Thanksgiving Recap

We had such a nice Thanksgiving weekend. It was very relaxing and fun to spend time with friends and family. I haven’t posted in forever (I have about 3 half written posts in my drafts folder – someday I will finish them!). First up a few Thanksgiving projects.

I saw this wreath post idea on Pinterest and I had Allen build me one a couple months ago. We made a few design tweaks and I LOVE it. This is actually my Halloween wreath on it and I had a cute Harvest sign on there for Thanksgiving. I loved my porch this fall!

I also made a Thankful tree with my kids at the beginning of the month that we decorated with leaves that we wrote the things we are thankful for on. The kids thought it was great and we really enjoyed discussing our abundant blessings. For the record, most of Addison’s leaves had to do with Disneyland!

Addison has been attending a once-a-week holiday preschool that a friend in my ward put together (separate from her regular PS class). She is running it October-December and has done some DARLING projects with the kids. One week they made pilgrim hats, Mayflower art and a turkey advent countdown to Thanksgiving (we pulled off a feather every day until turkey day). The next week they made these cute scarecrows and homemade pumpkin butter. Addison is having a ball with it!

The kids made these cute turkeys that we used as centerpieces for the kids table. I gave them the supplies, briefly explained the project and they did all of the work themselves. I was so impressed!

On to the main event! Adam, Laurie and Hyrum came from AZ to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was so fun to have them here. On Thanksgiving morning, the boys got up and played football for a couple hours and had a grand time. Carter loves that he is old enough to play now too! The girls stayed home to work on food preparation and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. My kids were such good helpers all day and really loved getting involved this year.

Makenna peeling sweet potatoes:

Addison scooping stuffing into muffin tins (my favorite way to make stuffing – bake in muffin tins for slightly crispy, non-soggy individual portions – yum!)

Carter helping with pies:

Laurie made SIX pies in the morning (apple, sweet potato, lemon meringue, chocolate pudding, pear and almond joy):Carter loved taking care of the babies while we worked:
I had fun setting tables this year. Adult table:


Kids table place setting:

I covered the table in brown craft paper so the kids could draw on it. The sugar cone/cornucopia was filled with some yummy trail mix that I made. This was a perfect addition because it kept the kids full and busy until we were ready to eat dinner.

Laurie, Adam & Hyrum (my only regret of the day was that I did not take a picture of my own family :(

Adult Guests:

We had 18 people at our house this year. Our family, Laurie & Adam, and two families from our ward. It was a fun group and we had an AMAZING meal. Afterwards we played games while the kids ran amok and had a grand time.

I am so grateful for this time of year to reflect upon my many blessings and express gratitude to the Lord and my family. In no particular order, I am feeling especially grateful for: Allen, Eternal marriage, my children, motherhood, my extended family, good health for my family, forgiveness/repentance/mercy, humor, friends, good books, reliable cars, the scriptures, latter-day prophets, the temple, vacations, a comfortable home, modern conveniences (iPhone, pinterest & DVR), getting to stay at home with my kids, the Atonement, book club, cute clothes, General Conference, healthy food, Allen’s good job, my kids amazing school, modern medicine, my camera.

Rachelle's Wedding

On Saturday evening, after Jake's wedding and luncheon my niece Rachelle got married. We hurried from the luncheon and drove to SLC and met my parents at their hotel. Addie and I slept for about and hour while Allen {somewhat grudgingly} took the big kids for a quick swim. We were so hot and tired after the long hours in the sun at the temple. Originally I had planned for all of us to wear our Jake wedding attire to Rachelle's wedding but after wearing those clothes for 2 days we were in dire need of showers and fresh clothing.

Anyway, we rushed to Cactus and Tropicals, a nursery in SLC where Rachelle's wedding was held to help set up for the reception. It was chaotic but thanks to my parents and sister, the whole thing turned out really nice. My sis and mom made some AMAZING desserts for the reception and the setting of the wedding was beautiful.

Unfortunately I did not take as many pics as I wanted to since we were helping with food. Here are the three good ones that I got. All the pics I took at the ceremony turned out bad. Rachelle left disposable cameras on the reception tables and needless to say, my kids had a REALLY good time with those. She posted the pics on her Facebook page and Allen and I laughed our heads off looking at them. I will try to get copies so I can post them here. They had a really fun time taking pics of each other, the other guests and everything else you can imagine.

After the wedding it was late but we were hungry for some non-dessert food so we headed to In N Out for a quick bite with my little bro and his girlfriend. We had never met Christina so it was fun to chat with her and get to know her {she's an avid reader too so we had a ball comparing books}. We finally got back to the hotel at about 11:00 p.m. where we crashed for a few hours before driving to Portland the next morning.

The wedding turned out beautifully and we are so happy for Rachelle and John and we are so happy we could be there for their big day!

