a turkey for me and a turkey for you...

Yep, it's my Thanksgiving post. Sure it's almost a month after the fact, but better late than never right? This year we were super excited to have Jared and Lindsay and crew join us down here in Utah for a whole week's worth of family time! It was so much fun. We spent every day hanging out, eating, talking, playing, or watching movies. We even took some time to walk around the BYU campus, see the lights at Temple Square, saw "Rise of the Guardians", and walked around the Riverwoods looking at lights, seeing, Santa, and riding in the carriage. It was a great week. The kids were on a cousin high the entire week, and I know Q had a hard time adjusting back to our boring life. As for Thanksgiving day, we had a great homecooked meal and had some fun playing some Thanksgiving themed games with the kids.

We took the kids to the park one day to get some wiggles out, and Jared got them all into a soccer game..it was hilarious.

One night we went and had an early dinner at Tucano's, and planned to walk around the Riverwoods area afterward...then the kids spotted Santa, and their reaction was absolutely classic. They were so excited. Oh I love Christmas joy.

Q wrote to tell Santa she wanted a rock polisher, although she has since changed her mind, so we have to tell Santa. haha

I love the Santa at the Riverwoods. His cozy setup and lack of annoying helper elves, makes for a nice experience. 

Jared and Lindsay wanted to show their kids the BYU campus, so we all headed up their one day to take a look around. I realized, as we walked around campus, that I had no recollection of where any of my classes were...i guess those years were a blur. haha

Of course, if you come to Utah during the Christmas season you have to hit up Temple Square and check out the lights. Q LOVES christmas lights, so it was going to be a fun night. Kim and I remembered Cali and Ashley talking about the church history museum and the cool interactive stuff for the kids, so we decided to hit that up while we were up there. For dinner we stopped at Kneaders at the City Creek mall...yummm...raspberry bread pudding. 

Instead of Gingerbread (or graham cracker) houses, we choose to decorate "christmas trees" (Pinterest idea). I tried baking the cake inside like it said, but that didn't work out, so we just let the kids go to town on the sugar cones. I think they had fun! 

For Thanksgiving we had a delicious spread of the usual turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, and stuffing. I prefer to eat it in sandwich form...in fact I quite enjoy thanksgiving day meals more the day after. I thought about making Grandpa Earl's pomegranate salad, but one year our family was in charge of pitting all the pomegranate's and I knew what a pain it was...I didn't have the drive to do it again. 

Kim, Lindsay, Kaiya, and I colored these plasticware holders for the table...cute right?

and of course, family time isn't complete without treats! I found a couple easy recipes on pinterest that I wanted to try, and having family around gave me the perfect opportunity. 

Thanksgiving morning I made these easy monkey fingers, out of grand biscuit dough, butter, cinnamon, sugar, and sweetened condensed milk

the kids loved these little "acorns" made from kisses and mini nilla wafers

I made a chocolate pudding pie, layered with cinnamon graham crackers, graham cracker crust, and chocolate shavings on top....delicious!

It was a great week!