Thanksgiving 2015

I love Thanksgiving!  It's the official start to the holidays (in my book).  I love getting together with family, eating good food, looking at Black Friday ads, and thanking my Heavenly Father for my abundant blessing. 

We decorated for Christmas on Thanksgiving Eve.  We went to Stephanie's house for Thanksgiving and knew we wouldn't have time that weekend to decorate.  Christmas seems to go by in a flash and I like leaving the decorations up as long as possible!  While going through the decorations I found our stash of plates we used for years and years.  I didn't have matching plates until two years ago!  Seeing the plates caused me to reflect on the little sacrifices we made to become debt free.  This was one of them!


In my town the Thanksgiving paper comes out on Wednesday.  Nice for the people at the paper and those doing the paper routes!  I brought my paper up to Steph's so we could all look through it.


Thanksgiving was so much fun!  And relaxing.  And busy with lots of shopping!  Stephanie treated us to scrumptious food the whole weekend.  We arrived about an hour before dinner.  Darrell and Lois' families were there too. 






The outside kid table.  Great weather on Thanksgiving day! I bought all of the plates and such, and everything was disposable.  I am not crafty, so no cute centerpieces like Deb did last year! What was so fun about this table though was after the kids all left and were playing, Lee and I gathered up the ends of the plastic table covering, tied it up like a bag and threw it away.  Easy cleanup at its best!










Every Thanksgiving before we eat, three popcorn kernels are placed on each plate.  Everyone each takes a turn saying three things for which they are thankful.  Not sure where the tradition originated, but we did it growing up as kids and I think all of us siblings keep the tradition going.  (Right guys?!)




Saying what we're thankful for.






SO many yummy pies!  20 in all!


That night we hit up some stores for shopping. So much fun!


This window display was hilarious.  The store was about to open...it was about midnight when I took this picture.  The mannequins weren't thrilled about the holiday sale, apparently.


The next day after more shopping that morning, we all headed to a park for the afternoon.




Even I got up to the middle two different times using my arms!


Cousin time is the best!




Near the park was a soccer field.  The kids played dodgeball and then we had our annual Thanksgiving Day race....though a day late.  The winners get their own whole pie.  Reed won the 8 and under group.  Cal won the 9 and up group. 


Steph yet again was awesome and had homemade gingerbread all prepped for us to make houses!  I was thinking about getting together with friends this year to make houses, but since we did it at Stephanie's house I am going to count that!  Yet another family tradition....making homemade gingerbread, then houses, every Christmas season.  Love it!






























Haley created a cute reindeer and sleigh.


That night we shopping again to one store in particular.  Do you know which one? Stacie, Steph, Lois and I went.  I know I am putting myself at risk by posting this...I may delete it.  It was so fun!!!  That night after the kids were asleep Lois, Steph and I showed Lee all the things we bought.  We were all squealing at the merchandise and Lee was laughing at us.  Too funny.  One of my favorite memories from the weekend! I think I am more excited about Christmas morning than my kids!


We headed home Saturday afternoon to get some things done before Sunday.  What a great holiday.  Thanks Stephanie for all your hard work!  We loved being there! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Holiday Preview & Maggie's Birthday

Wow, the holidays are here!  Halloween kind of kicks the season off with a candy overload!  Thanksgiving and Christmas are all one great season of thankfulness and holiday cheer!  And I love that Veteran's Day is near Thanksgiving too.  My sister Deb and I were talking about this.  What a better way to enter the Christmas season than to have a day of Thanksgiving, and to add on to that, a day to thank those men and women who have served us and our country!

First off, of course some random pictures for you. Cal made this Pac-man Lego picture thing.


One Sunday our Bishop gave a great talk about the Holy Ghost, and living our lives the right way.  (Something along those lines...)  He asked the members in the congregation to close their eyes and imagine their homes.  What does it look like when you walk inside?  What would the Savior see?  Lee and I looked at each other and smiled because the current state of our house was a disaster at that moment.  We were in the middle of projects, getting furniture orders delivered and what not, and we did not prepare properly for the Sabbath! I took a picture when we got home and sent it to Lee.  It was pretty funny.  Normally we're not too bad about cleaning up, but that particular weekend it did not happen.


