Thanksgiving break-Satuerday

Saturday we got up and left pretty early we had to be gone by 9 am because we had stuff to do. We pack and at the cheesecake I had made the night before. (yummy breakfast)
on our way out of Utah we stopped at NPS which is a crazy cool store.
Then we just drove and drove,
and drove.

We got home and unloaded cleaned up the rental car and then Mitchell took the rental to the airport in Boise to turn in
 and i followed in the focus with the kids. Mitchell turned in the rental and then jumped in the car with us and we drove to sand hollow for the last part of the West family round robin Thanksgiving meal. They had all started at my parents house and 12 noon and then gone to a few other relative houses, we met up with them at my Grandparents house at around 5:30.
After turkey, ham and rolls their we wen tot my Aunt Doreen and uncles house for desserts and games. We played scum.
PS my aunt day made these amazing caramel toffees chocolate chip cookies things- WOW they are GOOOD! (i need to make up a GF recipe version)

Anyways then we headed home by way of costco since we didn't have food.
We got home and got the kid's in bed and then i headed over to my parents house to watch The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty with Jessica, my mom, and Joseph.
Then we all sorted through boxes of stuff from my grandpas house. Which was so nice to do with us girls.

The next Day was Sunday and we Rushed in the Morning to get pictures taken with Jessica Before Church. It was not something huge because of the day and the time restraint but i am SO glad we did it!

Thanks Everyone for and amazing Thanksgiving Break!

Thanksgiving Break- Wednesday & Thursday (THANKSGIVING)

Wednesday was pretty low key. We spent the day with my mother-in-law Diane because she had the day off work.
We spent the morning running errands and then us girls made lots of pies in preparation for thanksgiving. We had a "who can make their pie look the most beautiful contest" I won. The other contestants where the boys who didn't really try so the victory wasn't that sweet.
Then in the afternoon the girls went to Ikea so I could get some of the fabulously inexpensive wonderfully simple things they sell there- like drapes. :)
I got some great things- I love IKEA. besides drapes i got a comforter and pillow slip set for each of the boys and I got some new pillow covers for our living room (finally).
Diane got the kids a fabulous toy they they played with all day.
Mitchell and his brothers went to see interstellar.
In the evening we all made homemade individual pizzas and played games.
We played Ticket to Ride- I won. (I know shocking)
Anyways Wednesday was all good and fun and Wednesday night the kids played with Uncle Ron.
when it was time for bed Eli said "NO! I want to keep playing (points finger at Ron) with that guy"
It was awesome and Mitch recorded a great video of the kids playing with him that hopefully we can get up hear someday. We lost the thing to transfer pictures from our tablet so we are on hold for a lot of pictures currently.

 THANKSGIVING
I slept in -Thank you honey- but everyone else was up and moving early early morning.
We all ate breakfast and then us girls took over the baking. to save time I will just share the menu and then you will all have an idea of the time we spent in the kitchen etc.
We had a Ham with Honey glaze
A Turkey seasoned with fresh herbs and lemons
Delicious gravy made with the goodness that comes from a turkey neck that simmers all day.
Pecan Apple stuffing- this was The Best Stuffing I have ever had!
Sweet potatoes- mashed with maple syrup and salted butter
A huge mound of mashed potatoes.
Fresh Green Beans pan fried with bacon and olive oil.
Green salad
The pies (made the day before)
also brought by Mitchell's sister Allison there was
stuffing
a fluffy jello marshmallow salad- actually Ron made that
two kinds of rolls
more pies
...I feel like I forgot another side dish but nothings coming to mind so I am moving on.
We set the table beautifully with Diane special china and vintage linen table cloth,  cannot believe it but I forgot to take a picture of any of the food , table or eating.Sorry to my future self I know you will be saddened by that.
After the dinner (we ate at 3) everybody watched football for like 6 hours. Honestly the meal went way to fast for me everyone just ate fast in silence- that okay just not what I am used to. The meal took probably 20min and for all the hours of prep it felt like i blinked and it was nothing but dished to be done. It was all great and dandy though his family is really chill about holidays so it was fairly low key.
After dinner we cleaned everything up and Jon and I did dishes- he is a dishes washing machine  whenever my in laws visit he always does our dishes.
I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Diane and the kids move her living room furniture around and set up and decorate the tree. Mitchell came and helped for a little bit too (thanks hon). We also set up Diane's Christmas village which the kids adored.
I put the kids down early since they where still tired from the day before.
Later that night Diane and I rearranged her bedroom furniture and then we talked with Jon about awesome deep intellectual topics.. Yikes I was tired the next day. I have no idea when the guys all went to bed because they where till playing computer games when we all shut down for the night at 2.

Thanksgiving week Monday-tuesday

we spent thanksgiving with my in-laws in Utah. It was a long and fabulously fun week.
So without further ado i will begin.
Monday was spent primarily in the car. We rented a really nice one to travel and it was fun for Mitch to drive.
Anyways we got to Nana and Papas house around 3:30 and made dinner for my mother in law. We went shopping and talked. That's pretty much it.
 Also while we where out shopping Mitchell and the boys got a bouquet of flowers for Nana- they are such sweet awesome boys!

Tuesday was BUSY. we stated the day pretty relaxed and then we headed out to Lehi to visit Grandpa Durrant and Grandma Linda. We visited with them for an hour or so but headed out around ten because grandpa had to go to dialysis.
 Then we headed to American Fork and spent the day with Uncle Darrel and aunt Marla's family. They treated us to a trip to the museum of Natural curiosity and lunch at Thanksgiving Point.
That museum is AWESOME. we where there for several hours but we only saw 1/2 of the things there. It was so much fun. The kids and adults loved it.
The kids also loved playing with their cousin (who is my cousins daughter).
after all of that fun the boys went to see the new Disney hero movie and my cousins and I went to Provo to see the art Exhibits and my cousins art studio.

