Thanksgiving

We had a BLAST this Thanksgiving! We first spent two days at Disneyland and California Adventure. Emily and Amber met us with their kids. Lexi loves Macey and follows everything she does, so she was in heaven!

Heimlich's Chew-Chew Train.
Luszeck cousins
Mike & Kaitlyn met us that night, too.
watching the fireworksDay 2 Jackson goes for a ride on the Zephyr!
and on the carousel

and he met Chip or Dale (not sure!)

and rode in the stroller a lot.

Thursday morning we headed out to Emily & Steve's for Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends. We all had fun hanging out, playing cards, and eating, eating, eating. It was a perfect, warm & sunny day.

The boys

Lexi was happy with her princess sippie cup!

Grandma Luszeck fed Jackson

family photo - notice Lexi found dress ups!

That night we headed down to Laguna Beach and crashed the Banner family party at Steph's parent's house, which was amazing - complete with theater, elevator, dance studio, etc.! Friday the girls shopped and the boys played golf. It was so much fun!

The boys watched plenty of sports in the theater!

Lexi and KaitlynAfter the kids went down it was time for games!

We drove home early Saturday morning to miss traffic.

I spent most of the drive sitting between the kids entertaining them, as always!

I'm Thankful For...

many things, but I'll just name a few (not in order of importance)

1. The fact that my sacrament meeting talk is now done!

2. My Kids. Here are some pics of our trip to see the dolphins and lions at the Mirage last week.

3. My husband. We finally went to Ruth's Chris Steak House Friday night to celebrate his birthday. The food was so good, and it was fun to have a night out without the kids!

4. Girlfriends. We had a girl's night out on Saturday night. We ate at Claim Jumper and then went shopping at the new Town Square. We loved it there! There is a huge new H&M, and I got some cute stuff!

5. Family (wonderful parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents, nieces/nephews, cousins, in-laws, etc.)
6. The gospel. What would my life be without it? I don't want to know!
7. Good food. If you know me, you know I love to eat! Can't wait for Thursday!
8. Freedom and opportunities.
9. Good Health.
10. Road trips. Our next one starts tomorrow...two days at Disneyland and then a weekend of fun with the Luszecks and friends in Cali.

Quick Update

Wow, I'm behind again! For a quick re-cap:

Last weekend I felt like I hadn't fully celebrated fall, so I made this little Thanksgiving decoration with a bunch of things we're thankful for. Lexi saw it and said excitedly, "that's so cute!" I love her little compliments. Who knew a two-year-old could make you feel so good!

And I made yummy sugar cookies - cut into pumpkins and leaves. I hadn't made them forever, but they were so good! A week later they were still soft. And the frosting....yum!



Other stuff:
Jeff celebrated his big 3-0 last week! Unfortunately I got sick the morning of his B-day, so he opened presents but we postponed our visit to Ruth's Chris Steak House to celebrate. Can't wait to go soon!


Jackson got his first tooth last week! It's his top right middle tooth. I can tell the left one is going to come in any day now. Big news for him is that he is finally on a regular nap schedule and is sleeping through the night! I'm loving it!

And for the last two weeks Lexi has been just the sweetest, most obedient little girl! We don't know what happened, but we hope it lasts! :) She has been cracking me up lately with little phrases she picks up on. One of my favorite is that everytime she hears me say "Ouch!" (even when she's in the other room), she'll ask, "you okay? " or "what happened" and often offers "kisses" to make my owie feel better. She's been my little dancing queen lately, and it's been fun to put on music and just dance around together every day.

Jeff recently joined the gym I go to, and it's been so fun to work out together. We've been five times in the last week. I just hope we keep it up. We were asked to speak in sacrament next Sunday. The topic is gratitude. Anyone feel like writing a talk for me? :) I'm going to base it on Pres. Eyering's talk from conference on remembering and writing down blessing every day.

Halloween Fun

Last Saturday we wanted to have a little fun, so we went down to Freemont Street (totally old/crappy area by the Strip) to try fried twinkies and fried oreos! I had heard about them for years and had wanted to try them, but it was a HUGE disappointment. They were so nasty! We tried a bite and then threw the rest away. Probably better that way...one less thing to crave! :)

Afterwards we met our friends at the Bellagio to watch the fountain show and check out their fall atrium display. It was awesome, as always! Here are a few pics from it.
This bucket of spilled apples was so cool.
I don't know where they found a pumpkin this big!
I just LOVED this tree creature.
Can you see the water fountains

shooting over Jeff's head?

And here are the kiddies on Halloween night.

We went to our ward trunk-or-treat,

which was a lot of fun.

Lexi just squealed with excitement when she saw her costume. It was so cute. She loves Barbie the Island Princess and asks to watch the movie every day. Now she wants to dress up everywhere we go. Yesterday we had to compromise to take off the dress and just wear the shoes and necklace to the gym and to run errands.

Jackson was our little cow.

Can you believe how blue his eyes are??

Thank you Luszeck genes! :)