Jake's Wedding

We started our whirlwind 17 day trip by traveling to Utah for Allen's youngest brother, Jake's , wedding. We had originally planned to fly to the Pacific NW for our family reunion this year but when Jake got engaged and planned his wedding the weekend before we were planning to go, we decided to drive since we would be half way there anyway. The timing worked out great. It worked out even better when my niece decided to get married the same day as Jake's wedding. We basically killed 3 birds with one stone!

Anyway, we drove up to UT (a 10 hour drive) on Thursday afternoon and made it by about midnight. We stayed with Mindy and stayed up WAY too late talking that night. The next morning we slept in a bit and then had lunch at Cafe Rio. Hooray for yummy and cheap Utah food! After lunch we headed over to Erica's house (the bride) to help with reception preparations. Jake and Erica decided to have the reception the evening before their wedding ceremony. The reception was gorgeous and filled with lots of yummy food. My favorite was the cookie table they had with about 20 varieties of different cookies! It was so fun to try everything (and when I say we tried everything, I mean it!).

We took tons of pictures the hour before the reception began:

Family Picture attempt #1:

Family Picture attempt #2:
{Neither turned out stellar but baby is definitely making it's presence known in this pic!}

The loves of my life:

Some of the grandkids:

Grandma with her granddaughters: The guys:
Jake and Erica had a fun dance party at the end of the reception {where I got some amazingly hysterical footage of my kids dancing) and then we headed back to Mindy's tired, sweaty and full of yummy treats {where we stayed up way too late talking once again}.

The next morning we had to be at the Provo temple bright and early for the ceremony. It was a lovely ceremony and we were all emotional watching Jake and Erica make their sacred and eternal covenants to each other.

After the wedding we took more pictures!

It was a HOT day and the kids played and played in the fountains - no matter how many times we told them not to {at one point we actually had to fish Addie OUT of a fountain - yeah, good parenting there}:

Part of Frost clan:

The bride and groom with the siblings:

Allen's mom put on a lovely wedding luncheon for the family and friends at a beautiful new reception center in Provo. The food was fab (catered by Magleby's) and it was fun to be together for a few more hours. This was the lone picture I took at the luncheon of our new niece Madeline. She kept giving me these adorable grins that I just couldn't resist.

We are so happy for Jake and Erica and are excited to get to know Erica even better! She is a smart and fun girl and is a great addition to our family!

Next up, my niece Rachelle's wedding! {Hoping/planning to get caught up on my blogging this week. If only my daily afternoon nap would quit getting in the way!}

The Weekend

It was a grand weekend all around. A few months ago a few of Allen's college roommates decided to go the BYU v. Oklahoma football game in Dallas. Al decided to go with them and also met up with his brother Steve. Needless to say, they had a fabulous time together. Was that a game or what?! We were watching from home and could not believe that the Cougs pulled it off!! Here are a few pics from his weekend:

Al said the Oklahoma fans were really cool and a lot of them came up after the game to take pictures with them and their signs. One of Al's roommate's even made it into one of the OK newspapers. Other than the game there was apparently a lot of eating out, attending the Friday night coach Mendenhall football fireside, career discussions and NOT talking about their wives/families (I asked Al how the wives/families were and his reply was, "I have no idea, we didn't really talk about you guys." Nice.)

My weekend was unexpectedly fabulous as well. On Friday afternoon at about 3:00 there was a knock at my front door. I assumed it would be one of the neighbors wanting to play with Makenna. Imagine my delighted surprise to see my mom and dad standing there instead!!! I had no idea they were even coming! I was completely blown away and it took me awhile to even process the fact that they were here! We had a great time together and mostly just hung out and played. We ate out a couple times, went to the movies, had my uncle over for dinner, etc. It was so fun and relaxing!

At Chick-fil-A yesterday where we got a free sandwich for wearing paraphernalia from our favorite sports team. The place was packed and there were quite a few Cougar fans there. Amazing how a BYU shirt can immediately bond people together (outside of Utah, I suppose).




Anyway, it was a great weekend! A big thanks to my parents for coming and making it so fun and memorable for me too!

Happy Birthday Nic!

Today is my sister Nicole's 30-somethingth birthday. I'll keep it a secret in case she doesn't want the whole world to know exactly how old she is!

So since I haven't sent her birthday present yet, I thought I'd try to make up for my slackerish ways by blogging about her instead. So here's 30-something things I LOVE about my big sis!

1. She is my best friend. We talk at least once a day. Our husbands have no idea how we have so much to talk about but we somehow do.

2. I can tell her ANYTHING and know she will not judge.

3. She gives great advice.

4. She is an awesome mom. She makes having 5 kids look EASY.

5. She is a great friend.

6. She gives awesome gifts. She has a knack for finding really unique and perfect gifts!

7. She is a great scrapbooker. She not only keeps up a family album and albums for all her kids, she gives them as gifts too. And she is sometimes even caught up (gasp!).

