Thanksgiving and decorating for Christmas!

Yesterday, like most of America, we celebrated Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful, laid-back, relaxing day and I am indeed grateful for that. The above picture is Maia, ready and waiting to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the big feast. Both she and Maddie packed their backpacks full of stuffed animals and other toys that they wanted to play with at their grandparents' house. They had their bags packed about two hours before we were going to leave and Maddie wore hers for almost that entire time. She was especially anxious to hit the road and begin celebrating, which for her meant watching "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", her new favorite movie (the claymation classic). While they were waiting to go, the girls watched most of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV and they both really enjoyed that. At one point, a group of Bollywood dancers performed and Maddie said, "Look! A whole bunch of Jasmines and Aladdins!!!" :)
Maddie, all ready to go. She was concerned that snow would fall on Pink Bunny (sticking out of the top of her backpack), so Maia put a sandwich baggie on Pink Bunny's head for her. :)

Olly getting in his pre-Thanksgiving workout. Thanksgiving for Olly equals long hours in his kennel and we figured he'd be happier with that situation if he was good and tired.

While waiting for dinner to be prepared at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Maia built an impressive Lincoln Log home. She's wearing the turkey shirt she made in Kindergarten (it's so fun that it still fits her!). Her handprints form the turkey's wings and her footprint is the turkey's body.

Playing with "Winkin' Wogs", as Maia used to call them.

Beautiful Maia! Notice that one of her top teeth has finally decided to grow in! It looks so huge compared to her tiny baby teeth.

I'm the only one in the family that prefers dark meat to light, so Dad hacked off a drumstick that was all for me. :)

Maia and Maddie love Grandma!

My cutie!

My other two cuties, working on a Mad Lib. Both of the girls LOVE doing Mad Libs, just like their mother.

Maddie and the train track she built with Grandpa's help.

Tyler engrossed in "World War Z"...he can't put it down lately.

Tyler and I left the girls at Mom and Dad's for a little while yesterday afternoon while we went to Michaels to take advantage of a good sale on pre-lit Christmas trees. I've wanted one for years now and I was determined to finally have one! Also, the tree we've had since we got married almost 11 years ago is only 4 feet tall and I've wanted a bigger one ever since we had our own house to put it in (it didn't make much sense to have one when we were living in Married Student Housing at BYU). So, I got a 7 1/2 foot pre-lit tree with 700 LED lights on it and I LOVE it! We decorated it last night, letting the girls help somewhat before bed and then we finished it after they went to sleep. The above picture is of my gorgeous nativity set that Susan gave me...since the tree was going up, I had to put up a few of my other Christmas decorations too!

Our beautiful handmade (by Becky) stockings. I love them!

Maddie playing with another of my nativity sets this afternoon.

Our tree! I decided to keep the old tree and to give it to the girls next year (if we're living in a bigger house next year!). It'll be theirs to decorate however they please...that way I can let my OCD run wild on my tree and I won't feel bad telling the girls that they can't decorate it. :) I am extremely anal-retentive about Christmas trees and the above tree, though wonderful, is a compromise tree. I would decorate it differently if I wasn't also determined to include the girls in the process and their adorable handmade ornaments. I love, love, love sitting on my couch with only the lights of the Christmas tree on...it's beautiful.

I would've put up even more decorations (Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday!), but I didn't want the house to look too cluttered because we're selling it. We just put it on the market and hopefully, people will be coming to look at it soon. We found a house about a mile from here that we both really, really like and we put an offer on it a few days ago. The sellers countered and we countered back and we have yet to hear if they'll accept it or not. I'm so anxious to hear what they'll say! If we get it, I'll post pictures of it soon, but if not, there's several other houses that we like that we'll have our realtor take us to see. We're grateful to have options! Wish us luck...