Thanksgiving and other stuff

I'm finally getting around to blogging about Thanksgiving and well. . . other stuff. I haven't really rushed to get on and post about it because I think the main people who read this blog are the same ones who I was with for the holiday anyways!

My mom had signed all of us up for a race Thanksgiving morning called "Run to Feed the Hungry". There was the option of doing a 10k, 5k, 5k walk, or 1 mile walk. Collin did the 10k (overachiever), Paul, Tonya, Andrea and Alex ran the 5k, Mom did the 5k walk, and Dad, Ashlyn and I did the 1 mile. Except, we totally didn't even walk more than one block. I personally wasn't very impressed with this race this time around. We did it about 2 years ago and this time I felt like it was more crowded but way less organized. I was super bugged because the people putting it on made it sound like the race started AT 9. But no, all their pre-race crap started then and it was really cold! We all had to hop around to keep warm for the next half hour while they had weird zumba ladies up on some stage doing a work out. Dad did the best at keeping warm:

When the race finally started, it was still so unorganized. There were about two thousand people supposedly there, I think. And yet they had no signs for what route you should be doing depending on the race you signed up for. I think that would have made things a lot easier! So Dad and I had no idea where to go for our 1 mile walk so we walked a little bit with everyone else but realized if we kept going this way we were going to have to do a 5k walk, and yeah right like either of us wanted to do that! So we turned around and went back to the car and sat in the nice warm heat and let Ashlyn play with the steering wheel and waited to see everyone else come across the finish line. Not bad, in my opinion.

Anyways, after that fiasco the festivities began. Dear little Alex participated in no shave November the best he could while still following BYU's honor code:

Doesn't he look like someone from the 70's? That whole outfit. . . . 

And yes, asking Dad to say cheese while he carves the turkey results in a picture like this:

We all had fun with Ashlyn, of course. She is so funny and sassy. And loves to play with whoever will play with her. One in a while she actually called me by my real name, and didn't think I was Jodee! 

She of course still loooved Paul. He seems to be one of her favorites.

And I made a craft! Tonya brought us leftover stuff from a craft night she did with her young women and we all made these cute turkeys. 

Of course the day after Thanksgiving we helped Mom put up all the Christmas decorations! That's how it should be in my opinion, but being married to a SCROOGE I have to wait until December 1st. But not at my parents!

The tree decorating crew. Tonya and Collin and co had left earlier that day. :) Notice how Paul isn't part of the decorating crew? Refer to my comment about being a scrooge above. He wants nothing to do with Christmas until December.

Aaaand here's my parent's house with all the lights. My dad and Alex were so confused as to why 3 fuses blew out in this process and couldn't figure out why. . . . . hmmm. . . . let's all think about that. . .

It was a fun little holiday gathering. 

Luckily since Thanksgiving was so late this year, by the time we got home it was December 1st, so I brought out all our Christmas stuff! (which isn't that much, but my goal is to add to it every year, despite my SCROOGE.) I dragged Paul to Home Depot for us to get a nice little tree. It was the last warm-ish day before the freezing nasty cold weather settled in.

We've also been making some Christmas treats. These were supposed to be those cornflake wreaths, but we didn't bother molding them to look like wreaths. They looked more like Christmas tree poops. Still tasted good though! I also made some tasty toffee that is my FAVORITE christmas treat, but misread some of the directions and added double the amount of brown sugar I needed to for the cookie crust. So they turned out really gooey, but still really good! I took them to work and they were gobbled up right away and no one even thought about it!

So that's the run down. I can believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks! 

Visitors

I feel like this past month or so I've been able to visit with a lot of family and friends down here at various times. It's been great!

First we had the pleasure of hosting brother Sam and his wife Megan and their little cutie bug Grace. They stayed with us on a Sunday night while on their way up to Idaho Falls to see my parents. Sam had just finished management training with Jamba Juice out in California for 4 weeks and Megan and Grace went along for the ride. They live out in Tennessee so we don't get to see them very often. We had a tasty dinner of beef burritos and then were entertained by Grace until she went to bed. After she was in bed we played a ravishing game of Guillotine! One of our favorite card games now. If you haven't played it, let me know and we'll set up a game night. :)

I asked them both to say cheese and smile and this is what I got. They must be related.

Super crappy picture from my phone, but we tried to capture how much fun we had playing GUILLOTINE and eating Halloween Jell-o jigglers.

Then a week or two later my mom came to visit! I got a flier for the local giant craft fair that was going to be held down here at the beginning of November and remembered how I would go to the big one up in Idaho Falls with her growing up. I called to see if it was an open Saturday for her and it was! She came down that morning and we hit up the fair that afternoon (it was HUGE, by the way. It took us a good while just to get through everything!) I stayed within my budget and came back with some new cute holiday decorations, which was what I was hoping to find. And she got a cute baby blanket for the little nugget. 

