Thanksgiving Family Pics

My sister Alyson and her husband Nate have tinkered with photography over the last few years. They've picked it up really well, and so occasionally when we get together with them, we ask them to take a family picture of us.

Here are the pics that Alyson took of us this time. Thanks again for doing this, Alyson! We loved how they turned out.

Heather hogged all the pics with Elli on her blessing day (just kidding, sweatheart!), so this time, Alyson took some shots just of me and Elli.

Thanksgiving Fun

This year for Thanksgiving, we had a host of family come into town. Sarena and Adam and co, Alyson and Nate and co, and Mom and Dad all made it. We divided the group up between our house and Tys and Diana's, and it worked great. Besides my family all gathering, Adam (my brother in law) has a sister (Meagan) who lives in our ward, and so they had their parents and another sister (Brittany) with her kids all stay with them. It was a multi-family holiday festival.

Fortunately, we were able to reserve the church to hold our Thanksgiving meal for our large combined group. The church worked out perfect. Each family made a few dishes, and when we put them all together, we had an enormous feast. The kids had more than enough space to run around and play. They set up an obstacle course in the gym (see the pics below). We also had a gigantic game of hide and go seek as well as hooked up a projector and had near life-sized kid movies playing. The best part was that all the utensils, plates, cups, etc were disposable. We still had plenty of cleaning up to do, but it just felt good not having to scrub a mound of silverware.

Here's Treyton doing the obstacle course under Trevor's close watch.

Not surprisingly, one of us got hurt while doing the obstacle course. In case you can't guess who, it was Tys. Nothing broken, though, so we count that as success.

Here we all are sitting down for dinner.

After the meal, we had a really special family event. Trevor had just turned 12 the week before, which made him eligible to receive the priesthood. Adam got permission to confer the priesthood on Trevor when we were all gathered together for Thanksgiving. So we all changed into Sunday clothes, the men gathered around Trevor, and we conferred the priesthood upon him. It was a very neat experience and I'm glad that Trevor invited us to participate.

Here are some other random, fun family shots from Thanksgiving.

I love this next pic of Elli. It captures her "other side." Typically, Elli is all happiness and smiles, when she is around Heather, that is. Occasionally, she will be great for me, too. But often, she gets in these moods where all she wants is mommy. This is one of those moments below, where grandpa was helpless to console Elli. I know that feeling well, Dad.

All smiles now!

One of my favorite family traditions is making turkey cookies. The name doesn't always conjure up the best image if you've never eaten or seen a turkey cookie before, so allow me to explain. First, no: we don't use turkey or any other meat for the cookie. Instead, we use chocolate, candy corns, more chocolate, red hots, and even more chocolate to make a turkey. It's delicious.

Here's what they look like. The candy corns are the feathers. The Hershey's kiss is the body. The two chocolate chips stuck together form the head with a red hot gobbler underneath. Then the last two chocolate chips protruding from the Hershey's kiss form the legs so that it can stand up.

While everyone was in town, we did all sorts of fun things. We organized our very own family fun run. Most of the younger kids ran a half mile, then the older adults ran about 3 miles. It was truly freezing cold that morning despite the sun being out, but we had a lot of fun.

Here we are at the starting line.

Elli decided not to run; she was too busy being absolutely adorable and cuddly in her warm car seat.

Dad manned the water table at the finish line. Diana made some peanut butter cup medals for the finishers. That certainly motivated me.

Here's Jayci and Nate struggling with every ounce of energy they had for the finish line and a personal record. Either that, or Jayci was distracted by looking at everything around her. Cute girl! (And Nate, you're cute, too.)

Here's Logan catching Heather.

Treyton flew passed me at the end.

Karinn led the pack to the finish line.

Besides running, we also took a trip to the Great Falls Park. We went on a little hike along the river, explored the museum there, and some of the kids (ahem ... Jared), climbed on everything they saw. It was pretty incredible to watch Jared shimmy up the side of the museum wall.

It was a great holiday break and over way too quickly. We miss everyone already, but it's nice to know that there will always be more family-filled holidays and vacations.

6 months!! Can you believe it!

So on November 11, our little Elliana became 6 months old. She is a bright little girl with so much spunk. Since it is her half birthday, I feel it appropriate to gush about her. Elli really is the cutest thing- in fact I can barely go anywhere without being stopped multiple times by people gawking and cooing at her. Everybody comments on her vivid eyes and how beautiful she is. Many people add the comment that Daddy will have to fight them off with a bat or Daddy better watch out for this one. Our Elli - the future heart breaker.

She has so much fight in her too. In the end, I think this will be a great asset. From Day 1, she has let us know how she is feeling. At her first doctor's appointment when she was a week old, she wailed and fussed when the doctor was checking her out. As an indignant shriek exited her lips, the doctor turned to me and said "Wow! She has quite a temper." Yes- Elli's pediatrician who sees babies on a daily basis thinks my baby has quite a temper. I knew then that we were in for it! :) My sister-in-law Diana has since commented that Elliana definitely has a lot of endurance (she said this after crying nonstop for almost two hours with Diana when I went to visit a friend at the hospital.) The other day I was visiting with my neighbor who has a ten-month old dog, Scout. Scout was excited and started barking at Elliana. My neighbor tried to quiet him but he kept barking at Elli and she did not like it. Instead of crying though, Elli turned her little face right at him and yelled at him very loudly. It was startling to all of us. Scout stopped for a minute, but then he barked at her again. So Elli angrily yelled back. They went back and forth several times while we all laughed at this interchange. It was quite a comical exchange of wills. Our Elli- the fighter.

Elli is extremely loving though. She will sometimes just lay her head on my shoulder or Todd's arm and just snuggle for a minute. I also love it when she cocks her head to the side and just smiles at us. It is so sweet. Elliana is a momma's girl and that can be a little overwhelming at times especially when she gets in that mood and cries whenever she can't see me, but my heart melts when I go to pick her up and her entire face lights up. She loves her Daddy too especially when he is getting her ready for bed-- she laughs so much with him. The other day in church I was nursing in the mother's room. You can hear the people who are talking at the pulpit over the speakers- well Elli wasn't responding to any voices in any particular way, but then Todd's voice went over the speakers. Elliana stopped nursing right away and looked intently all around the room. She was distracted the whole time he was talking trying to find her Daddy. She knows him for sure. Our Elli- the smiley sweetheart.

We have some home videos of Elli, but we just discovered that Sony camcorders are not compatible with Macs (we thought Macs were compatible with everything ... apparently not). When we figure out this little technical conundrum, though, we'll get some videos up.

I love this time in our lives and I love spending time with Elli. She is growing so fast, turning over, starting to push backward, sitting up now, and of course smiling and laughing. She is truly such a tremendous joy and I know the Lord has blessed us more than we could ever deserve by allowing us to be her parents here on earth. I pray everyday that I will be the kind of mother that she needs. I understand God's love so much more now that we have our Elliana. I thank Him daily for that love and for her. Happy half first birthday my Elli!