How to Have a Happy Thanksgiving

First of all, you have a sweet little granddaughter - Addie - come to your house and fix your table decorations. I can assure you that the fall leaves will be put in a nice line around the runner.





Second, you acquire a whole bunch of pumpkins. This can be accomplished when you have a resourceful daughter (Marenda) who located 6 pumpkins of various sizes for us.


After all of the pumpkins are cut up and cooked in a large pan, you have your granddaughter help you run it all through a food processor strainer.





























While the pumpkin is cooking, you have a granddaughter who loves to help roll out the pie dough









And you eventually end up with 10 delicious pumpkin pies.

Since you do this a week or two before Thanksgiving, you then put them in the freezer or share with friends and family.








NEXT - and very important this year - we had to make sure we had somewhere for our guests to sit. We both decided it was time to get rid of the used sectional that wasn't very comfortable. After lots of looking and comparing, we ended up going back to the first store and buying this lovely set of furniture. (It's interesting to note that when you take a man furniture shopping with you - you will probably end up getting something
that looks more masculine.) Actually, I really liked this set the first time we looked at it. and the more Garth thought of it, the more he liked it. I fell in love with the heavy round occasional tables that were with this set.


FINALLY the big day arrived. We had 10 people to dinner so we all easily fit at our dining room table.

Some time before our guests arrived, we were ready for Trina and Guy and their 4 boys and our two college granddaughters - Kalen Reynolds and Mellissa Rosenhan.





Shortly after they arrived, Sheridan let us all know that he was "Hungry"!












Here we are finally ready to eat - after taking time to each tell several things we were grateful for.
Left: Mellissa, Guy, Mitchell, Trina, Caleb, Sheridan, Marcus, Kalen & Garth.








While the "boys" played football - Mitchell watched TV while he kept a hold of a lock of his hair.












And the girls just relaxed and visited.




Trina and Mellissa showing off our new couch




Mellissa and Kalen showing that the Love Seat works well.





HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

A Tiny House

Shanda asked me to help her make Talia a little cloth house for Christmas. She picked out the fabric she wanted for it. Here is the finished product. I am mainly putting it here so that Shanda can get a good look at it in Colorado Springs, but others might like to see what I have been up to.





Here are the occupants of the little house.












And this shows the front of the house. The zippers on the side open to allow a little girl to play inside of the house thought he door opens as well.

Happy Halloween

Although it was a little early for Halloween, I wanted to start out with the scariest incident of the month. When we were traveling home from Phoenix, We saw huge clouds of black smoke up ahead on the climb out of the Valley.













We were shocked to see this truck that had been pulling an RV totally engulfed in flames. Our hearts and prayers went out to whoever this misfortune occurred to.













We enjoyed being with the family on Sunday, Oct. 26th for Drake's 9th birthday. As you can see, cake decorating is no challenge when you have just received a new Lego set for your birthday.




















Halloween was celebrated again with the families in this area at Deren's and Liz's place. We furnished a crock pot of zucchini soup and chocolate covered donuts and some games for the children. I am including all of the pictures since it is hard to get children to all look in the right direction in the same picture.



In this first picture Garth is holding Kasen who is dressed as a baby lion. Drake is mostly hiding in the wonderful cloak that Liz made for him. Addie is a mermaid in a costume made by her mom.



















Guy and Garth are relaxing.













THE GROUP WHO DRESSED UP!













Back row: Drake, Kasen, the lion is held by Kalen, Marcus the Ninja and Sheridan the Aviator. On the front row we have Addie the mermaid, Mitchell the baby giraff and Caleb the dolphin trainer.


























Garth dubbed us as Jack & "O" Lantern. He designed his own shirt.


WE HOPE YOU ALL HAD A VERY HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

COUNTING TODAY THERE ARE JUST 55 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!