Thanksgiving Potpourri 2010

As the post implies - this is our official Thanksgiving 2010 post - along with a few other gems from this general time frame :).

This BEAUTIFUL painting (titled "Perfect Love" - by Del Parson) arrived just before Thanksgiving and was our early Christmas gift from Justin's parents. This is just how I love to imagine Christ - surrounded by children with all of the love and patience in the world - listening to their stories and answering their questions... In fact, that reminds me of a conversation I had with Jackson last month as I was driving to go vote (yes, I took all four kiddos with me to the polls, lol! They have to learn their civic duty, right?! :).

"Mom, when is Jesus coming back?"

"Well, we don't know the exact time, but we know that it's soon. That means it could be next year - or maybe when you're very old. No one knows exactly when..."

"I want him to come now..."

"Why's that?"

"Because I know that he would help me catch lizards!"

Jackson's complete faith brought tears to my eyes (and still does just typing this!) - and I told him that I knew Jesus would help him catch lizards if he were here because Jesus loves the little children. It makes my heart full knowing that although Jackson cannot see him, Jesus is every bit as real to him as though he was standing right in front of him.

Just after Thanksgiving we had the pleasure of having Nana come visit! Her entire visit can be summed up in one word: shopping! With Christmas just around the corner what else could a girl do? :) Mom and I also had the opportunity (escorted by Beckett, of course!) to go see a late showing of Harry Potter on the last night she was here. Her visits are always too far apart and too short, but we enjoyed the time we had! Someday (hopefully!) - it won't require a plane ride to visit!

While my mom and I shopped and chatted, the boys were equally productive...

Eddie-O at the tree farm!

The obligatory 'take the picture so I can keep playing' smile ;). (I still think it's cute, though!)

Jackson at the temple during our Ward Temple Primary activity. It was just Jack, Beckett and me and we had a great time. He's a wonderful date! (Handsome, charming, and a great conversationalist! :)

I thought these hand-print turkey's were too cute of an activity to pass up! Even Norah held her hand open and allowed me to paint it so she could make a turkey :). We had Riley and Tyler (Will was sleeping) over at the time so they got to make a turkey, too! Then I wrote down what each of them was thankful for. I love that Eddie (the green background) gave his turkey four legs, lol!

On Christmas Decorating Day we put up all of our decorations inside, hung the lights outside, trimmed the tree, cleaned up the mess, had baths, and then got into jammies and drank hot chocolate with snowmen and gingerbread marshmallows.

Gettin' the Wilde Family Christmas Tree! It was Beckett's first tree-hunting experience and he happily slept through the whole thing. :)

For Thanksgiving this year we had special guests! Aunt Danielle and Uncle Chad drove up from Georgia and spent the holiday with us. We were SO happy to have them and the kids just ate up the extra attention :). I just wish I'd gotten more pictures!!! One of the most fun things we did while they were here was get a babysitter and go see the new Harry Potter movie. Sadly, our movie was sold out when we got to the theatre so we were going to just rent a movie and go home (since our sitter couldn't stay later than midnight and the next showing of Harry Potter wouldn't have ended until after then). But then an early Christmas miracle occurred! A couple in our ward that we had run into as we were leaving the theatre (they had just seen Harry Potter and were going to go out to dinner) called from their car and said they would just grab a quick dinner and then go to our house to watch our kids for us so we could go to the late showing. It was the nicest offer and we gladly took them up on it! Jenny and Jesse - THANK YOU!!!

Our Thanksgiving feast (you can see Uncle Chad on the left and Aunt Danielle in the upper right corner, lol.. I promise they were really here! :) We had all of the traditional faves: Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, stuffing, fruit salad, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. YUM! Let's just say the last 8 or so pounds of pregnancy weight I need to lose gained a couple of friends for a few days :).

Extreme Trampoline-ing. Yep - they're riding skateboards. On the trampoline. Don't worry - no one got hurt (that badly, anyway ;).

Just before Thanksgiving Aunt Jayne drove up on her birthday and spent the day with us. It was the first time I got to meet my new little niece, Violet Eileen, who was born Sept. 14th (exactly a month after Beckett!). She has tons of beautiful blond hair with big curls and gorgeous blue eyes. Isn't she adorable?!

Beckett and Violet played together nicely, cooing and inadvertently hitting each other with their fists. :)

With the beautiful fall weather we had for almost all of November I couldn't NOT take the kids to the park! If I thought getting a good picture with three kids was hard - I was doomed before I even attempted a photo with all four kids ;). Eddie is so much like me when I was his age... In almost all of the pictures of my sisters and I when we were really young, I'm the one looking away or trying to hide my smile with a 'mad' face, lol. I've asked my mom to mail some of those old photos so I can do a comparison blog post between Eddie and me, lol. Stay tuned for that in the next year or so ;). (I need to give myself plenty of time ;).