Our family theme night

***As you all know I am using a very old (like 2006) old point and shoot camera so please excuse the horrible picture quality!***

This year in keeping with our big goals we are trying to make a deeper sense of tradition and intentional living.

So we decided that during general conference we would take special note of any talks that we thought would be great overall theme and guidance for our family.

The week after conference Mitchell and I read a few of the talks that had stood out to us together.  Mitchell prayerfully picked the quote and we made a few goals directly from the talk and that will be out family theme (and goals) for the next 6 months until the next general conference when we will do it again.

It was really special to put so much more preparation into general Conference then we had previously done. We fasted and wrote questions and discussed things before conference weekend. We really did have many wonderful answers to questions on different levels: personal, as a couple and as a family. 

I am so grateful for General Conference!

So the FHE 8 days after conference (so the next week basically) we had a VERY special family night planned.

we had a very small decorating budget so I made all of the hurricanes and candle holders with supplies from the dollar tree- an di got the napkins and napkin rings on clearance from Target. The candles are the all natural bees wax candles I made this week! (except the green pillar candle that's from target 2 years ago)

The cute glitter pumpkins are also upgraded dollar tree finds, 1 cheep pumpkin+ Elmer's glue+glitter= 1 really cute not-so-cheep looking pumpkin (and a really big mess in my kitchen)

I borrowed my mom’s folding table and turned the front sitting room into a formal dining room and decorated everything beautifully. I love decorating things beautifully! It’s so my favorite!

The kids helped me we made a leaf garland and made a huge banner with all our hand prints and we even covered pumpkins and clothes pins with glitter! The kids had so much fun just decorating it made the whole day feel like a special holiday!

I printed out a huge poster of the quote we had picked.

We made a very special dinner and I served it in courses, which was fun for me and it’s nice to teach the kids about more formal table manners. (I went through a phase when I was a teenager-and then again a few years ago- when I looked up alto of things to learn more about table manners and serving manners and such). So I served in courses and that we a great with the kids because normally they can only handle being at the table for 10 min total but the way I set it up had everyone eating together since I served only one thing at a time. (Also all the veggies got eaten)

Menu:

Cheese tray with figs and lentil crackers (served on my great grandmothers crystal dishes)

Clove infused pears in cream

Veggies- these ended up being peas and carrots since that what the kids voted for

Chicken Masala with penne

 Dessert- Apple crisp with toasted pecans

After the appetizers and before the main course we (Mitch and I) got up and talked with the kids about the family theme and about our goals, Then all the kids cheered -We are the cheering Hooray!-kind-of-family. 

Dinner went smoothly so nicely that I forgot to take pictures. And then after dinner we headed into the other room for some fun fall themed minuet to win it games.

We tried to stack apple and cups and we created a tower of cups and played a bowling game (the ball was a gold painted Styrofoam pumpkin). And we blew our cups with straws...

Then for a finale Mitchell put on a juggling show with apples and we all tried to juggle as well. So the apples got quite bruised which is why we planned on apple crisp. 

 Around bedtime i realized i had not gotten pictures so we sat down and took some!

 The whole day was just so much fun! we all enjoyed ourselves and felt in the end that we had just had the  first of many hill family holidays!

The design of the theme was just made by me playing on picmonkey!

(PS thank you mom for lending us your folding table-not only was it great for dinner but it was the best hiding spot for hide and go seek which we all played before bed!)

Air Ballons

"Come Fly with me"
 I hope you all have that song in your head now. :)
We went to the Spirit of Boise hot air balloon show on the 29th of Aug. The kids loved it. Mostly I took videos.
I used to go to the Hot air balloon display in the early morning back when they did it during the river festival, i always went with my aunt and uncles family (you know who you are) and when I heard about the spirit of Boise balloon thing i knew i wanted to go with our kids!
They liked that balloons so much we got some of those flying paper lantern things for us and hot air balloons are the theme for kaydens birthday this year.
SO without further ado. the pictures!
(their arnt that many pics because mostly i took videos of the kids and air balloons)

PS This old (like seriously year 2005) old camera has horrible picture quality!

When The Relations Came to Idaho

We had such a great last few weeks, busy though and these next few weeks are going to be jam packed with errands etc too!
 On Friday the 8th my sister Rebecca came up to see all the family we didn't see them much until Saturday evening we had so much fun watching the kids play.
Sunday Was Sunday business as usual only after church we had FUN with the Barthlome Cousins
Monday A day of great fun and hanging out-honestly I am having trouble remembering what happened
Tuesday we had a garden party and stuff
Wednesday Jessica Came home!!!!
(also from this point on (as in Wednesday) I have no camera since the camera i have been using the last year is hers, so pictures might be different on the blog from now on ;( but we are so happy to have Jessica home!)
Thursday was low key except the Zip Line fun we had in the evening!
Friday -unfortunately we didn't get to go camping which was a big sadness for me but the day ended up being a favorite we spent the day with Rebecca and family and she and i went shopping for the kids which was a blast. By the way lets all just face up to it here and admit that she dresses her kids cuter then anyone else the girl has the classiest eye for kids clothes, it was truly awesome to get her help finding deals for my kids-ohh yes did i mention she manages to get everything at great (even amazing) deals too! But really it was so fun to shop with her again, great sister bonding time!!
The next day we went to celebration park and had so much fun! Also we went swimming at givens hot springs-it was so apparent that her kids are used to water and mine are not-my kids could hardly walk around in the wading pool without falling but hers where in their element! Thanks Becky sister for spending so much time with us.'