Thanksgiving 2014

We spent Thanksgiving at my brother Mike and Amy's house!  The kids had fun playing with their cousins.

I did some of my food prep at home and then did the rest at their house.  I was making mashed potatoes in this picture.  Surprisingly, the food preparation wasn't that bad between the two of us.

 

We had some yummy snacks before dinner.  I taught Brady and Hayden how to put olives on their fingers.  They got a kick out of that.

 

Mike busted out his original Nintendo from the 80's.  The kids had fun playing the "old school" Mario brothers.

Mike helping out in the kitchen.  You have got to love his "OV gloves"!

 

It was fun having Steven and Emily with us this year.  Steve had his turn playing Nintendo.  He is going to school at BYU-Idaho right now.  It was fun sharing with him some of my favorite memories of Rexburg winters.

It was a beautiful day.  Emily took the kids to play at the playground.

 

The cousin's table.

 

Parker LOVED his turkey legs.  He literally picked the bones clean.  He also had about five glasses of sparkling grape juice. 

Mckenna with a full stomach.  She loved this banana chair of Mike and Amy's.

 

Emily made homemade pies!  The chocolate one was so delicious!

 

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a picture of Kev taking his turkey nap.  He even had a lego tower in his hand this time.  We woke him up just in time for some pie.

 

Addy looked so darling eating her pie while the rest of us watched the Lego movie.  We had so many leftovers that we had second Thanksgiving the next night too!

Recital time!

Mckenna and Parker both played in Grandpa's piano recital last week.  Parker started taking lessons at the beginning of the summer.  This was his first recital.  I love this picture I took of them.  They are both looking so grown up.

Great Grandpa Grant helped the kids stay happy with his container full of M&m's.

 

Parker announcing that he will be playing The Train song.

 

Parker told me before we left home that he was nervous.  I was also nervous for him.  He had practiced a lot and that helps.

He played really well for his first time.  He had a big smile on his face when he went to take his bow.

 

Mckenna played a song called Persian Market.  She played flawlessly as usual.  She looked so beautiful wearing her gold Christmas dress. 

 

 Kev's sister Lisa and our niece Aubrey also played.  I am sure it was a proud moment for Grandpa to have three of his grandkids perform.  Parker told me just tonight that he wants to be like Grandpa when he grows up!

New York City!!

Loni, Kayley, and I left for New York on a red eye flight on Thursday night.  We couldn't wait to see Teenie!  It had been almost a year since I had seen my sister. I took this shot out the window as the sun was beginning to rise and we were flying over New York.

 Loni and Kayley right before we landed.  You can tell they are Mother and Daughter.

 

Please excuse the sleepy faces.  It was about three in the morning our time when we took this.  I did manage to sleep some of the flight.  At one point, I looked over and saw Kayley sleeping on the fold down eating tray.  I thought that was a good idea and tried it.

We were so happy to finally arrive in NYC!  We found our hotel with not many wrong turns.  We stayed at the Doubletree by Hilton.  My sweet Grandma paid for our hotel.  She said as long as we chose a nice hotel in a nice area she would be happy to pay for it.

I took this picture of me in the lobby.  They had glass mirrors all over the ceiling.  I thought it was really cool.  Art on the ceiling.  Loni even ended up in one of the square reflections.  We received warm chocolate chip cookies upon our arrival.  We couldn't have been happier with the room. 

We had a happy reunion with Teenie.  Sister are the best!  We went for a walk along the Hudson river.  Then we ate brunch at a delicious French restaurant.  Teenie got up and paid the bill without us noticing.  She said it was her treat.

We walked through the city to get to the Empire State building.  We saw all kinds of sights along the way.  We were entertained by this street performer.  He was wearing purple snake skin shoes and this burgundy suit.  It was classic.  Teenie was impressed with his "high kicks" and took a picture.

We did the audio tour of The empire state building.  I learned a lot of fun facts about the making and architecture of the building.

The view from up top is always impressive.  It had been almost nine years since I had last been up there.

 It was so cold up there!  We could only take being outside for so long.  Teenie and I love to take ugly selfies when we get together.  This wasn't even the worst.

 

The next morning we got an early start and headed down to battery park.  We took the ferry to see the Statute of Liberty.

I took a picture of the New York skyline.  The tallest building is the new 9/11 memorial building.

We also did an audio tour of The statue of Liberty.  It was my favorite of all the tours we did.  I loved how New York still had colorful leaves on all the trees.

Kayley and I posing for a traditional picture with the statue.

 



We tried to push the buttons on our headset at the same time.  That way we would be at the same place in the audio tour. It didn't always work out that way.

Our next stop was Ellis island.  It was a first for all of us.  Once again we did the audio tour.  We told Kayley she didn't need to feel bad about missing school since we were having such an educational experience. 

