Thanksgiving so-on, etc.

The lovely snow we had quickly melted when the temps warmed back up into the 50s and 60s. It was quite warm out when I took my kids to afternoon recess - we were the only ones there, and it was really fun. It's typical for us teachers to have indoor recess when it's winter weather, but although it looked wintery this day, it felt nice and we enjoyed it before it all melted away.

I know I say this every time, but life is so so busy, particuarly because of school... getting more so because of Liam's twice a week Living Christmas Tree practices (which, this week is 7x - counting performances), and with the holidays coming of course. We did take a few minutes to enjoy this sunset last week. 

For future reference - here is how I did my mantle for November, pretty basic especially compared to how it looks  now... more on that another time.

Because Jen & Grant were going to his parents for Thanksgiving, we had a little Knight Family Thanksgiving the Sunday before. One of the things I made were the Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes recipe. They were SO good. As you can see, Carolina totally dug them - she licked the beater and the spoon and cleaned out the mixing bowl. I'll share the recipe later.

Then on Thanksgiving day I brought a salad and a pumpkin roll. Carolina was very interested in watching me prepare the lettuce, and once I left the kitchen and came back to find this. She's handy with that stool I'll tell ya. But as it turns out, tearing lettuce is a perfect activity for a 3-year old!

Then the cousins arrived!!! Carolina and Olivia are basically attached at the hip the whole time they are together (not always a good thing) - but they sure are cute! This picture Jeran took is probably one of 

my favorite pictures of the two of them, ever.

However - with cousins in town, comes late nights, comes crankiness, comes...

But what can you going to do? We want them to be able to spend as much time as possible with them. We even did a little mini-Christmas on their last day and exchanged gifts. The girls both got Sofia the First boomboxes with microphones and they certainly did like them. 

Meanwhile Liam and Dyl were busy with their respective Lego presents (since no Minecraft/iPad was allowed)... also see how terrible my pictures look. Weird.

And apparently I have no pictures of Denali. She's gorgeous, like a 90's Guess Jeans model. I wish I had one to show! I did a terrible job at taking pictures.

Sunday, after they'd left, we did a lot of cleaning, got groceries, and managed to get out a few Christmas decorations... but we probably won't get our real tree until Wednesday - if that works out. So weird that we will only have it for 3 weeks before Christmas! 

These mini wreaths and mini trees are live - from Trader Joe's!