeper inside after his walk with Nina:

The food spread for MIT was amazing!  I got a lot of pictures around this table because I spent most of the day happily sampling:

While I was sneaking food, others were hard at work:

Farthest commuter award winner (again)--Katie and Steve here from Zurich!

More snacking...

Relaxing in the Living Room:

"Uncle DJ--Will you be my crane?"  ~Andrew

Post-MIT cousin party--15 of the 16 grandkids were there!

Andrew and Matthew Loved having all their cousins around!

Everyone but DJ's family left the night of MIT.  Here's the 3 remaining cousins the next morning:

After DJ and Dawn left for Baltimore, it was very quiet at my folk's house.  We still enjoyed ourselves and it was nice to get some one-on-one time with the parentals.  

I had to include this last picture.  I share a room with Matthew when we are at my folk's house and I got to see him sleep, which I never get to see at home.  Does it get any sweeter than this?  Butt in the air and his little feet crossed and arms tucked under?  He's like a well-trussed chicken! :)

Save Yourself From...

canned cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving!  Unless you love the lines around the texture-less cranberry sauce that makes that oh-so-appetizing sound as it slides out of the can, please try my treasured family recipe for cranberries this Thanksgiving.  It's not too late and they don't take long--I promise you will not regret the decision!

My Great-Grandma's Thanksgiving Cranberries 

Ingredients:
-2 large (or 4 small) packages cherry Jell-O
-1 to 1.5 cups sugar (my grandma used just over 1 cup)
-2 cups boiling water
-3 cups cold water
-1 lb cranberries
-2 oranges (including rind-no seeds)
-2 small (tuna-sized) cans of crushed pineapple
-1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Add 2 cups boiling water to sugar and jello and stir until dissolved.
2.  Add remaining water
3.  Grind cranberries in a food processor
4. Add orange (including rind), and Walnuts (unless you bought them already chopped fine) in a food processor.
5.  Add cranberry mixture and pineapple to Jell-O.
6.  Chill in the refrigerator overnight.

I already got my batch done for tomorrow!  Yum!

Happy Thanksgiving blog readers!

Boo!

Andrew was very excited to get to walk door to door to get candy.  He made it for a good 30-45 minutes.  We headed home and he had just as much fun answering the door to see trick-or-treaters at our house.  He'd answer the door and yell "TRICK OR TREAT!" at the kids before they had a chance to say anything.

Our Halloween:

Pumpkin Carving--something you get all excited to do with the kids and then spend the entire time telling them they can't touch anything because the knife is too sharp.  Hm.  We did try to get Andrew to help clean out the seeds, but he was not at all interested in touching the slime.

All ready to head out trick-or-treating!  Andrew as Bob the Builder and Matthew the spider.

We got a kick out of watching Matthew crawl in his costume.

Stopped for a second on the candy hunt for a picture to capture the beautiful mountains in the background of our neighborhood.  And yes, that's a Mormon church.  We do live in Utah, after all.