so much to be thankful for...

we had a fabulous weekend filled with family, football, games, food {AMAZ-ing food} 

movies & shopping!  yep black friday shopping was good!!

we hosted the Taylor side this year with 30 people on Thanksgiving day and it was awesome!  

Cory made the turkey with homemade bread for the stuffing & well plenty of butter.  

BEST turkey EVER!  

cory's mom is an amazing cook, so we pretty much had the perfect feast.  

she even made her spoiled son, cory his favorite coconut creme pie.

  everything was delicious!

the morning started with a good ol game of football for the boys!  this year it was

 right out our backyard in the field.  {our backyard backs a 5 acre park}

 no fighting for a place to play!

hayes played this year & scored lots of touchdowns!

the Tables

my attempt to a {diy} bow napkin from pinterest.

 and guess who surprised us Thanksgiving Morning?!

judd, candace and mya!

 sisters/sister in laws {missing jane & andrea}

pregnant sisters!! ha   heather and I opted out on this one!

i'm grateful for these sweet babies and my very handsome hubby! ;)

after some cleaning and rearranging furniture we headed upstairs to play some 

BINGO with the kids! 

so much fun!

elf on a shelf....

we have this fabulous tradition that my kids LOVE... It's the cute "elf on a shelf" story, and 

our adorable elf "buddy" comes december 1st to our house every year!

when i was browsing on pinterest, i saw this and was so excited.  thought i would

 share the news with ya'll. my kids are gonna love it!

hope it's cute!!  

friday november november 25th on ABC 4, 7pm eastern 

The 'ELF on a SHELF' Movie!

lighting of Riverwoods!

We went with our friends the Birchall's and the Kimball's to Malawi's Pizza 

and to see Santa at the Lighting of the Riverwoods! 

it was a bit crowded of course.  

Radio Disney was there and kids were running everywhere, you had to wait in a line

to shop at blickenstaffs! craziness, but so so fun! 

Jon Schmidt came later to perform but we ended up leaving before that

 because it started getting super cold and actually snowing!

we had fun running into everyone we knew and the kids LOVED seeing Santa!

p.s  He's pretty much the cutest Santa EVER! 

 he's the real deal!

most of these pictures are from Instagram!   I love IG!  I like it way better than facebook. 

and most of my girlfriends & spouses are on it!  

look for  me "shashtay"

Boston is now very into the "yoyo"  he's actually really good at it.  He cracks me up with

 all his random things he loves and conquers.  he's a determined little bugger. ha!

Waiting in line for Santa!! 

getting closer to the Big Man!  everyone is getting excited...   

see isn't he darling??!!  Santa asked the kids what they want for christmas...

Hayes~guitar & microphone

Ivy~a necklace

Olivia~ american girl doll

Boston~skateboard

road trip!

we took nana & went to Arizona to visit our Taylor cousins and celebrate brynn's baptism 

and birthday! 

 it was perfect warm weather! 

we shopped plenty! { i am a huge fan of the scottsdale fashion square mall} 

& ate plenty...

Tia Rosa's

& venezia's pizza. YUM

on friday 11/11/11 we got to spend the day with Uncle Troy in Tuscon.  It was a fabulous 

experience for me and all of my kids! we love him so much and my kids warmed right up to him.

he loved them!! 

we can't wait for him to come home!

boston, brigham and brooke went to open gym at the skate park one night where you ride all sorts 

of rails and ramps and jump into a foam pit!  obviously they loved it and continued 

the tricks throughout the weekend.

we loved spending brynn's special day with her and playing with our cousins.

i love arizona, especially this time of year~ wink

all the kids got to miss school on brynn's birthday {even the high schoolers}

and we all went to lunch and then to

 the mall to get her ears pierced! woo hoo!

after she got her ears pierced she looked up at her mom and said 

"My dad's gonna kill me" haha!

we were missing our cousin lucy. ha!

hayes loved rocky!  he loved trying to walk him, or more like rocky walking him. ;)

 these girls were giggling the whole weekend! i just love cousins!!

lots of skateboarding and basketball going all with these boys...

i was not so good at taking pictures this weekend, it was all from my iphone and instagrams.  sorry i actually just enjoyed myself. 

Happy Halloween!!

the weather was sixty+ degrees and we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather

 for this fabulous holiday!! 

 i love halloween and all the excitement of the evening!  

 my kids made me the cutest letters and cards and right before they went trick or treating they 

got me all my presents to open! 

they weren't even in a hurry to go trick or treating they were more excited to 

see me open their presents.  so darling.

i love how much they love halloween too, and that it's my birthday! they love to tell all of their friends.

i love how they always make sure that it's my special day too, cory always does a good job of 

that.  I just love my cute little family!

the big '37' {sigh}

after school we did the witches brew again with some of the kids in the neighborhood!  

So Fun!!

i turned on some halloween music and the fogger and we were ready. haha

some of our cousins came by and the kids were off trick or treating a little early! 

olivia has the cutest bff's in our neighborhood and tessa was 

dressed up as "Alice's rabbit" so cute!

 they were done trick or treating after a few cul-de-sac's and came back to pass out the treats!  

while waiting for boston to return home for the night, these littles cuddled up in our bed to watch 

"casper the friendly ghost"