After that we went home and relaxed a little (and she cleaned my living room. I protested, but she said "that's what Moms do, we clean!" or something like that. I was grateful.) and then took Paul along with us out to dinner at McCool's. We love that place! Great Irish food and it's hardly ever crowded. After that she helped us register for baby gear at Target. It was really nice to have her along to help me know what's really useful and what's not.

Then we got some frozen custard at Nielson's and as you can see, really enjoyed it.

Then Sunday morning she headed back home. Short trip, but it was a lot of fun. Thanks for coming Mom!

The Friday night before Mom came down, I got to see my bestie Katie! Ever since she married her military man a couple years ago she's moved across the country and it's rare we see each other in person. But she was in town for the night so we met up for dinner downtown. We had a lot of fun catching up in person and I don't know the next time I'll see her!

Once again, another crappy quality picture and not all that flattering, but whatever.

Then last Friday my high school bestie Rachel stopped by for a lunch date during her travels! She lives in Oregon right now with her cute little family and this was my first time meeting her second baby Bennett! He had the most kissable cheeks and her other boy Logan was a lot of fun too. It was so good to see her in person too and catch up!

All those visits were so wonderful. Thanks friends and family who came and saw me!

Other random happenings:

We went down to Provo to see an art exhibit with Paul's parents. I couldn't take pictures in the actual exhibit, but it was really cool. It was sacred works from 18th century or so artists like Carl Bloch, and I love his work. BYU had the option of renting ipads that had extra information about each piece displayed and it was really neat to have that. 

Below is Paul outside the exhibit holding all our ipads.

And I finished the baby's dresser! Below is the before picture. It wasn't in bad shape when I bought it, but I just wasn't a fan of the colors.

And after. I really like how it turned out. I think it is now very kid-friendly.

And there you have it. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Cory and Alex

Remember how a while ago I did a post about my two older siblings? Well, this is now a continuation. Onto the next 2 siblings, little brothers Cory and Alex.

Yep, I grew up surrounded by boys. Sam, Cory and Alex were my main childhood playmates. We made up the coolest games and also had some pretty good fights, just like most siblings.

Anyways, Cory.

Cory, Cory Cory. What a weirdo. I say that in the most loving way, of course. If you think I'm obnoxious, you obviously haven't met my younger brother. He is one of the most creatively annoying talented people I know. 

And when I say talented, I really mean talented. Talented at observing each one of us and figuring out what exactly it is that bothers us, and then doing it a million times until you are ready to kick his hiney out of the room. Talented in figuring out the most annoying noises possible to make and doing them over and over and over and over again. Talented playing tricks on you and manipulating you into trying something. He can be so persuasive. Or maybe it's just pushy, I don't know.

Talented in music like no one's business. This boy can fiddle around on the piano and accompany you on probably anything. He's majoring in organ performance and really, I can't imagine him doing anything else. The louder and faster the song, the more he likes it. 

Talented in making me laugh like no one's business. I'm sure we made quite a pair when we were younger- he put on the show and I laughed and egged him on. We shared a room for probably about a week when we were little. I know it didn't last too long because I think our parents realized what was going on- we weren't getting much sleep because he would keep me up laughing while he danced around our room gargling "YMCA"  late into the night. That's how much of an entertainer this guy is. 

I hope you notice what is going on in this picture above. He obviously did something obnoxious right in my face and my hand is poised ready to smack him. Yep, this happened a lot. And I'm glad it's caught on camera.

There are too many childhood memories to count with this little brother of mine. And even though I can think of plenty of times when he drove me nuts, there are also memories of him being a sweetheart. Of being loyal. And like I said, he could sure make me laugh. He now has a beautiful wife and cute baby and I'm so glad he's my little brother.

So thanks, Cor. For the memories. I'm sure my childhood would have been A LOT more boring if you weren't around.

And now onto Alex. AKA the Kid. Or Kidothy. Lex. Lexkins. Alington. This brother had a lot of nicknames.

I think of Alex as the nicest of the boys. So naturally, he was the most picked on. I don't remember ever really getting into fights with him, all I remember are the not so nice things I would convince him to do. Like "superhero training" where I made him him carry me up the stairs or around the house pretending he was the superhero saving me from a burning building. Or pinning him down and tickling him over and over again until he bucked me off because he couldn't handle it anymore. 

See? Even above (this was about 5 years ago) he let me bother him and just laid there and waited until it was over. (By the way, check out Andrea's AWESOME nightgown!!!!!)

He and Cory were always known as "the little boys". Those two were peas in a pod. Whenever Cory and I would disagree, Alex would always side with him, even if my side of the argument was totally right. Didn't matter.

He also can make me laugh so hard because he is also so weird. Except instead of being weird in the obnoxious sort of way, he's just weird in the nerdy literal way. Actually, I feel like he and Paul are the most similar out of all of my siblings. They share the same love for nerdy things, like superheros and catching people making grammar mistakes. 

And he's the one who entertains me by doing things like this:

This little sweet nerdy boy has really grown up and it's a lot of fun having him not too far away in Provo. 

These two brothers sure did add a lot of excitement and fun to my childhood, and they still crack me up to this day. I've been really blessed to have some amazing brothers.