November in a nutshell

** November 1-30, 2015 **

The month of November flew by! And in 2 more weeks, its Christmas!  But first, here's a few highlights from November...

Madden and his friend Kellan won 2nd place in their flag football championships!  Madden was pretty excited about his sweet trophy and came right home and put it on his bookshelf in his room next to his soccer trophy and basketball trophy.  Next up?  T-ball in the spring...

Probably one of my favorite things about our new house is how close we are to the park.  Its the most popular park in our neighborhood and where everyone in the ward hangs out.  Its basically become part of our daily routine to spend hours there...

 

Sometimes, we even stay at the park til dark and just tell daddy to join us there on his way home from work.

And if we're really lucky, we'll catch an Arizona sunset like this on our walk home...

Madden's 1st grade class had a Thanksgiving Feast that I was able to go in and help out with.  I just love seeing him interact with all the sweet friends he has made in his class...seems like only yesterday he was the "new kid" who knew nobody and sat alone on the playground and cried everyday when it was time to go to school.  Now he loves school!  Love his teacher, loves his friends!  It makes my mommy heart so happy.

Cohen, Madden and Miles

We decided to spend our first Thanksgiving in our new home this year...no traveling, and no guests....just our little family.  And I have to say, I loved it!

Since we weren't cooking for a ton of people, I made it as easy on myself as possible...I bought a pre-cooked (delicious!) smoked turkey from Honeybaked Ham and frozen rolls and honey butter from Deseret Bookstore and made the rest of my favorite traditional thanksgiving dishes from scratch, with a little help from Randy. ;)  It all turned out amazing and we had delicious leftovers FOR DAYS!

While I cooked all morning, the boys colored some Thanksgiving art work...

and watched football and thanksgiving parades on TV with daddy...

And then, when all the food was ready, we feasted...

(martinellis, smoked turkey, gravy, twice-baked mashed potatoes, cranberry salad, deviled eggs, cornbread stuffing, crunchy green bean casserole, and my personal favorite, Pecan Yams, which clearly I couldn't even wait until after this picture was taken to dig into)

Madden made everyone turkey corsages that he insisted we all wear on our wrists while we ate...

Then after our tummies were full, we took the boys to the movie theater to see the new Disney movie, The Good Dinosaur.

Beckett is obsessed and for christmas this year, he is pretty much getting any and everything related to the Good Dinosaur...

Then that night, per tradition, the boys opened up new christmas jammies under the tree

(yes, our christmas tree was already up on Thanksgiving day)

And thats our November in a nutshell!

It was a good one....

I feel like I have so much to be thankful for that my heart good burst...but this little family of mine is at the top of the list.