Cracking open our first package of peppermint Joe Joe's!




Veteran's Day!  The elementary school does a cute program for Veterans.  Lee was able to go for the first part.  Before the program started there were refreshments for them in the cafeteria.  We loved our time in the military and we would do it all over again.  Thank you to all of our Veterans! 


What made the program even more special (and mainly why Lee and I came) is the 3rd graders performed.  Can you spot Shanna and Haley?




One day I saw gas for a super low price.  Wow, never seen it that low!


We've been trying out different almond milk lately for fun.  One time I picked up cashew milk.  All of the kids prefer cow's milk, except Cal!  He really likes the almond/cashew milk!


Haley told me she was taking drama pictures of herself while she was pretending to be sad. I find all sorts of pictures on my phone!


One Saturday we were at the mall and swung by a store to use the restrooms.  To our surprise Santa was there!  Clark was raking leaves, so he wasn't with us.  But all the other kids sat on Santa's lap, received a candy cane, and some fun goodies. 








I noticed that the younger kids were carrying around napkins they found in the van.  I asked them why and they said the napkins were so they could write down Christmas wish list items.  Too funny. 


While we were having fun, Clark was raking!  Lee showed up and Clark was still raking.  He bagged and Clark kept on raking.  He auctioned off 2 hours of raking to raise money for Scout Camp.


Random photos going on for awhile.....anyway......I went in to a long-ago day at Elden's classroom for a few minutes. I helped the kids make yarn dolls.


Lee made a cute little puzzle for me to ask me on a date! Good thing Lee was home when I spotted the first piece.  I thought the kids had stuck a random piece of paper on the wall and I was about to throw it away.  Lee gave me a weird look, so I further investigated. Fun invite!


School pictures came back.  I don't get them because they are expensive.  I have Cal's but didn't know where it was when I snapped photos of these.


I love this one of Haley.  She didn't want me to pick out her clothes or fix her hair.  She got ready all by herself.




We are in full swing with house projects.  One night I redid this dresser!  I was going to get rid of it (it did have all the white knobs, fyi) but after looking at it, I decided to keep it.  Plus it's made of real wood which made it more appealing to keep.  Our friend's gave it to us while we were in optometry school.  We've been using it ever since. And in true Ruth-sense, I never did anything to it during that time.  Lee had to find new screws here and there to keep the knobs on, but that was it. The kids added stickers to it!






I needed a snack while slaving away at the dresser...




What do you think? I really like how it turned out! So glad I kept it!  I'm glad my vision for it turned out. The knob pulls were from China, and they were not threaded properly.  I had to go the hardware store and buy shorter screws.




For the date Lee asked me one we went to a Japanese Hibachi grill with some friends.  It was so much fun!  We are going to go there as a family in December for lunch.  The kids are going to love it! Lee attempting to catch shrimp in his mouth.




On a Saturday we drove up for Maggie's birthday!  It was so much fun being there!  Happy birthday Maggie!  Her cake that my sister Stephanie made was sooo cute!






Maggie was so tired she fell asleep during the birthday cake, and wouldn't wake up to open presents.  Being two is lots of work!


Steph and Andy opened some of the presents, but Maggie was still sleeping.  She opened the rest the next day.


So fun being with sisters!  STEPH: DO NOT MOVE!


Too funny that we all wore stripes!


I ordered some prints that we will hang in the kids' rooms.  So excited about them.  Thanks Lois!!!  Elden's are all hung...well, except for the temple. There are others too, but here is a peak. These particular ones are for Clark and Cal's room.  And Shanna and Haley have pink temples.  Thanks Hanna for the great temple picture!






A sneek peek at our second bathroom reno. I said I would never do drywall again after doing it in our main bathroom.  Well, here I am again, YES, again doing drywall in our half bath! 


Lee put in a new front storm door too.  The old one was ratty.  And the garbage people picked the old one up!  YAY!


Kids having fun with cheap candy finds at Sharp Shopper.


Happy Pre-Holidays!