The kids and I went to Utah this year for Thanksgiving to spend time with family (poor Jason couldn't take enough time off work so he stayed home). The past couple years we've gone to Utah for Christmas, but we knew I'd be in my third trimester at Christmas time this year, so we opted to visit at Thanksgiving instead. It's always nice to be with my family. They absolutely spoil us when we're there. My Mom always goes out of her way to make us feel at home. She had our room all set up, toys for the kids to play with, their favorite foods in the cupboard and she volunteered to babysit several times. I got a much needed break.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house where we enjoyed all of our family's traditional festivities.
My mom and sister, Emily were wonderful chef's...
Zeke (nephew) helped too...
My dad carved the turkey, it smelled delicious...
Tressa snitched the olives and put them on her fingers (just like we did when we were kids)...
Corbin was thoroughly entertained by uncle Tony (my youngest bro) and the cool train set he brought over...
After dinner the kids were a little restless so uncle Tony took them outside for a quick game of football. It was pretty cold, but they needed to get out and run around.
Later when things calmed down a little Grandma read a few books to the grand kids
and we played a rousing game of BINGO...with prizes and everything. BINGO is a tradition in my Mom's family and we really get a kick out of it. We call out all the cheesy jokes as the numbers are called..."B4"...."and after" (hee, hee, hee)....same jokes every year. And everyone reminisces about prizes we won in previous years...like the 5 lbs. Hershey's bar I got one year when I was a kid. My mom finally chopped it up and put it in cookies because I was never going to finish it! This is the first year Tressa was big enough to have her own card and actually understand the game. She doesn't look it in this picture, but she was thrilled to play the game and she loved her prizes.
Another highlight was the beautiful Christmas dresses that my Grandma Spratt sent for Alie, Tressa, and Rachel. They tried them on right away and danced and twirled all around the house.
Later that evening we stopped over at Grandma and Grandpa Briggs' house to visit.
Tressa enjoyed playing the memory game with her cousin Becky. I remember playing the same game with Becky when she was about Tressa's age. It was really cute to see them play together...Becky is so sweet to Tressa.
Later they went downstairs and danced while her cousin Brandon played Guitar Hero.
Highlights for Corbin were playing blocks with Grandma (she was so patient to keep building towers for him to knock down with his cars),
and rough-housing with uncle Jordan (Jason's youngest brother).
And of coarse they loved playing with the dogs (except for when Maxx tackled Corbin and tried to bite his ears)! Here they are with Sadie...she's the calmer of the two dogs and the kids love petting her and snuggling up with her.
It was a wonderful holiday - all except for the fact that Jason wasn't with us. In fact, the poor thing was sick to his stomach on the couch all day and couldn't even stomach a bite of the pumpkin pie I left for him. I figured at least he probably got his fill of football, but he must have been REALLY ill because he said he hardly watched any. I felt bad that we were so far away and couldn't take care of him.
A couple days later we went back to the Briggs' house to celebrate Nanny's 90th birthday! (Nanny is Jason's Grandma) What a remarkable woman.
We spent the rest of the trip doing fun things with both sides of the family....Chuck E Cheese with the Briggs Family, the children's museum with Emily, Sarah, and our kids, and since most of my family had to go back to work after Thanksgiving I got tons of quality time with my big sis, Emily.
Doesn't she look awesome! She recently lost some weight and is looking so skinny and beautiful. Since I'm in the process of getting more and more hugely pregnant I didn't want to stand next to her! Actually I loved every minute together...even though she looks way better than me. We went shopping, saw the twilight movie (and both decided to read the books), did some fun things with our kids, and she even treated me to pedicure and massage as an early birthday present. She's the best! We both dream about living closer to each other so that we can spend more time together. Her daughter Rachel is about 16 months older than Tressa (same age difference between me and Em) and they are the best of friends too. They loved spending as much time as possible with each other and even got to have a sleepover one night at Grandma's.
Before it was time to go home, we snuck in a trip to temple square with Grandma, Grandpa and uncle Tony to see the lights. Afterward we had hot chocolate at Tony's new house.
That was probably the last time we'll be traveling for a while since the baby's coming in March. I'm so thankful we were able to go....we miss you guys already!
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