Thanksgiving at Home

We were supposed to be with Tara's parents for the official Thanksgiving day this year, but they were traveling so we decided to have the small family celebration ourselves.  Here we are stuffing our grass-fed, all natural, free range, non-stressed, 13 lbs turkey.  These guys haven't seen too many turkeys cooked so they were all excited to see the action first hand.  I'll be honest, I think this was only the second turkey I had ever cooked myself so I was fairly nervous.  We through him in a bag and then into the oven he went to get tasty.

We still set out the table with our fine china that gets used about once every six years.  We had to warn the little men to be very careful with it!  They turkey turned out fairly well, but not quite as good as if a real pro was the chef.  The mashed potatoes and green bean casserole were excellent as always, though.

After some serious cleaning up, we broke out a brand new game to teach these guys: Risk.  I wasn't quite sure how this would go, but they actually got super into it and we played for hours.  It seems that our oldest son has determined that it might be easier to attack the youngest son's countries rather than facing off head to head with Dad.  It's a good strategy for success, but not awesome for making sure everyone has a good time.  I do enjoy watching these guys learning to think and formulate strategies and do this on their own.  They are certainly growing up before our eyes.

Estes Park - Part 2 of 2

"Y-M-C-A, it's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!!!"  My children could seriously be the best advertisement for this fun mountain destination.  They ask about going back all the time. 

This picture was taken in town.  One of the kids' highlights this visit was visiting the glass-blowing shop in Estes and the gem and mineral store on the main drag.  They eat that kind of stuff up, and I love watching their faces in such moments of utter fascination! 

Estes Park - Part 1 of 2

I can't believe how big my boys look in pictures...OK, and in real life!  We always have a blast going up to the YMCA camp in Estes, and this trip was no exception.  Even with Gavin being extremely sick this trip :( we really had such a fun, memorable time.  We thought he was just experiencing motion sickness on the drive up (we stopped in Estes to buy some Clorox wipes to clean the van, and world's sweetest brother, Gage, was down on the ground cleaning up his brother's vomit), but it unfortunately turned into a full-blown stomach bug of some sort.  I have to say that both boys were real troopers, and it was good practice for me to get up during the night to help Gavin when he was throwing up.  (Let's be honest, I haven't done much of the late-night duty since I finished nursing!) 

And, thankfully, there were enough good moments during the day for Gavin that we still got to play outside, visit the arts and craft shack, play mini golf and do all of the other wonderful things we enjoy doing when we go up to Estes.

Just look at him--so giant and so adorable! The kids liked playing at the park outside of the arts and crafts shack, and I think it had just been re-done recently before our arrival. 

You really can't tell from these pictures that Gavin was a sick puppy for much of our stay this round.  This picture was taken in the boy's bedroom.  Bless his heart, Gage slept through all of Gavin's trips to the bathroom, and housekeeping at the YMCA was AWESOME!  And, honestly, I was so thankful for the energy and sense of responsibility that God gave me to handle all of this on my own. 

Thanksgiving at the Toppings

Having a big Thanksgiving celebration always brings me back to my childhood days.  I have all these great memories of when we used to have all my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents packing my grandma's house with tables of food spread all out through the house.  We don't quite have that many these days, but it's still a fun time seeing family.  Above are some of the grand kids with Grandpa Mike.

These turned into the kids table for dinner, but also served as a Gingerbread man assembly line.  It appears that these guys were more preoccupied with eating the sugar toppings for their cookies than posing for a picture.  I guess you can't blame them!

First Snow!

We were excited to see the first real snow of the season.  Though it wasn't much, Gavin scrounged just enough of it up to create this midget snow man.  He had like half a chest and a block head.  What you can also see in this picture is Gavin's new snow suit that we purchased for him as he had outgrown last year's set.  This set is pretty nice and hopefully will fit him for at least two or three years.  It's a matching blue Columbia set of ski pants and coat. 

Gage got out in the fun a bit later but didn't stay long.  We got a quick picture of the two of them.  You will notice Gage in Gavin's old yellow coat from last year.  I guess this is the curse of being the younger, smaller brother.

Just Being Boys

There isn't much of a story with this, but it is fun to get an occasional picture with the three of us boys.  I think this started out as a TV show watching endeavor and soon morphed into a dog pile or wrestling fest on the couch.

Leaf Pick-up Crew of Two

Now that we are into November, we have started the first of many leaf cleanup sessions.  We have several large trees in our back yard including a 50 foot Catalpa tree, a 35 foot Cherry tree, and many Aspen trees.  They never quite drop their leaves at the same time so it is best to bag what we can get and wait for the next round.  The best part is that these guys still think it is fun and willingly seek out some rakes and plastic bags.  I am sure I won't have too many more years before this doesn't seem as fun and I will have to start shelling out some money for our young capitalists.  Like most other things outdoors, I love watching these guys work outside together where they always seem to get along the best.