Thanksgiving Weekend

I feel like the holidays are here in full-force at our home, and it has been so much fun!

It all started with Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner was great this year; we had the Elders and two families from our ward join us - the Hansens and the Brockbanks. Everyone contributed amazingly delicious food and we had a great time talking, eating, playing games, and generally enjoying each others' company. The kids played and played and then watched a movie in our room. That is the only 'people' picture I got from the entire day, but I thought it was cute:

The kids' place settings - we had them decorate their own with crayons.

The 'grown-up' table looked cute with the place mats.

I have a new tradition of going shopping Friday morning with my wonderful friend, Laurie. We got up at 4:00 and hit our two favorite Black Friday stores: Wal-Mart and JoAnne's. As always, it was a complete blast and so worth it!

Friday afternoon and evening we unpacked our Christmas decor. It was almost as good as Christmas morning! Katelee was in heaven as we unpacked our collection of Christmas books, Christmas dolls, the train set that goes underneath the tree, and our nativity sets - including the plastic one meant for her to play with. We set up the tree and put green garlands and twinkle lights on the piano, entertainment center, and sofa table. It feels so festive and cozy in our home now; I just love decorating for the holidays!

Friday night we were invited over to play games with some good friends in our ward. What are the holidays without a few game nights, right?

Saturday morning we danced to Christmas music as we hung the ornaments and lights on the tree. Then Katelee and I worked on Christmas projects during the day.

Saturday evening we had one of our favorite annual traditions: the Soup & Sing. We try to do this every year, though we haven't always succeeded. This year it was so, so, so much fun that I don't think we'll miss a year again! :) The idea is this: you invite a few couples/families over. Everyone brings a pot of their favorite soup. We enjoy dinner and afterwards we gather around the piano with a huge stack of Christmas music and sing and sing until we can't anymore. This year we invited Gerald's brother Geoff and his wife Bonnie, the Hansens - a family in our ward that we love who also happen to be Bonnie's cousins, and Larissa and Jordan - a newlywed couple we are friends with and wanted to get to know better and who are also friends with Geoff and Bonnie ... all the random connections within this group was really funny. Everyone that came was very musical, and though that is not a requirement, it makes it really fun. We took turns playing the piano (we even had a guitar player) and choosing songs. It really was a wonderful night. Katelee and her friend even played a few songs for us. :) Gerald said later that is was the most fun he has had in a really long time, I think I would have to agree.

The weekend ended with our stake Christmas Sing on Sunday night, which was beautifully put together. What a great weekend we've had to start off the holiday season.