 I got distracted during my audio tour when I saw that you can see The Statue of Liberty right from the windows at Ellis island.  I wonder how many immigrants enjoyed this same view.

 

 There was a wall where some immigrants wrote their names.  This signature stood out to me.  Rosen is a family name.  I still need to ask my Grandpa if it looks familiar to him.  It  could be one of our family ancestors. We went to the family research center at the end and Loni did find one of her ancestors. She came from Russia.

We met up with Teenie and went and saw the 9/11 memorial.  It is a peaceful place among the bustle of the city. 

I took an upclose picture of the new memorial building.  The building created an optical illusion.  It is not really a triangle.

 

 We told Teenie we wanted a fine dining New York experience.  She knew just the place to take us.  One of her favorite places in Brooklyn called Reynard Restaurant. We ordered warm roasted olives for an appetizer.  They disappeared very quickly.

We had a wide variety of food and enjoyed everything we tried.  We all shared with eachother.

 

 Loni had trout.  Kayley had a burger that was aged made from a grass fed cow.  Teenie had duck which I really liked.

 Here is a picture of my dinner. I had lamb with gnocchi. I savored every bite.

 

 Kayley spotted this giant jar of Nutella as we were walking along.  You can see it was bigger than her head.

 We went and saw the broadway show called Once.  We really liked the music. It was different from a lot of broadway shows I have seen.  They had all the actors sit on the stage during the show.  When they weren't speaking they were playing the accordion, guitar, violin, and fiddle.  It was funny because on the way in a random man said to us, "You know why they call it Once don't you? It is because you only want to see it ONCE."  After the show we all ended up agreeing with him.

 

On Sunday we went to the MOMA (modern museum of art)  I really enjoyed it.  I was happy to see this Andy Warhol exhibit.  I enjoyed how a lot of the art was an interactive experience. You get to look, hear, and walk around through.

 We met up with Teenie at the Met.  It is one of my favorite museums.  I never get tired of seeing Monet, Manet, Seurat, and Van Gogh.  We finally asked someone to take our picture so all of us could be in it together.

We had a nice walk through Central Park.  The leaves were beautiful and the weather nice.  It was a perfect Sunday stroll in the park.  I downloaded a Pedometer app on my phone when we got to NY.  I was curious to see how much walking I did.  One day my phone said we walked around 7.5 miles.  New Yorker's walk a lot.  It was such a fun weekend and went by way too quickly.  The best part of the trip was getting to hang out with Teenie. 

Our home teacher delivers!

Our home teacher came to visit us last month with his son. He asked the typical question, "Is there anything I can do for your family. Kevin and I could think of nothing. McKenna then pipes in with, "we haven't been booed yet."(meaning no one has rang the doorbell and left treats) We all just laughed at Kenna's request. We didn't think much about it after that. About a week later the doorbell rang several times in a row. I was upstairs and yelled for Kevin to get it. He looked out the window and came to the conclusion that it must have been doorbell ditchers. When it rang again he opened the door and saw two boys run to the side of our house. There were pumpkin cookies sitting on the porch. McKenna was so happy! It made her week. We really have the best home teacher!

Halloween!!

We started the day off at the kids parade at their school.  It was Hayden's first time being in the parade.  He was happy when he heard us cheering him on.

Addy and I went and helped out with Hayden's class party afterwards.  I was in charge of the craft.  I helped the kids make hats that looked like spiders.  Hayden loved having his little sister come to class with him.

Hayden with his class.  His teacher Mrs. Mcpherson was dressed up as a baby.

Parker wanted to be batman this year.  I took some pictures of him jumping on the tramp.  We got some cool shots of him that looked like he was flying.

Addy had fun being Elsa for the day.  It was definitely a popular costume this year.  The kids counted about 40 Elsa's during the school parade.

Hayden looked great dressed up as Woody.  He was so excited to go trick or treating.  His primary teacher promised him a special treat when he came by her house.

Halle was dressed up a 50's girl this year.

A group picture of all the kids.  They were anxious to start trick or treating at this point.

Mckenna and her friend Annie were Thing 1 and Thing 2.  They both worked hard to make their costumes.

They turned out really cute.  Mckenna's favorite part of the costume were the furry leg warmers.

Parker had fun trick or treating with his best friend Ryker.

Addy got tired of trick or treating and came back home.  She sat with me on the porch and ate candy and ate some more.  I could tell after awhile that she was on a sugar high.  She was cracking everyone up.

I hadn't planned on dressing up but put together a costume at the last minute.  I borrowed Mckenna''s peacock feathers and earrings from last year.  I spent most of the night handing out candy and visiting with friends that came by.

It was such a nice night.  The boys just sat on the porch and went through their candy.  Parker had about six pounds of candy.  Mckenna came back with around seven pounds.

The rest of the kids watched a Halloween move while they enjoyed sorting and eating their candy.