Thanksgiving week in review

What a great week. Like I said in the last post it was a nice, long weekend for our family – we were able to spend a lot of quality time together.

We all met up to celebrate the holiday at my dad’s house in Eugene. Cameron had been there since Sunday (remember?) and I took a bus up there on Tuesday. It was nice to all be together again – a little weird being apart from Cameron too!

While Cameron was without myself or Keith, word is he did great! Dad even got him to drop a deuce on the toilet (I cannot stress how amazing this is! I have cleaned up countless dooties in his underpants…). Anyway, Cameron’s behavior gradually got worse and worse as the week went on. Frustrating! Melt down after melt down. Now that we are back, it was pretty obvious that his little pack and play is too small for him and so he wasn’t sleeping well. An exhausted Cameron certainly made for a (mentally) exhausted mommy, at least. That was our only real hiccup, other wise it was great.

 

[you see? he was so exhausted he actually fell asleep while Keith was reading books to him. He NEVER has done that before!]

The meal itself turned out amazing! I was in charge of making sure the turkey didn’t get screwed up. Out of all the T-day foods, the turkey is the easiest. Just put it in the oven and check on it every now and then for burning and it’s good! It was a butterball and for whatever reason those don’t even require basting so it was even easier!  My dad also asked me to make placecards for the meal (having some extra family over as well) so I did these. Little turkey silhouettes with names and our family prayer tucked behind so those that didn’t know it could follow along.

 

[as you can see, dad made a few minor adjustments. Keith was … yup, you guessued it ‘yogurt boy’. :)]

Have you heard of the zhu-zhu pets? They are supposed to be really hard to find this Christmas but Bekah and Rachel each got one from their Grandpa who clearly has the hook ups. I don’t get why these are soo cool but they kept everyone entertained and Cameron couldn’t be pried away either (and, yes he did have a meltdown with the toys thanks for asking).

 

[supposed to be gerbils but they could definitely pass for mice!]

doesn’t like olives as it turns out. it’s okay Cam – we don’t either!

[playing piano]

 

Saturday afternoon we headed over to Portland for a Thanksgiving with Keith’s side of the family. It was nice that they were doing it on Saturday, everyone was available to come! I didn’t take any pictures but Keith got this one of Cam stealing a hug from his cousin, Sam.

 

[you can tell Keith took this pic because of that black shadow in the bottom. He likes to put his hand on the lens like paparazzi but it blocks the flash. I’m trying to break him of this habit! :)]

Keith also had Monday off, so we decided this year we would go into the forest and find our own tree. I couldn’t believe the price – only $5 for the tag….can’t beat that!

As we were trudging through the snow, preparing to find “the tree” Keith recalled a convo with his dad the night before.

Keith: “Yeah, dad said pretty much any tree you get from the forest is going to be a Charlie Brown tree.”

oh………

Yes, the pickings were slim, but we did see this one.

 

[plan: cut most of it off and only use the top, healthy part of the tree]

[timberrrrrrrrr]

[pruning out all that nasty stuff!]

[steph and jaden tagged along for some sledding while we picked out our tree and loaded it up]

so, yes it is a little charlie brown-esque but it has personality! and we made some fun memories picking it out. Most of our ornaments are from Keith’s childhood – he got a new one every year.  Check out that last one – wasn’t he a cutie?

 

Random, yes but hilarious! This was hanging to dry and he just really wanted to wear it! Looking a little saggy there, bud!