Christmastime!

Christmas time it is!  It's up to me this year to get lights on my house if I want them there.  I chose to get up on the roof as opposed to climbing up and down the rickety ladder...and let me say that I DID NOT like being up there.  Too scary.  And the ladder IS rickety.  Leiden did the honors of documenting the occasion.

Also grabbed some of her sisters.

This one of Mimi is particularly funny...Mimi is getting the mail, which she loves to do.  And she is entirely out of focus.  However, Leiden does a pretty darn good job with the giant camera.

I ever so carefully got my phone out of my pocket to document things myself...

But I got them done!  I only got on the roof for the west side of the front.  The overhang in the middle of the house was scary and I didn't dare put my weight on it, so up and down the ladder it was.

Our house is lit!

I also dragged the tree in today from the garage...wow, it's heavy.  And we got it all decorated.

The girls were very excited at all the goings on.

They helped put on ornaments, until attention spans demanded they change activities.

Mimi is SO excited.

My Christmas Girls!

Also broken out today were their individual trees, which they took great delight in decorating in the hall.  Then none of them wanted them turned on in their rooms at bedtime.  Mimi's was on for a while, then about 45 minutes after I put her down, she came back out wanting it off.  Okay.

Disappointed, however, in the left hand side of the garland...it's out!  Perhaps made more frustrating because the OTHER end was out and I had to re light it.  I guess their time limit is up.

Glad to be decorated for Christmas!

Black Friday

Santa authorized me to do some advanced reconnaissance re: my Christmas.  Done and done.  We will have to wait until Christmas morning to see which arrive under my tree!

The shoe store was the only place I dared go today...traffic was a bear, and there's nothing I need to get a great deal on, so I stuck around home.  I can't believe it's Christmas time already!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  It was a beautiful day, here...sunshine and pretty darn warm for Thanksgiving, considering it's often snowy today!

The girls go with Brad this afternoon, so we took them out to breakfast this morning to...Mimi's Cafe, of course!  They all love this place.  Don't get me wrong, it's really good, I'm just kind of surprised they like it so much.

After breakfast we headed up to Grandmere's, where the girls embarked on a Thanksgiving craft.

They made these CUTE little turkey hats to wear for Thanksgiving dinner, if they want.  They turned out really fun.

The Macdonald Girls!

My mom has really loved decorating this year...Thanksgiving has been no different!

She has some really cool turkeys...

sets a lovely Thanksgiving table,

And cooks up a mean turkey!

   

Before we left this morning, I snapped a shot of our now leafed Thankful Tree...it was such a great thing to be able to think about the things we were thankful for throughout the month.

Later I took all the leaves off, and the girls wrote down some pretty great stuff...This year Leiden was thankful for: the prophet, clothes, Walmart, school, the iPad, Minecraft, fishes, the United States, fire, birds, Pilgrims, the temple, pumpkins, friends, shelter, and hearts.  Mac was thankful for glowsticks, crayons, turkey, bags, pumpkins, flowers, birds, trees, dogs, temples, books, bones, food, school, cats, mama, and leaves.  Mimi was thankful for butterflies, prophets, swimming, belly buttons, hands, trees, clouds, mama, bunnies, eyes, Jesus, leaves glowsticks, swimming, and feet.  SO awesome. 

Mac's little leaves killed me they were so cute.  She is loving writing, and tries to write lots of things without asking me how.

My VERY favorite?  'trce' = turkey LOVE IT!  Particularly the little turkey she drew to go with it.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  I hope your day was lovely and filled with family, love, and blessings.

Thanksgiving Eve

We headed out to see a movie this evening.  We went and saw Frozen, which was actually pretty cute, although not as good as Tangled.

On our way up to help Grandmere, we stopped at Target.  The girls go with Brad this weekend, so I got some supplies for my own plans.  :)

The girls were very interested to see the turkey in the fridge, brining away for the night.

I'm not sure what they expected, but it was probably not what they saw.

After the girls were in bed, I whipped up a sweet potato pie to take to dinner tomorrow.  Madison has requested it, and I prefer them to pumpkin, anyway.  I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Here is my littlest turkey, wearing her turkey shirt, and ready to hand out turkeys to everyone else!

Mad gave me a belated birthday gift, today.  Awesome.  I am very proud to display my University of Utah vinyl!  Thanks, Mad!

Preschool Turkeys

Saw cute little tootsie pop turkeys on Pinterest, and decided to make some for Mimi's class.

She wanted to help.  Tricky with hot glue, so I had her help me with the parts that required glue dots.

A whole gang of turkeys!

They actually turned out really cute.  I covered each tootsie pop with a brown napkin, which made them more fall like.  I didn't like the idea of a blue turkey body for fall.  :)

Mimi is excited to take them to school tomorrow and give them to her friends.

Wow

Sunday dinner was at our house this evening, and Grandmere and Bapa brought chocolate french silk pie for dessert.  Mimi only kind of liked it.  :)

Delicious!  Stopped at Hires today with my mom for lunch, and indulged in a peppermint shake.  Tis the season!

Have recently taken up shooting handguns, and this was the target sheet from my latest foray to the range on a date.  We shared the sheet, so not all the groupings are mine, but the ones around the red triangle, green circle, green square, and blue square were mine.  Any miscellaneous holes that don't seem to belong anywhere were mine.  His were a lot closer together.  :)  They were a mix of 9mm and 40 mm rounds.  Very fun.  I can't wait to hit it again!

I Mustache You a Question

Mimi spends a lot of time in the art bins, getting out whatever she can find, making messes and doing crafts.  She really enjoys 'doing crafts', and asks almost every day to do so.  Today she found some stickers...funny ones from Valentine's day...hearts, XO's, lips, and mustaches.  She enjoyed some different combinations, then I helped her come up with this one for a picture.  What a funny little girl!

Running

BEAUTIFUL days this late fall...today we headed over to the park for a bit, and the kids played in just jackets.  We went for a run around some marking lines in the field...I guess it was a little bit too far, as all three kids ended up laying in the grass about midway back to the playground.

Lazy Sunday

A friend in the Primary Presidency brought over this beautiful loaf of bread as a little belated birthday gift.  It was delicious and almost too pretty to eat!

The girls made another Thanksgiving craft...this time with fingerprints.  What a cute little gaggle of turkeys!