Thanksgiving

Somedays this is how I feel:


After a sabatical last year we resumed our tradition of Thanksgiving with the Williams family. It was great to be back and it really felt like Thanksgiving this year. We drove out to Indiana and had a great time. Of course I didn't take nearly enough pictures. I could blame it on being too busy having fun, but mostly it was just my laziness.
I tried to get some pictures of the kids on Thanksgiving. The older two were great and I got some cute ones, but Kylee had other ideas. This is the best I could do. She loved carting the DS around and didn't want to share with anyone else.

Brynlee loved holding Griff (Skip and Bonnie's son). He is adorable and just loves to be held and snuggled. And you can never hold a baby too much (right Kristin?) She was so shy she just sat there for the longest time just like this. Now if only she was this sweet to Kylee.

There is always a great time to be had with the Williams especially when Rowen will dress up like a princess with Brynlee. Bryn also loved her girl cousins doing her hair and making duct tape bows for her. She loves hanging out with the big girls.

The gang grubbing on some great Thanksgiving food. A great Thanksgiving that went by way too fast.


Trip Highlights
The adults went on a turkey trot on Thursday morning. We had so much fun running in the rain, but realized that maybe some of us are getting too old for this.

Ate some great appetizers before dinner and then our usual traditional dinner. So good and so glad I didn't have to make it.

Kristin, Skip and I went to Wal-mart at midnight to score some deals. It was a madhouse. Only a few people yelling, but we did get mostly everything we needed and had some fun too.

Played lots of fun games and enjoyed some new YouTube faves. Another Thanksgiving tradition: finding funny videos on YouTube.

We went bowling, shopping, slept in and ate way too much.

Another successful Thanksgiving. Thank you Williams family!!

Camping

We love to rock out here at the Hodson home and the kids love taking pictures of each other. I think Price and Bryn got ahold of the camera and took these of each other.


What do you do when it's cold and rainy in Iowa? At our house we go camping. Indoor camping of course.
First we made some indoor smores. *Beware* your smoke alarm will go off when making smores over the stove, but they were definitely worth it.

Then we set up the tent in the basement and had a little campout. The kids had a great time. They want to sleep in the tent everynight.

Jeremy somehow ended up in our bed while I was downstairs with the kids. Luckily the futon is down there and I slept on that. I realize I'm not as young as I used to be and sleeping on the hard floor no longer has any appeal to me.

The other night I heard someone get up and go to into the bathroom. I thought it was just someone trying to get out of going to bed. I went to see who it was and found Price sleep walking. He was so tired that he started peeing on the bathroom floor because he wasn't awake enough to make it to the toilet. Poor kid, luckily it was on the floor and not on the rug or in is bed.

I think this is a sign that we spend too much time on our phones.

She loves to jibber jabber and really acts like she's talking to someone. I don't know what we're going to do when she is a teenager.

Update

We've just been going along here enjoying life. Not too much to blog about, but here's the latest on us.

Kylee: walking more and more everyday. Loves to babble and wave. For some reason she REALLY loves to talk and wave at our friend Gena. Loves to eat whatever anyone else is having. She must get that from the Price side ("Hey where'd you get that? Gimme some.) Usually sleeps through the night, sometimes she does like to get up for a little midnight snack, but it lets me watch TMZ so I'm ok with that.

Brynlee- her usual silly self. I went to check on her outside one day and found her shirtless in the backyard. If she wasn't so much like me I'd have to scream, or maybe that's why she makes me scream. Another day at dinner she announces that our neighbor is just so "handsome". She said that a couple of times. Help us if the boy craziness is already starting. Loves to clean and dust and Swiffer and is so good about having a little quiet time in the afternoon so I can relax and read for awhile.

Price- playing basketball on Saturday mornings. It took awhile to convince him he can't play in jeans, but he's doing well and having fun. There was Jolly Phonics night at his school the other night. He knew all the sounds without looking at the teacher and was so fun to watch while singing the songs. Loves having playtime with his friends, I love having him occupied so he's not underfoot every minute asking for a snack.

Jeremy-working in Keokuk (2 hours away) this week and next. Busy with Elder's Quorum stuff so we haven't seen much of him lately. But he has tomorrow off for veterans day and I've been looking forward to it all week. Hopefully he has too.

As for me, my day revolves around the kids, working out, hopefully reading some and counting down until bedtime (the kids', not mine). We've been having a great fall and some great weather. I just hope it lasts for a little while longer.

