Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend just hanging around at home! My grandma and grandpa came down from Michigan to visit, but they stayed at my parents house. We spent quite a bit of time all together, but when we were tired we were able to retreat to our own house to rest. We ate and prepared food all day long on Thursday. We also did a couple of Skype calls to Kendall's family as well as my brother and my Dad's brother and sister and their families. So any family that we weren't with, we saw and talked to at least.

The day after Thanksgiving we did NOT get up early to go shopping, but we did go later in the day when everyone else was tired, so the lines weren't too long and things weren't very crazy. We went to the Dollar store and let each of the kids pick out what they wanted to get for every other member in the family. This was a great idea, and a nightmare to actually do. Avri was not understanding that we were not shopping for her. She threw some big fits thinking that we were telling her that she was not going to get any presents, and it was kind of ridiculous. We then went to a tree farm and found a tree and cut it down with my parents. We are trying to save a little money this year, so we are going to use their fake tree. We spent that night and the next day decorating both trees. We only broke ornaments at our house, and had to pull the kids out of the glass a couple of times, but there wasn't any blood.

Here is a not very good picture of the tree and the hoodlums who decorated it! We also went out to dinner on Saturday with my grandparents and that was fun for everyone. Finally a meal that we didn't have to prepare OR clean up!! Those are my FAVORITE! Saturday night we got our first snowfall! So we woke up Sunday morning to a white world and that was very exciting for the kids. After nap time on Sunday we went over to my parents to sled down their hill. (Is sledding a Sunday appropriate activity?) But by the time everyone was awake and all the gear was on it was totally dark. So the pictures are dark, but the kids had way more fun than I would have ever guessed! Here is Macie in her first snow!! She wasn't out too long, but she thought it was great.Here are all of us girls, cheesing it up! Well, at least Avri and I. But Macie's look cracks me up!Daddy is so good at playing, he seems almost tireless!

Last year Talmage was still kind of little for the snow, but this year he trekked up and down the hill so many times, and all by himself while it was dark! I couldn't believe him! I don't think that he went down the hill the same time twice, either. He went down on his tummy, on his back, sitting, kneeling, backwards, forwards and every other way he could think of. Then he'd haul his own sled back up the hill and Kendall would push him down again.

Avri and Mom made snow angels, but when I tried to get Talmage to he just cried.
While Talmage kept sledding Kendall helped Avri build a snowman. It actually fell over before we even left my parents' house that night, but we didn't tell Avri that.

While the older kids were outside Mercedes was enjoying some time all to herself with Mom and Grandma and Aunt Amber. She was quite happy so we got a bunch of pictures of her. She is such a little elf. She has the Dietz ears that go back for many generations, poor girl.

We then did something that is becoming a tradition for Sunday nights, a movie picnic. We make dinner and eat in front of the TV while we watch a movie together as a family. To save the carpet we get out a big blanket and call it a picnic and the kids think this is so much fun. Well, we decided to do it at my parents house this time and we watched the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It occurred to me a few days ago that my kids don't know the classic stories of Christmas, so we introduced them last night.

The only other thing that we did this weekend was Harry Potter marathon. Kendall and I are finally reading books together again, and we are working on Harry Potter 5, which we started ages ago, but didn't ever finish. So all this Harry Potter made us want to see the movies. Over the weekend we watched 1-4, and we still have number 5 waiting for us. We watched every night into the late hours, and anytime the kiddos were sleeping. I always said that I would never be Harry Potter crazy, but I guess I should never say never.