8. She loves me so much that she has me programmed me as two of her five free numbers on her cell phone. My cell phone and home phone numbers! {have I mentioned that we talk a lot?!}

9. She is super adventurous and is always trying something new.

10. She has a great relationship with her husband Jon. They have taught us a lot about marriage. They always make each other a priority.

11. Her house is beautiful. She is a great decorator!

12. She has really great fashion sense and is always dressed really cute with fabulous accessories.

13. She loves kids clothes as much as I do. We talk about this a lot :)

14. Never once in my ENTIRE life have I felt an ounce of competition from her. I'm pretty sure this is rare in sisters but it is such a blessing. It is such a safe, comfortable relationship for me.

15. She came to visit me for a week when I lived in Connecticut just for fun. It was such a GREAT trip and I have many fond memories of that time together.

16. She is in awesome shape. You would never know that she's had 5 kids by looking at her. She's a really good example to me in putting fitness as a priority in life.

17. She gets me. I don't know how else to explain it.

18. She is a really good cook. We are forever swapping yummy recipes. She doesn't like to cook but she is good at it!

19. Traveling is one of her favorite things and a huge priority in her life. We have some fun upcoming trips that we're planning together.

20. She is very generous with her time and means.

21. My dream in life is to live near each other. Maybe someday.

22. I think it would be dangerously fun to live close to one another. She is a great shopping buddy.

23. She is a very laid back mom. Much more so than I am. I have a lot to learn from her about that.

24. Her kids genuinely love her. It is neat for me to see the developing relationship between her and her older kids. They WANT to be near her. I pray that my kids are the same way.

25. Family is very important to her. She makes lots of sacrifices to spent time with her family, especially since we don't live close.

26. The year that I lived in Seattle, only a couple hours from her, was one of the best of my life. It was so fun and reassuring to have family nearby.

27. She is genuinely interested in my kids.

28. She babysat my kids for 10 days when Al and I went to Hawaii in 2006. Bless her.

29. She is great in her callings and church and always, always supports her husband in his busy callings.

30. She taught me that it is OK to leave my kids sometimes. They will survive and even have FUN without me!!

31. She keeps me sane.

32. She has more energy than anyone I know. She is always on the go.

33. She always has something fun planned when we are together.

34. She is the best sister a girl could ask for!

I could go...and on. Suffice it to say, I love my sister a lot!

Happy Birthday Nicole!! {PS, if we were together today, I'd take you to lunch, out for a pedicure and maybe top it off with some shopping!}

Can't resist...

... posting a little sneak peek of our family photoshoot from the weekend!

Thanks Erin! I can't wait to see the rest!

Laurie's Wedding

Last weekend Allen's little sister, Laurie got married. We got to spend the weekend in Al's hometown and had so much fun. A ton of his extended family came into town for the big event so that made it even more exciting. Here's a "few" pictures from the reception and wedding.

The happy couple arriving at the reception (which they held the night before the wedding):

LJ decided to have a circus themed reception which had me a bit nervous. Her friend did all the decorating and it was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S. It was all vintagey and totally amazing. Here's some of the decor (which of course my pictures do absolutely no justice):

(I'm still Jonesing for these amazing vintage pennants. I want them for my playroom SO bad!)

She served cotton candy, shave ice and popcorn as part of the refreshments:

She had the most beautiful floral arrangements everywhere:Sample centerpiece- every table was differentCarter picked Laurie a "bouquet" out of the lawn at the church and he was so excited to give it to her:Cute cousins - so excited to eat their cotton candy. They all ate SO much junk that night - I think Carter had about 7 snow cones alone!

She had all kinds of fun cakes and wanted to serve milk with it:Adorable airplane and banner hanging from the ceiling:

Our family at the reception:My mom and dad just happened to be coming to town at the same time as the wedding. My dad's 50th high school reunion was the same weekend (my dad and Al's dad graduated from the same HS)

Our family at the temple. There were clearly about 10 cameras trying to get a picture at the same time and no one knew where to look. I can't wait to see what the professional photographer gotCute cousins with the bribery candy from the photographer (brilliant). In M's other hand is her very first lip GLOSS that I bought her last week. It hasn't left her hot little hand since - LOLMakenna was OBSESSED with Laurie's wedding dress. She told me repeatedly, "Mom, I've got to have that same princess dress. I'm going to put it on my Christmas list. Tell Santa I HAVE to have one too!"

The rest of the weekend was great fun playing on the ranch - four wheeling, rope swing, treehouse, hiking, hanging with family, etc!

We're so happy for Laurie and Adam. They are a great couple and compliment each other wonderfully!