Thanksgiving!!

The Holidays are so much fun! I just love the good, warm feeling I get when our family is all together having a good time! We had Thanksgiving dinner at my moms house this year - and it was great! It's so fun to get together with all of the extended family of course, but it was nice to just have our family there this time (Aubs & Ty had dinner with his family, but we were able to see them later!). We had tons of delicious food of course! I tried a couple new recipes this year - one of them being pumpkin cheesecake! As you can see from the picture, it didn't quite make it to dinner before someone grabbed a handful of it! (Ryan!!... ha ha!). This was one of those rare occasions where I just laughed about it though, instead of being ticked off!! ...I need to make that happen more often!
We also made apple-bacon stuffing that turned out so yummy!! I was excited & nervous to try that recipe, and at the last second I almost chickened out & didn't add the apples, but I'm so glad I did! I would definitely eat it again! And I just had to take a picture of the potatoes because there were so many!
We decided this is one of our new Thanksgiving traditions - giving back rubs while we're cleaning up!
Here's Myke hanging out after dinner!
G-man & Scooter playing with legos!
After we cleaned up a little bit we had a little art project for Mauri & Scooter. I think they both had fun!
Here is "Peaceful Warrior"
And here's "Runs like the River" - he was kind of being like a little Indian! He didn't want to stand still! (by the by, I just recently found this Awesome website that has Tons of fun projects for kiddos. It's called "no time for flashcards" - that's where this idea came from!)
Happy, happy!
Making him earn his keep - cleanin' up the sink!
Erica & Ry made time for some Guitar Hero- and Erica was so happy because she beat Ryan a few times! If you've never challenged Ryan on guitar hero - you've gotta understand this is a Big deal - he's not easily beaten!
Mauri playing on the love sack!
I'm so grateful for such a wonderful, wonderful family - those that were here & those that were far away! I really do count my family among my number one blessings!! (I just have to add that I'm also very grateful Mar & Scooter had so much fun together today! ...and that neither one of them were seriously injured when they were playing with the drumsticks & decided that each other would be the drum! ha ha! I love those kiddos!)

We Get To Meet Eli!

We were so excited to be able to visit with Matt & Katie this week! And it was so fun to meet our nephew, Eli! What a cutie!! Matt & Katie were here to celebrate her Grandmas 75th birthday - and Thanksgiving. It was so fun to see them - and we're really glad we get to see them again next month!

Matt, Eli & Scooter. We visited with them on Tuesday night, and on Wed. morning Scooter told me that Eli was going to come to our house again! He had fun meeting his cousin!
So happy!!
I was lucky enough to hold Eli for a while - and he fell asleep while I was holding him!! How cute is he?! Seriously- he's so darling!! And cuddling with a sweet, sleeping babe is one of my favorite things!!

Cute, Cute Puppies!

So we really wish we could have a puppy in our apartment - because these pups are some of the cutest ever! Ryan's friend from work has 2 chocolate labs, and they had puppies several weeks ago. When we visited them they were 5 or 6 weeks old, and absolutely adorable!!

Scooter is making friends with one of the pups!
There were 11 puppies - and we could have just stayed & played with them all day long!
Eye to eye!
I really, really just wanted to bring this one home with us!! So cute!

Cookies & Candy!

Somehow it is already the third week in November, and I am just now posting our Halloween pics! I'm not sure how that happened! This year we bought a really cool Halloween cook book called: "Ghoulish Goodies" by Sharon Bowers. It is awesome & is now one of my favorite cook books!! Everything we've tried from this book has turned out great - and Scooter was able to help me make a lot of it! Here he is helping me with the bones!!
Swamp Creature Toes
Eyeballs
This cook book is seriously amazing! We had a blast making these things - Scooter helped with the toes & eyeballs too.
We had our annual sugar cookie night at my moms the night before Halloween - and as usual, it was way fun! I thought the sunshine & snowman (made by Erica) were so cute!
Decorating cookies!

A small, musical intermission!
I love these smiles!!
On Halloween we went trick or treating with Lins, Glendon & Mauri. We were so glad that the weather was good! It wasn't as warm as last year, but we were grateful it wasn't snowing or freezing cold!
Scooter is checking out Nana's candy!
Scooter & Mauri helping daddy! (He was sitting on the porch for a while to give the trick or treaters candy because Zoe would bark like crazy at them when they knocked on the door!!)
Ready to go trick or treating! Scooter really liked trick or treating - and he told the people thank you, and a few even got a "happy Halloween!" The next day he told me he wanted to do it again!

We love Halloween!
Mauri laying on the grass - if I remember right she was pretending to be dead & then she popped up and said "Boo!" She is so funny & definitely cracks us up... just like her Mama!!
We carved our pumpkin on Halloween too - and Scooter liked it a lot when we put the candle in! The next day we toasted pumpkin seeds (the recipe was in our awesome Halloween cook book!!) - and I've never actually had homemade pumpkin seeds turn out very good - but these were really tasty!!

A Visit From Gramma & Grampa!

Last week we had a fun visit with Gramma & Grampa Miyake! Scooter was really excited to see them!
Showing Gramma & Grampa his hat!
On Wednesday, Gramma came to story time with us at the library, and then we played at the park for a little while!
Eating a sucker & snuggling with Gramma!
Scooter loved to pose when Gramma got out her cool camera!
Sitting on Grampas lap!
On Thursday we went to see the dinosaur bones at Thanksgiving point! We really like that place! Here are Scooter & Daddy climbing through the cave! ... I decided when we build a house, I want one of these in it! Think how fun that would be for kids to play in!!
Standing under the big dinosaur bones with Gramma!
Playing with some dinosaur toys!
I love getting pictures of all three of us together - and I usually forget to do it for some reason, so I was glad we remembered this time!
Scooter loved the sand & water table! This is another thing we're going to have in our house someday! (Anybody wanna come over and play?! tee hee!)
"This dinosaur is just about my size... I think I'll hop on!"
Daddy, Gramma & Scooter in front of the huge, massive shark!
Playing in the sand & looking for fossils!
Thursday night we went to dinner at Tepanyakis. Man, we love that place! Scooter had fun breaking everyone's chopsticks apart!
But he was a little nervous about the big fire right in front of us!
"No more fire, I'm fine now!"
Playing cards with Grampa!
Sharing some ice cream with Gramma & Mommy. We had so much fun with Gramma & Grampa, and the only thing that made it easier to say goodbye is knowing that we'll see them in December!