Thanksgiving and After

We were able to have family at our house for Thanksgiving again. But this year we had a little more space than last.  It was a good day and I was so happy to have everyone here.  It was a warm enough day to play outside for awhile and there were lots of different rides given; 4-wheeler, dirt bike, horses.  I baked my second pumpkin pie ever and made apple pie sangria again.  It's still not gone, but still tastes great!  Maybe we need MORE people to help eat and drink!

Proud of my pie and beverage!

4-wheeler ride with Nick

All of us ready to eat turkey!  What a great day!

Gracie with Kaia

Grandma Kate with River and Kaia

Gracie is helping Nick mash the potatoes

Mom and Dad enjoying the day

Kaia got to meet all the horses.

Annie took Kaia for a walk.  She forgot her carrier, so Nick rigged a string bag to hold Kaia in. It didn't last very long.  I think the real one would've worked better.

Owen and River get to ride Dancer

After our day with the family, Annie and I drove up with all the kids to see Grandma Jeanne in Des Moines. We just spent one night there, but got to spend quite a bit of time.  Alison and Mark also brought their kids to visit, and my cousin Nick and his parents showed up, too.  It was a big party in Grandma's room!

Grandma spending some quality time with Kaia.

Owen helping out

Gracie with my cousin's daughter.

All of the Great-Grandchildren with Grandma Jeanne, except Miles.  

I'm not sure where he was.

We stopped in Pella on the way home for lunch and to eat at the bakery.  Grandma Deb would be jealous.  They had a celebration going on in town and had just put up the big tree in the middle of the square.  The kids had fun for a short time before we got on the road again.

When we returned home, I started getting out the Christmas decor.  Little at a time.

This is a picture from when we visited Annie and Chad at their house.  I'm not sure how I missed it before.

More Winter Activities.

Gracie and Owen have each had a competition now.  Gracie played in another tournament in Mokane.  It was really small and our team only had two games.  Owen has also had his first tournament of the year, which went really well for him.

River with Nick at Gracie's basketball game.

Gracie's messy face while "helping" bake cookies.  Both Gracie and Owen stick around just long enough to eat some cookie dough, and then they disappear.  It's so weird.

They both still love to help their dad pull mat tape after wrestling meets.  This one is at a Mizzou wrestling meet a couple weeks ago.

Our Christmas tree.

This is the biggest and prettiest tree I think I've ever had.  I forgot to take my phone out to the tree farm when we went to cut it down, so I'll have to post those later.  I used Nick's phone, but he hasn't sent the pics to me yet.  It was a fun day, and even warmer than it was last year.  It is so great to have a tree this huge.  I was afraid we wouldn't have enough lights, but we made it work. 

Nick is working on the railing for our stairs.  They're still not done, but at least it's started.

More on Owen's first wrestling meet.

I can't believe how nervous Owen was before his meet.  He had been talking about how excited he was to wrestle for about two weeks.  I think he went to the bathroom about 15 times before they called his age group to go get ready.  When he came out with Nick, his face was red and I could tell that he'd been crying.  I looked at Nick and Nick just rolled his eyes.  Owen did exactly what he said he was going to do during his first match.  He put his opponent in a cradle and pinned him.  However, immediately after the match, he started crying again.  When I asked him what was wrong, he said that he is just still so nervous.  Poor kid.  Hopefully the nerves will calm down, the more he competes.  He won his second match with no tears.  He lost his third match, but was fine with it (no tears).  He told me he did better against that wrestler than he did last year when he wrestled him.  I couldn't believe that he remembered wrestling him.

Owen's cradle leading to a pin in his first match.

Owen didn't pin his second match, but was able to get a pretty good throw.

Owen with Dad getting ready

Finally a smile!

Second match

2nd place overall for the day.

Gracie was trying out her "ugly sweater" on Owen.  

She has several parties to go to over the next week.  We found a sweater with a reindeer and a target on it.  Velcro balls came with it so we can throw them at the sweater.  It's fun.

The semester is wrapping up for us, but I'm afraid that we will be just as busy with all the travel we will be doing in the next coup of weeks.  Gracie and Owen both have their school parties next week and get out of school early on both Wednesday and Thursday.  We will head to Annie's on Friday and then up to Iowa on Saturday to spend some time with my grandma.  We will be back home on Christmas Eve and Day.  Nick and I will get to go to Houston with Mizzou for the football bowl game on December 26-28.  Then on the 29th we will head back to Iowa for Christmas with Nick's side of the family.  Hopefully we'll get a couple days of down time before diving into the new year.

I can't wait to finish up the holiday season and see everyone for Christmas!