Thanksgiving 2010!

Thanksgiving! Now I am only 1 & 1/2 months behind on blogging, not too bad! For Clayton's birthday in December we got him Lions/Patriots tickets for November. Thanksgiving day to be exact. We decided that since we wouldn't be going home and the neighbors were all going in different directions, that we would do something totally nontraditional (for us) and go see a game. It was the first NFL game for all of us. It was so cool! Our seats were pretty close, I could see Tom Brady's mullet sticking out the back of his helmet! That's how close we were. The stadium is all indoors which was a must for me. There is no way I would drag a one year old outside in the middle of winter for a three hour game.

Here is the vantage point from our seats. It looks farther in the pictures. In real life it felt as close as being at a high school game.

See! They are right there!

Here is a better angle. Row eight! The game started out well for our home team, the Lions. After they scored their first touchdown Eleanor was ecstatic. She was so jazzed that everyone was standing, clapping and shouting together.

She got right into it. It made our day.

Toddlers love the NFL!
The Lions had a good lead until about the third quarter. Then it got kinda sad. Luckily we aren't hard-core Lions fans, but it would've been fun to see them win. Late in the game one Lion's fan got a bit tipsy and threw her empty beer bottle at a group of Pat's fans. No one was hurt, but boy did she get arrested. That's always fun. Watching red-necks get unruly.

Speaking of red-necks, Kid Rock played the halftime show! It was surprisingly fun to watch, considering that we would as just as soon go to a Kid Rock show as we would, well, go to a Kid Rock show. Remember, we are self-appointed music snobs. No offense to Kid Rock fans out there. He put on a good, albeit short, show. Sadly, Clayton had the camera in his pocket and was walking Eleanor around so we didn't get any pictures. But they made the whole field into a flag and had hundreds of young kids doing surprisingly well-rehearsed choreography.

Our best family picture from the day, but what can you expect from a Patriot's fan? Just kidding. My nephew Jack is a huge Pats fan, and it's been fun to pretend we hate their team to get a rise out of him. Teasing 9 year-olds never gets old.

Thanksgiving Was A Long Time Ago

We had a lovely fall here in Michigan. It stayed warm and dry much longer than we could have hoped for. And for that, I am thankful. I have a truckload of pictures, but will edit them down to a few so as not to overload. I've put off posting a bunch of them because I keep meaning to ask my neighbors if I can put pictures of their kids on my blog. I still haven't asked. I'll just throw them up without names and take them down if they refuse when I finally do ask them.
That should work, right?

The first few pictures are from a day of raking leaves. The leaves here in Michigan are crazy! I've never lived anywhere that has a city-wide leaf pickup program. I should also note that I actually didn't rake any, except onto children. That kinda counts. No?

I love how kids will jump in leaf piles and excitedly ask to get "buried". All I can think of is, "Spiders, spiders, spiders." You could not pay me to lie down in a giant pile of leaves.

For Thanksgiving, our awesome neighbors the Oversons hosted a big get together. We have five families on our block that are members of the same ward. None of us went anywhere for the holiday, so we all chipped in and made one incredible feast of food goodness. Two of us made turkeys so we would have lots of left overs. Here I am presenting mine. I was so glad I didn't ruin it or send anyone to the hospital.

Clayton got to carve. Note he grew a "study beard" for a while. He finally just shaved it all off. It was fun for a while to have a mountain-man around. Or maybe more of an indie rock band-man.

Our little family on Thanksgiving. By the way. I need help with my hair. If I'm not really careful, it ends up making me look like Toadette or Jasper from Twilight.
Both are looks I am not going for.

Sweet Eleanor loves the action of a house full of people.

The Johnsons. Two of the happiest people alive. They're like this all the time.

Their littlest one with his Indian head gear. The moms (not me) organized fun Thanksgiving-themed crafts to keep the little ones occupied during the day. Gum-drop turkeys, Indian head gear and vests and pictures to color. With 9 little ones among us, the activities were very helpful.

And the Johnson's other cutie being squooshed by me. It's hard not to squeeze him. He is so adorable and fun.

Clayton loves this guy. He is uber active all the time, which for some reason just cracks us up.

Another cute Indian.

And another. This one loves to hold our Eleanor. We wish she was a bit older so we could pay her to babysit.

This little Indian will have trouble hunting.

A few more little Indians didn't hold still long enough for me to catch them on film, and one was topless, (Guess who, neighbors.) so she didn't make the blog. Oh well.
The food was spectacular and I can't even talk about the pies. After dinner, all the grownups played a game of "Celebrity" while the kids watched a movie. It was a great, great day!