Thanksgiving

This year we hosted our first Thanksgiving Dinner for some of the Luszeck clan. It was so fun to have them come stay at our house for a few days. They arrived Wednesday afternoon, and headed to the Dinosaur park in Aliante to let the kids play. That night we heated up the hot tub and Jeff and I went in with all of the kids, which was a lot of fun.

Just as we were heading to bed I pulled the turkey out of the fridge to prep it for baking...only to discover that the inside of it was still frozen. Ugh! I couldn't believe it. It had been defrosting in the fridge since Sunday! Well, it took us until 12:30 to get it thawed enough to pull the giblets out, rinse it, and get it ready.

I set my alarm for 4am so I could stuff the turkey and put it in the oven. Since I was baking the turkey on the lowest rack in the oven, I put foil down on the bottom of the oven in case it dripped. Right as I was going to put the turkey in the oven I noticed a funny smell and realized that the foil had melted to the bottom of the oven! I tried to scrape it off, but some of it wouldn't come off no matter what I used. Hello - panic! Here I was alone at 4:30 in the morning thinking I had just ruined our brand new oven. And not only that - I was trying to figure out how we could pull off Thanksgiving dinner in 10 hours without the use of an oven.

Jeff's dad wandered in right about then and eventually we woke up Jeff. He pulled out the oven instructions (which happen to say "don't use foil to line the oven!") and was able to remove the bottom tray where the foil was melted. I was so relieved. I didn't know that it was a removable part. By 6:00 the turkey was in the oven and we had gone back to bed, but neither of us could sleep after all of that.

Fortunately the turkey turned out just fine. And with a lot of help from everyone - especially Linda and Emily, dinner was great. Steve had brought a turkey fryer with him, so we also had a fried turkey. That was my first time trying fried turkey, and it was delicious! Honestly I've never had better turkey.

Macie. Lexi loved having Macie stay in her room with her.

Lexi

Gavin. It was so fun getting to know Gavin a little better this trip. He usually doesn't say much to me or Jeff, but he was OBSESSED with the fact that I was pregnant. I can't count how many times he touched my belly or commented on it! We had several conversations about it. It was funny to see how fascinated he was by it. Here he is trying to make his own little belly.

Jeff doing his signature move - sticking things up his nose. This used to be the only way to get Gavin to laugh, and it started years ago at Disneyland with grapes. But a fork will work, too.

Thanksgiving night I thought we'd go see a movie or something, but we were all really tired. We just hung out and played cards, which was fine with me. That night Jeff, Linda, and Emily woke up at 2am to hit the Black Friday sales. We got some good deals!!

Steve brought their four wheeler and motorcycle with them. Friday morning we took the kids out for rides. They were in HEAVEN!

Emily and Lexi - the funny thing was Emily said the whole time they were riding, Lexi was watching Steve on the motorcycle and saying that she wanted to go fast like him.

with Papa

MAcie took Jackson for a quick little ride. I love how you can only see his eyes, but you can tell how big he is smiling under the helmet!

The Jensons

Right after Thanksgiving our good friends, the Jensons, moved to San Antonio, TX. We got together a number of times in November before they left (how did we never get to play cards again?). We will miss them!! We have done so many fun things together in the last few years and have so many great memories with them.

Date night at Claim Jumper

Alyson, Leslie, Lana, me (the giant!), and Nicole

One day Alyson hosted a surprise goodbye party for the kids. The whole thing was cowboy themed. Isn't the sign she made the cutest thing!

She even ordered a bounce house! It was so fun to have the kids play and for the moms to visit for hours.

The last weekend they were here we had a few families come for a final hang out at our place.
The last day they were here we dropped off some goodies for the car ride and said goodbye.
Lexi still says daily, "mom, it is not good that Lindsey and Haley moved far, far away." I agree!

Backyard

When we bought our house as a foreclosure, we knew we would have a few projects to do. The biggest one was the back yard. This is what it looked like when we moved in:

The lovely shed behing the hot tub was the first thing to go. Our neighbor came and helped Jeff tear it down one Saturday. I'm sure he was just as happy to see it go as we were. We also put a gate around the pool the first day we moved in. We still need to find the replacement grill for the built in BBQ.

against the house

right side of pool

left side of pool

Jeff and I talked a lot about what we wanted to do in the back. We got a few estimates from landscaping companies, and decided to go with one of them that had given us a few ideas. we basically removed all the grass, rocks, plants, and trees that were there, replaced the entire sprinkler system, removed a few concrete slabs, and then added grass, rock, plants, and trees back where we wanted them. We also had the bushes from along the pool transplanted to the perimeter of the yard.

There was a crew of five or more here from Monday morning through Friday afternoon. By the end of it, this is what we had:

against the house
right side *The palm trees look a little funny, because you have to keep the branches tied up for the first month.
We didn't really know what to do with the huge empty side of our yard. For now it's filled with rocks. Someday we'll figure out what to do with it.

left side

The back corner triangle will hopefully be filled with a playground and trampoline sometime sooner than later. We haven't decided what we want on the ground under all of it, so we left it empty for now.

Megan's Shower

Three generations of amazing women!
In October my cousin, Megan, had a baby shower here in Las Vegas. It was so fun to see my cousins, aunts, and grandma.

Airshow

One Saturday Jeff and Kris took the kids to the airshow at Nellis Airforce Base.