Carnival and Halloween Weekend

Price's school had a "Fall Festival" the other night. It's nice to have different things to dress up for, then the kids can be a different thing each night. Price HAD to wear his red Spiderman costume. His buddy Carter was wearing it too and he wanted to be the same has Carter. He kept telling me he had to wear it or Carter would say he was a liar. Whatever, but they sure looked cute together.

Bryn opted to be a princess this night. It's not too much different from a regular day at our house. They pretty much dress up like this all the time.

Brynlee chose her cupcake after winning at the cake walk. Could she have chosen a cupcake with a worse color frosting? And of course it stains everything in sight. A huge mess, but at least she was having a good time.

They were a few games and face painting. It was nice to go for an hour and then we could leave without the kids getting upset. I thought it was funny, though. If you didn't win they didn't give you a prize. All they would say was, "maybe next time". My thought was just give the kid some candy who cares? And I am not standing in that huge line again so he can not get the ring over the bottle just for you to say "maybe next time".
Luckily the kids didn't care and we had fun anyway.

On Friday Brynlee got invited to a party at a neighbor's house. She does daycare and they were doing their Halloween party. They painted pumpkins, frosted cupcakes, and had face painting. Bryn had a great time playing with the kids. Their little girl Chloe just wanted to sit on my lap have me read her kid dictionary to her. Kylee didn't think this was such a great idea, though. And I was just having some severe allergies to their cat and dog. Afterwards I went home and took 2 Benadryl. It pretty much knocked me out for the night, but my allergies were a lot better.

On Saturday we had the missionaries and a lady they are teaching over for dinner. Price rode with Jeremy to go pick everybody up. This is the outfit that he put on in order to do so. Isn't he Rico Suave?



Today for Halloween we decided to just keep it a low key family fun night. I never remember having Halloween on Sunday, but then again I'm from Utah and we would have trick-or-treated on Saturday so I never faced that dilemma. Luckily the kids are young and they really didn't seem to mind they didn't trick or treat. But I actually think this was one of our more fun Halloweens. Given, Jeremy has been out of town for most of them since we've had kids. But we came home from church and had ghosts (open face chicken salad sandwiches), mummy guts (pumpkin macaroni and cheese), eyes (grapes) and vampire blood (red punch). The kids loved it! Then we played games and had some treats. It was a fun and relaxed night and I think a lot more fun than freezing our keisters off trick or treating.

Trunk or Treat

Last night was the Tri-Ward Trunk or Treat. Always a good time. And surprisingly Jeremy actually was here to go with us. He has a history of being out of town whenever we have this so I end up taking the kids by myself.
First there were carnival games.
This is Price's face after eating a doughnut on a string. His face was covered in powdered sugar, but he got the whole thing. He was a very determined boy, but then again he LOVES powdered doughnuts.

Bryn trying her luck at the doughnut. She didn't quite get the hang of it, but she did get a bite or two out of it.

Price was a black Spiderman, Brynlee was a ladybug and Kylee was a cowgirl.

We got more than enough candy and froze nearly to death. But what would be Trunk or Treat without some frigid temps and northern breezes? The kids had a great time and that is what matters

Carving pumpkins

On Sunday we had the Primary Program during Sacrament meeting. It was fun for my parents to be able to see Price and I think Jer was glad they were there to help with the girls. I'm just glad it's over and it went pretty well.

After church we carved our pumpkins. The kids decided what they wanted on their pumpkins and the grown ups carved them.



Kylee loved her pumpkin so much. She was so sad I just wouldn't let her old it all night. She kept hugging it and smiling everytime I would let her hold it.



On Monday we went on a walk down by the river and had some Panera for lunch. We had so much fun having Grandma and Grandpa here. We wish we lived closer to them, but glad they made the trek out to see us. We had fun chatting, playing Dominos and seeing them spoiling the kids.

More Bloomsbury

More fun at Bloomsbury:
Any chance to take a family photo. I notice that somehow Jer seems to take all these pictures. I think he's planned it that way.

The kids had a great time riding in the train. I love that they are at the age that they can do things on their own. It's nice to be able to just watch and not try to squeeze into one of these cars.

This was such a cute idea. They had this place called the "Corn Box". It was filled with corn like a sandbox or those ball pits. The kids loved burying each other in there and playing. And so much easier than real sand. Although we did end up with some corn in the van and in their pants and socks.