Christmas Cards...

We did try to get family pictures for our Christmas Card but it was an epic failure.  Someday I will get around to looking at them again to see if any are worth editing.  So I decided to have small photoshoot with just the boys.  Holy Moly what a process! (No they are not all edited.)

 I wanted candid relaxed pictures of the boys.  So I tried just talking to them while I snapped away.  But I mostly just got this kind of a response from Nash....

Yes I adore all these little faces they weren't quite what I was looking for on the Christmas Card...

Then I thought it would be fun to have the boys look at the ultrasound.  Nash hasn't been all that excited that the baby is a girl.  Here is his honest reaction looking at it.

I finally decided that these pictures of Nash would be good enough.

 

Asa watched Nash through the process so he was a little more eager to give me real smiles.  But he had his moments of silliness too!

And his reaction to the ultrasound....

The poor boy has NO IDEA!

 It was a debate between these 2 pictures on which would make the Christmas Card.  In the end I let Nash decided and he said he looked like a zombie in the first so we needed to use that one.

 And the finished product....

Frisbee Golf...

 Nash was very set on playing Frisbee Golf with Alex while he stayed with us.  That is probably the only fun thing we did with Alex besides Thanksgiving. :(  There are quite a few frisbee golf places around this area.  Darin had taken the scouts and Nash to play a few weeks prior so he was familiar with the Greenway.

Alex let Nash borrow his hat...I am not sure the Blue BYU fan in Darin liked it so much.

 Alex is so great with kids. He helped carry Asa around and really made Nash feel pretty awesome during the game.

Asa was not a fan staying with me...

 Any chance he got he had to hold one of the frisbee's and be part of what the big boys were doing.

 This next picture is so Asa, anyone that knows him will know that annoying sound that is coming out of his mouth!

 Nash is ALWAYS running!

 Asa was VERY determined to stay up with the big boys.  He could walk but he was much faster at doing his Igor crawl.  Notice how fast he is trying to get away from me so he could be with the boys.

 Remember those 80's pictures where they had your face faded in the background in a different pose.  Ya Alex and I were laughing about them and decided to attempt it for his Christmas Cards.  Next time we will use a black back drop!

New Ride...

 I hope Alex will come visit us again because this trip was a complete bust.  Darin picked up some moonlighting shifts so he was gone quite a bit.  Then the Friday after Thanksgiving we knew Darin needed to get his brakes fixed on his car.  The car needed a lot more work done to it so we decided instead of getting it fixed we would try to trade it in.  So we spent the WHOLE day at the Toyota dealership.  However, we walked away very happy with our Toyota, Sienna.  I never thought I would be a van person, but I have to say when you have kids there is NO OTHER way to travel in comfort!

OUT with the OLD...

IN with the NEW...

The hardest part about getting a new car is knowing you have payments.  We haven't had to pay on a car since we lived in CA almost 5 years ago. But oh so worth it, look how much room the kids have and the LOVE IT!

Nash especially likes that his door can be opened by pushing the button.  I don't know how happy he will be in a couple months when he gets booted to the back seat. :)

Southern Thanksgiving...

Darin and I decided we wanted to have a low key Thanksgiving this year. Alex our nephew lives 3 hours away and we thought it would be fun to spend the holiday with him.  We gave him the option of us going to him or having him drive to us.  He chose to come to us.  Darin had a couple of days off.  My cousin Kristin Bayles Batchlor lives in Columbia.  We invited her family to join us and a great couple in our ward the Welch's.  It was a great gathering and food was AWESOME!

Darin and Alex decided to go to our ward paintball war...I guess that is what they do in the south rather than play football. :) So I was in charge of cooking the turkey.  I was a bit nervous and I burned a few places but overall the turkey was "moist." It isn't as scary to me now.

 Darin did the carving and he used his handy dandy electrical carving knife.  Have I ever said that my husband has a weird fetish with kitchen appliances!

 Megan brought the mashed potatoes and schooled me on how to make gravy.  They were yummy.  Just like my mothers! I made an attempt to make the Pioneer Woman stuffing...I should have stuck with my mothers recipe.  A sweet little southern woman saw me looking at the corn meal to make corn bread for the stuffing.  She ranted and raved over a certain brand and said it would be the best thing I ever had.  I took her advice and IT WAS THE WORSE CORN BREAD I have ever had!  SO the stuffing was not as good as it could have been.

BUT I did try the Pioneer woman green bean casserole and WOW was it yummy!  Kristin brought this amazing cranberry salad (btw I need the recipe) that I plan on making a staple to all our future Thanksgivings. She as well brought the rolls, and 2 pies.  It was my first sweet potato pie...I guess you can't have Thanksgiving in the south with out it!  I am glad I tried it was fabulous!

 Our table was full of people we love and the tradition continued of drawing on the table of what you are grateful for.  I didn't take a picture of everyone's drawings before Asa the terror destroyed it!

 After dinner Darin broke out the ultrasound machine.  Most families play games we ultrasound random body parts like the eye, kidney and who knows what else! Never a dull moment with Dr. Darin!

 After everyone had their turn Asa went over and grabbed the ultrasound and put it on his belly.  So darn cute!

 Darin decided to ultrasound the little boy for real.

 Bad idea he was ANGRY!

 But the realized it wasn't so bad.

Alex's wonderful mother Sasha sent us a couple of Alex's favorite games to play while he was at our house. So great, thanks Sasha!

 This game was a bit complicated at first but I think if we would have done it one more round we would have had the hang of it.  In the end I won and Darin lost! haha

We really didn't see a lot of the children.  Nash LOVES his cousins and could not handle his excitement for them to get here.  The Batchlor kids are so fun! 

We are so happy we had family to spend Thanksgiving with this year.  What a blessing to have such wonderful people so near on a wonderful holiday.