The Jessee Journal: Thanksgiving

We had such a fabulous Thanksgiving. We spent the morning baking the pies (a Grasshopper pie that never quite set up -- but it was devoured by small children so I don't think anyone cared, and my favorite apple/cranberry/walnut pie that I overcooked! Go figure ... that's why you don't video chat and bake a pie at the same time!) and watching the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The kids LOVED the parade this year. We also video chatted with my family in Ohio and my sisters and I (minus Alyssa, the snowed-in sister in Rexburg) opened the Christmas gifts to each other. Yes, we opened Christmas gifts on Thanksgiving :) This years theme was ornaments that remind you of your sister so we wanted to open them early so we could enjoy them on our tree for the holiday season. Tricia had me this year and she gave me a medallion I had been drooling over for months (in fact, I was hoping Santa would bring it, but she beat him to it!). So technically my "ornament" was a necklace (with a camera stamp on it that says "Capture Life..." from the Rusted Chain) but Tricia is exceptionally sneaky like that :D
When everyone was ready we headed up to Sandy for dinner at Trent's Uncle Merrill's house. There was a lot of family there and the food was so.good. It even made me a believer of stuffing! The kids couldn't stop eating it either. We're officially giving up chocolate and just eating stuffing instead. After dinner we went back to Lyle and Tina's for the night. Of course Tru and Marilee took an hour and a half to fall asleep! Sheesh, didn't they know mom and dad were waking up at the crack of dawn?! ha. Trent set the alarm for 3:30 (to be at Target at 4 a.m.) but I just could not sleep. I was in that horrible wakeful sleep state alllllll night. It was miserable (this ALWAYS happens to me when I have to be up earlier than normal for something). I heard Tru moan so I moved him back to bed and checked the clock ... and it was already 4 a.m.! The alarm didn't go off! So Trent and I dressed (I was glad to be awake and doing something and not just trying to sleep anymore!) and drove down the street to Target. Just like I thought, we were too late for the external hard drive we wanted, but we still got the other presents that were a screaming deal (and lucky for us, a few days later when the kids were writing up Christmas lists those same gifts were ON THE LIST ... so I am so glad we got them at 40% off when we did! ). Trent was not loving the Target scene very much. The line was Loonnggg -- but it was constantly moving so that was nice --- and he was sore from basketball. By the time we were out of Target Trent was all smiles again ;) haha. I'm not even kidding. We went to Sports Authority and Old Navy next and neither of those stores were busy at all BUT they had GREAT deals for things on our list so Trent perked right up ;) We both picked out a new holiday outfit for ourselves at Old Navy (um, $15 jeans?? Yes, PLEASE) and decided that will be the perfect tradition to end our black friday outings -- new clothes at 50% off ;) haha After shopping we went to Paradise Bakery for breakfast and patted ourselves on the back for getting tons of holiday shopping done for great prices and all before 8 a.m. ;) This was the first year Trent and I went together and I'm soo soo glad he had fun because it's a tradition I enjoy and it's NOT fun going by yourself!
The rest of the day we slept and ate yummy foods and watched Christmas movies. We had a fun holiday treat/movie gift from my sister that was perfect for the day. That weekend we also decorated the house and the tree ... and the tree has been undecorated many times since :)
And here are the pics ... out of order :)