Thanksgiving

 Michelle and Brian graciously offered to host our entire family for Thanksgiving.  We had a wonderful time together.

One of the highlights for me was getting beautiful family pictures with everyone in them.

Kristen and her crew came on Tuesday.  They went to a local elf hunt with Michelle.  I love the pictures they shared.



And they went shopping at Gardner Village.

William was the model of fun things they found.

Music boxes

Thanksgiving morning, we participated in a Turkey Trot in Orem.  The Camerons weren't with us yet, but everyone else ran in it except me.  It was a fun family activity.

Some had a bit of help running it!

Here comes Lisi.  She won first place girl in the 2-4 age group.  She won a turkey!

Here comes William!

Ready to run!

Along the route were hidden lots of turkeys.  The Mackrory family found three of them and then Lisi won one.  So they got four.  Jared quipped, "Four turkeys for the family that doesn't like turkey."

Lisi with her ribbon and prize ticket.

Audrey and Kenny were in the same age group.

The older group ran at 8, then the children at 9.  I sat in the van with the younger kids while the adults ran.  They watched a movie.

Here comes Kenny.  He kept a good pace and ran a good race.

Audrey coming across the finish line.

We then hurried home and everyone pitched in to cook the Thanksgiving dinner.  They set up tables downstairs for us to enjoy the feast.

Fruit Salad

Man, that turkey was so good.  It was moist and tender.

A Prince tradition is to have this slush for Thanksgiving.  We thought it fun that Ken's mom had almost the exact same recipe as the Prince's grandma had.  He remembers her making it.

We added blessing feathers to the grateful turkey.

After dinner, Gabbi gave pigtails to all of the boys.  We had to get a picture.

The kids made turkeys out of oreo cookies, frosting and candies.

Jake getting pigtails

Before Thanksgiving dinner, everyone traced and cut out their hand.  Then we wrote a blessing on each finger.  We brought these to dinner with us and each shared their five things they are particularly grateful for this year with everyone.  It was such a sweet exercise.  It helped me get to know everyone's hearts better.

There were games going almost all of the time.

Family pictures on Friday morning.  We were supposed to take them outside, but over three inches of snow fell overnight.  But I love how they turned out!

This is what we woke up to that morning.

After pictures, we had "Christmas" together.  It was so nice.

Princes gave each of the Mackrorys an ornament meaningful to them.

Camerons gave Ken a new garden hose after they saw the state of his!

Michelle gave her sisters sweet nativity necklaces.

Even Fred got a new ball.

Waiting for Christmas

Thank you, Aunt Michelle.

Sammy got a puzzle that he had to immediately put together.

Girl shopping was a highlight!

On Friday evening, we all went to the Orem temple open house.

When her mom told her where we were going, Lisi ran over to me with pure joy and excitement in her eyes and exclaimed,"It will be my second time!"  She was so excited to go.

Sometime while we were there, Brielle lost her purse.  They discovered it missing on the way home.  They called the temple security guards who looked and reported they didn't find it.  It had her credit card, driver license, temple recommend, and epi pen in it.  On Saturday morning Kristen drove back to Orem to the temple and looked herself and left her name and number with three different people.  Several days after getting back home to Colorado, a security guard called  and said someone had turned it in and he told them it would be his privilege to. mail it to them.

A highlight of the weekend was attending Gabbi and Jaron's piano recital on Saturday morning.

We were SO proud of these kids.  They did so well and have really advanced.  It was all I could do not to jump up when they finished and give them a standing ovation.

On Saturday, Ken and I stayed home and watched the BYU game.  The rest went ice skating.  Kenny chose to stay with us.  He is so fun to watch BYU with.  Following are some skating pictures.

Even William got the hang of it.

Games, games, games!

Food, food, food!

Barbecued chicken, pineapple, cantaloupe, roasted potatoes, and green salad.  All prepared by Brian and Blake.

Michelle and Brian's sweet neighbor across the street saw our big crowd and brought two pans of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls.  They were delicious!

We had delicious food all weekend.

This cauliflower soup, salad, and homemade bread meal was delicious.

Lisi is the baby of our family and what a delight she is.  She has such a sweet, bright, cheerful personality.

When our family gathers, there are always a lot of stories read.

Lily and Hannah presented Michelle with homemade gifts to thank her for hosting us.

There was quite a tussle one day as all of the cousins tried to steal Nathan's phone as he was texting with his girlfriend.

Nathan won, but it was a battle.

Sweet Lily even gave me a footrub.

Getting ready for pictures.

Sweet dreams and God be with you until we meet again!