Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was low-key this year which was really nice! My mom has been here visiting from Kansas for the week. Miles LOVES having his "gra gra" around! We know that isn't an easy drive to make, but we are so thankful she continues to make the long haul here to see us every once in a while. We love to have her around!

Instead of preparing a big Thanksgiving meal for the four of us, we decided to have our Thanksgiving feast prepared by someone else, Tucanos. Tucanos is a great Brazilian restaurant where freshly grilled meats and vegetables are brought directly to your table for your selection. In honor of the holiday they also had turkey prepared many different ways and the traditional sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, etc. It was so nice and relaxing! I stress out way too much over preparing a big meal like that so I'm particularly thankful I didn't have to do that this year! Plus, we got extra goodies like my favorite garlic sirloin. We even sort of got to celebrate the occasion with our dear friends and neighbors who were with their family at the table right next to us. Too funny!

Miles particularly loves the tongs he gets to play with while at Tucanos



Happy Thanksgiving Dada and Miles



Our waitress took a family photo for us

Towards the end Miles had lost his patience so we
brought out his "big truck" for him to play with



Happy Thanksgiving Gra Gra and Mommy

Even though we had pumpkin pie at Tucanos, I decided to also make a pumpkin pie just so we'd have some to enjoy later. This was my first attempt at making a pumpkin pie completely from scratch (well, sort of...I bought pumpkin in a can and didn't prepare that straight from an actual pumpkin). Dave helped out with the crust (he pretty much did 99% of the crust actually). Our pie got rave reviews from those who ate it.

My dear hubby doesn't necessarily agree with this, but since it is the day after Thanksgiving we've been busy putting the tree up and making sugar cookies. I just love this time of year! I think we need to get some shatterproof ornaments this year though since we have a VERY curious 2-year-old.

Grandma leaves tomorrow so we have to get as much holiday celebrating in as we can!

Family pictures

Our photographer, Aynn Thurman, posted a preview of our family photos we had done in the middle of October on her website. I think they turned out great despite the fact that Miles was way more interested in playing than cooperating for pictures. I've also realized how much weight I've gained back and it makes me disappointed in myself. Where did all of my motivation go? Ugh!

If you are interested in seeing the preview, visit her website by clicking here.

Projects Galore

For the last five weeks I've been unemployed and have enjoyed every minute of it! I've been spending my free time working on projects. I've probably gone a little crazy with how many new projects I've started as well as working on older projects I never got finished. I am a bit overwhelmed at this moment which seems so silly to me! A few of my projects have deadlines though (Christmas gifts) so I need to keep trucking along. Here are some pictures of my latest projects.

I got this idea from a fellow blogger who got the idea from a craft blog.
I don't have any Halloween decorations really so I decided to start with a homemade wreath.
(this was made back in early October)



I finally finished Miles' stocking that I started shortly after he joined our family in 2009



We started a cabinet refinishing project on October 20th.
What a HUGE project! We'll be lucky if we are done with this project come spring.
I'm very pleased with how our first finished cabinet looks though!!!!



Miles even helped me while I was painting one day!



With the help of a friends' step-mother, I'm attempting to crochet dishcloths
for the first time in my life



These are the squares that we cut out when Miles & I went to St. George. I haven't even begun to sew them together yet, but I laid them out to get an idea of what it will look like and I'm excited to work on it when I get a chance.

Trick-or-treating

Dave unfortunately had to work last night so Miles and I were left to figure out what to do on Halloween with just the two of us. We fortunately live in a great neighborhood and were invited to tag along with a few of our neighbors for trick-or-treating. Last year we only went to a couple of houses of people we knew so this was his first experience with real trick-or-treating. I figured he'd love running around the neighborhood with his friends.

We had a great little group of trick-or-treaters and even picked up a couple more along the way. One of those added to the group was an older boy dressed up as a vampire. Miles was scared to death of him! He ended up in the stroller for a while. He did some trick-or-treating that way which was making me laugh so hard. I finally "forced" him to get over his fear and join the others in running around and he agreed. He caught on to the process fairly quickly and would even say his own version of trick-or-treat, "oo oo treat!" He was very polite and would say "thank-you" too. He is such a sweet little boy.

We didn't make it as far as the others did before a full blown meltdown began to happen, but for his first official trick-or-treat I think he did a great job. It was pretty much bedtime anyway so we came home and handed out candy for a while before we called it a night. We had a lot of fun and are so thankful for such wonderful neighbors and a great neighborhood!

Attempting to get a picture of him before the fun began



Trick-or-treating companions
(the three little ones are all pretty close in age)



Miles' version of trick-or-treating



Our fun neighbor, Kory, handing out candy
(his house is always decorated so fun)



Miles couldn't wait to crack open the candy



Returning from his last house
(right before the meltdown began because mom wouldn't let him have another sucker)