The kids got to go inside a helicopter
You would think that they (especially Jackson) would have been so excited, but Jeff said they saw a bounce house that was set up there, and the whole time they just bugged him about going on it. He never gave in! :)

Jackson

Daddy's shoes and socks!

Making a baby in his tummy!
My big guy!

*He is OBSESSED with trains, especially Thomas.

*He is now potty-trained. Wahoo! He loves to wear his Thomas underwear! And for a reward we bought him...you guessed it...a Thomas train set. The funny thing was we had meant to get him the train for weeks, because he had been doing so well not having accidents. Well, one night we finally bought the train and were up in the loft putting it together...and he peed his pants!

*When he sees something messy he gets all serious and says, "hey, who did this mess?"

*Loves to take baths. When we first moved into this house he took at least three a day just for fun.

*Loves his Thomas blankie. (Thank you grandma!)

*He went through a phase when I would ask him to do something (can you go potty before we leave? or can you pick up your toys?) and he would just shrug his shoulders and say, "pobaby not mom." Hey, I appreciate the honesty! :)

*This fall we've been going to singing/story time at the library each week, and each time Jackson goes right up to the front and stands next to the librarian and even tries to "help" her with the visual aides on the board. It's so funny for me to see this side of him.

*Loves to turn on the keyboard as loud as it will go and dance around or jump on the bed to all the pre-programmed songs. We hear it blasting several times a day.

*Has mastered the two-year-old tantrum, and I'm pretty sure his favorite word is "no!"

Lexi

First day of Preschool. Lexi LOVES it! This is her teacher, Miss Shannon.

Lexi is in Sunbeams at church, and this fall was her first Primary Sacrament Meeting Program.

Not happy!

For Halloween Lexi wanted to be a ballerina. We were headed out to trick or treat when we noticed the little additions she had added to her costume - glasses and a crown.

An Occasion To Remember

First swim in our pool!

**Don't worry, the hideous shed behind the spa is gone, and the landscaping has been completely re-done since this picture was taken. More on that later!

Other Summer Fun

Right before we went to London, my cousin was driving through Vegas and came to visit with his family. It was great to catch up with Nathan and Sarah Jane and to see cute Nora. Please come see us again!And right when we got back from London Jane was driving through on their way home from California and came to stay for a night. It was fun to show her the house we were buying and to just hang out.

And of course we had lots of time swimming at the Tews. Lexi improved her swimming a lot from last summer. It was so nice to not have to worry about her.

My fearless little guy!

Trip Part Four: Thursday-Sunday

Okay, so the last few days of our trip are a bit of a blur for me, so I'll just put in the highlights:

1. Chicken Tikka Pita from Cafe Diana ("Cafe D"). This one's for Kel and Jess! We discovered this place around the corner from the BYU center last time we lived there. I went there three times the week I was in London, and that wasn't enough! : ) And other food - we ate at Santorini's (they were out of "Greek soup" - dang it!), pastries, kabobs, yogurt (why can't they make it that good in the states?), and chocolate.

2. Best picture from the trip - if Lexi is the judge! This was at the "Britain at War" Museum.

3. Bike tour of London. This was our favorite thing we did. It started along the south bank of the Thames and took you all over the city to a ton of the tourist attractions (Eye of London, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Buckingham Palace - during changing of the guard, Hyde Park, Covent Garden, etc. ) It happened to be a beautiful, sunny day and it felt so good to be on a bike after walking all week. 4. Plays - We went Thursday night with my parents to see Arcadia and Friday night we all met up at the Globe Theater to watch Troilus and Cressida.

5. People watching at Trafalgar Square one afternoon.

6. View from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. I tried to get on the elevator since I was pregnant, but they didn't go for it. So we walked all of those steps up to the top. It was worth it!
7. Meeting up with an old friend. We got to spend the day with Lorianne, who is my friend from high school and just happened to be studying at Cambridge this summer. She took us to Saturday's Market on the south bank, which was awesome.

8. Dinner at Khan's. Saturday my cousins, Aaron and Colin, arrived in London for a week visit, so we got to catch up a bit. We all went to dinner that night at our favorite Indian restaurant.

9. Playing Phase 10 ("skip Judy!"). This was a little family tradition from last time we lived in London, and finally Saturday night I got to play a round with Jenn.

10. Spending time with my parents. Coming from such a big family, it's always a treat to have one-on-one time with them. We have missed them since they've been in London. And I've taken so long to post this that they are done in London and are literally on their way home right now...probably just heading tot he airport. We're excited to have you guys back in driving distance!

11. Going home. Actually, just being home again...the actual getting there was a nightmare! It took us 30+ hours from start to finish, and we hardly slept on the planes. We had the worst, rudest cab driver from the BYU Center to Victoria Station, then we took a train to the airport. The airport was a disorganized mess. We were in line for over an hour even though we had checked in online. I had to leave the check-in line to throw up, then I had to leave the security line because I almost passed out (such drama!). Then I threw up on the plane some more. When we landed, Jeff's parents met us at Ontario, CA airport with our kids and the car all packed at 11pm (so nice of them to make it easy for us and save time driving back to Yucaipa). But then we got in the car and I drove the whole way home to Las Vegas while everyone else slept (NOTE: I chose to drive, since Jeff had to work the next morning, and because I trust myself to never fall asleep at the wheel). But it was good to be home and GREAT to see the kids again. We were all exhausted the next day. I had just fed Jackson lunch when I found him curled up asleep on our small, hard chairs!