Thanksgiving week...

We got to spend the last 9 days in Spokane, WA with Nate's awesome family. It was so great to be with family for so long, just relaxing and eating far too much good food. Asher was a little unsure of all his cousins at first, so I didn't end up going to Seattle to visit University of WA with Nate as planned, but after a couple of days he warmed up, and by the end they were all great little buds.

We had a great Thanksgiving day. In the morning we started out watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, but actually ended up watching more of E True Hollywood story of Jessica Simpson and some of the Top Chef marathon. After that, most of the fam headed over to Mom and Dad Olson's to pick up the leaves and see their cute new (actually, very OLD, built in 1910 or something) house. The little boys had so much fun picking up and playing in the leaves, and running up and down the little hill in the front yard, despite how freezing cold it was. About an hour before the Turkey was supposed to be done, we checked on it and it was totally done. Whoops! So we had to scramble around trying to get everything else ready, as we thought we had plenty of time for all the prep. It all came together nicely and we had a delicious dinner of Turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, gravy, green salad, roasted cherry tomatoes, homemade rolls, followed by pie. My pumpkin pie turned out great, but for some reason my chocolate pie didn't set correctly. I was way bummed as it wasn't nearly as good, oh well. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet and relaxing, but it was a very nice day.

Asher and Parker









Of course, on Friday, we decided to brave the crowds, and hit Target and the Mall. Neither were bad at all. I scored on some awesome deals at Macy's...they have THE BEST sales!! It's pretty crazy how quickly everyone transitions into Christmas mode. Not that I'm complaining...I am way pumped for Christmas, and am almost done with my shopping!

On Saturday, Lizza, Duffy and I took the kiddos to this play place called Mobius. It is indoors and has the coolest things to do inside. There is a little gated play place for the little ones, and then all sorts of stuff for older kids. There was a stage with instruments and costumes to try on, a corner with little cars where they drive and learn all about traffic signals, and so many other things. So fun! I wish we had something like that in Provo, it would be such a hit, especially in the winter! Lizza said they paid $60 for a family pass (no mattter how big your family is) for a year...so worth it! They also change the little activities around, so it's not always the same stuff. Genius! Later that night, Nate's sister Lizza and her husband Zach blessed their 4th baby boy on Saturday night at home, which was so nice. Little Cooper is such a cutie, and looked like such a doll in his little satin blessing romper! It was actually really neat to do it at home with just family and the bishop, very intimate.

At Mobius...












Cooper's blessing...












Besides those things, we didn't do too much else besides just hang out, watch movies, play pictionary, and eat food. I would say it was a successful vacation. Asher was great the whole time, even on the flights he wasn't too bad, just very wiggly! This morning, our flight was at 5:30am, so we had to wake him up at 4:00am. He was busy busy the whole flight, and then right as we were landing, he fell asleep on Nate's lap. Awesome timing, right?!

Here are some other fun pictures from the week:
Cooper in his star thingy...doesn't he look so precious?!

This is the view from the house. We woke up to this one morning...gorgeous!

Doesn't Asher look so cute all bundled up in his new coat?!

What can we say? A kids gotta have his caffeine!;) (FYI, Asher doesn't know how to drink from a straw, so don't worry, he's not really drinking it!)

What a little goof-ball!

No, he is not yawning, he loves to make funny faces like this. What a silly kid! I love this picture, he looks like a hippo with his two front teeth, which by the way, he just barely got...it's about time!