Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving! We had my side of the family, Ryan's side, and Pam's side. Later in the evening our friends, the Coulter's came over for desert. My sister, Jen came up the night before and stayed with me and helped me get ready. Everyone brought something yummy to eat, we had more than enough food.
I made activity packets for the kids with coloring pages, mazes, word searches, etc. We also put butcher paper on the kids table as a tablecloth so they could draw right on the table. They had fun with that! We also hid turkeys around the house that the kids had to find, as a prize, they got jars of "turkey toes" aka candy corn.
Poor Rylie got a bad case of Fifths disease and had a horrible rash and lowgrade fever all day, but still managed to have a great time with her cousins. She had all her cousins there except for two that live in Arizona, so she was in heaven! (She still has a fever and her hands and feet are swollen and painful, but her rash is looking much better.)
I have a lot more pictures that I want to share, but I won't overwhelm you! I posted them on facebook if you want to see.

Turkey Feathers

(this post is a little late, but I didn't want to forget about these pictures for my own memories)

More Thanksgiving Prep

Snow and Savings

We have snow! It is cold, down in the teens. The kids had a fun snowball fight earlier this afternoon. Ryan and Mom had one too!
I also got some good savings at Albertsons today using their doubler coupons and some manufacturer coupons from the Safeway Thanksgiving book. I spent $3.50 and saved $86! I got 24 free cans of vegetables! We are trying to do more hospitality (this will increase as we get more into Church Planting) so some of the things I've been getting lately will be great for that. I have some more coupons that I want to use to get some more free vegetables, paper plates, etc. but I'm not driving in the snow, so we'll see.

Thanksgiving Prep

I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year with my side of the family and Ryan's side. I've been doing a few things to prepare and I thought I'd share them with you in case anyone is looking for some ideas. I found all of these online, unfortunately, I didn't save any links.
I have photo place cards of everyone. I'm going to have them sticking out of their cups. I also have their names on place cards that are going to be attached to their napkin rings. I made these paper baskets to hold crayons in for the kid's table. I am also in the process of putting together an activity book for the kids. I have a fun turkey hunt game with a fun prize for them that I will show you when I finish.
I found these cool food place cards that I'm going to put on the table, and the large "Get your Pie on" one that I'm going to put in a frame on the desert table.
We have our Gratitude Tree, the round leaves are for each day of the month, the other leaves are for us to write things that we are thankful for.
And then I have my cheap Thanksgiving art. I just printed this on my home printer and framed them with frames from the Dollar Tree.
I have water bottle labels, straw holders, a banner, etc that I'm working on, I'll have to show you later.

I love my coupons!

$145 worth of groceries for $9! Overall, I got $200 worth of groceries for $40 (that included 2 turkeys), but I just took a picture of the best deals, the ones I used my coupons on. I got one of the turkeys for free (a $28 value) because the lady in line in front of me got a good deal on it but didn't want it. She turned to me and said, "I live alone, if I buy this turkey, do you want it?" I said, "of course"! I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year for both my side of the family and Ryan's side so we have a big group.
I got all of this at Albertsons by combining their current sales with their "Twice the Value" coupons and some other coupons.

Today

“We are TODAY accepted in the Beloved, TODAY absolved from sin, TODAY acquitted at the bar of God." Spurgeon

Leaves

I loved making this craft as a child. Rylie and I made these leaves the other day with melted crayons and wax paper (and our iron).
Fall is my favorite time of year and I love the colors of the leaves changing so it was fun to bring some of that indoors!

Trick or Treat!

We had a great time Trick or Treating! We had a short window of time before the evening service at Church (where Ryan preached a great message on Martin Luther and Reformation Day). Madelyn's parents joined us for Trick or Treating. That was fun for me because they some of our closest friends. Madelyn's family is going to be moving to Sweden to be missionaries, so it was fun to give her the "American" experience of Trick or Treating.
Every year we just go through my parent's cul de sac and the girls have been happy with that. This year, now that Rylie is older, she's wised up to the fact that you can keep going to other streets! So we did another street before we had to leave for Church. It was just the right amount of walking for their little legs and just the right amount of candy, not too much! As we were walking, Anna kept saying, "This is so much fun!"
At one point a Policeman drove by and then turned around and pulled over and gave the girls candy. They thought that was pretty cool!

On My Wish List!

*Updated to add: Thank you Daddy for buying me this! It is no longer on my wish list!

The very creative and inspiring Nie Nie has made her own calender for 2011 and it is now for sale. And it's on my wish list! My kitchen wall needs it, I need a monthly dose of her creative genius!

Halloween

For Halloween this year we had Ming Ming from the Wonderpets (a duck that rescues other animals), and a Fairy. Rylie has been going through a tomboy stage lately so I was surprised when she said she wanted to be something "pretty". She chose one of her dress up dresses and then accessorized herself! Anna loves the Wonderpets so I was excited when I found this costume a few months ago at Walmart for only $5! They only had her size left too!
After church, we went to Elisa's annual Halloween party. We got to take our friend, Madelyn with us this year. The girls were so excited to have her with us. They thought it was so fun that she rode in our car, for some reason this was a really big deal to them. Tomorrow I'll show you our pictures from Trick or Treating!

Awesome Pumpkins

I had to share with you these awesome pumpkins my friend Marci made for the Church Harvest Party! She did such a great job organizing the whole party. There were carnival games, face painting, crafts, a bounce house, Bible story, mini golf, cupcake walk, chili feed . . . the kids had a BLAST! She put a ton of work into the party and I just loved these pumpkins!

Harvest Party

These are some of my favorite pictures from our church harvest party. I have a ton more that I want to share so I may do a slideshow. I know a lot of people have already seen them on facebook, but there are some who aren't on there.
I thought it was hilarious that Jill and Andrew dressed up as my parents! I just about died when I saw them walk in! We had to get a "Grandparent" picture to remember the night!
It cracked me up too that Jimmy dressed as my Dad, complete with face mask!