Given' Thanks, Haulin' Out the Holly, Fun Stuff, your typical marathon post.

We have a little tradition - it's called "Let's give the baby her first lemon wedge and see what happens." Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, we went to dinner to one of our favorite Mexican places since we had a great coupon and I didn't feel like cooking (or more likely, Steve didn't feel like eating what I was willing to cook that night, probably pancakes or something so I was happy to oblige.) While we were out, we decided to give Katers her first lemon wedge. (Consequently, we think Caroline got her first lemon wedge at the same restaurant!)

I think the photos speak for themselves.

For Thanksgiving, we were invited to join with Debbie's family at her sister Janet's house. Janet, who has the awesome pool mentioned in this post. There was a rumor that they may heat the hot tub up but the weather was not cooperating, being a rainy day and all. But, it was a lovely day nonetheless. Any rainy day here is savored. Anyway, I was asked to bring homemade rolls and I was happy to do so. For our family, I am usually the baker and spend Wednesday and Thursday morning baking upwards of 9 pies and a double batch of rolls. This year I got off easy because Judy and Janet made blackberry pies with berries from the family cabin property and it was delicious! I was not great about getting pictures but here are a couple...

Thanksgiving morning artists

Chillin' with one of the dogs at Janet's house. Steve likes dogs. Good thing he likes me more because I don't like dogs and we won't ever be getting one.

You all know this scene...played out at homes across the nation - post early afternoon dinner coma. Steve and my Dad.

A couple of drowned rats anxiously waiting some pie. They had been playing outside in the rain of course!

Friday night we were able to attend the ASU vs. UCLA football game. We had a fantastic time! My friend's husband is the head trainer for the football team (He's the guy who is the first to rush on the field for injuries) and she told me that any time we wanted tickets he could most likely get get them for us so this was the first time we took her up on it. Sure, it was a 7:30 game which meant getting home at about 11pm but its not like it was a school night or anything. It was a pretty good game if you are an ASU fan - I had never seen a 100 yard interception return for a touchdown, at least, not that I ever knew I saw!

It's amazing how quickly a free game turns into:
$10 Parking
$7 two pom poms hair ponies
$6 cotton candy
$7 two Italian Ice's
$4 one nacho
(I chose not to get the fancy $5 caramel apple but I really wanted it.)

Everyone at the game. Kate was great - she just hung out in the sling and snuggled and then fell asleep. The big girls enjoyed themselves too - as long as daddy kept them filled with stadium snacks, they were having a great time!

Clockwise from top left - 1. the girl's favorite part of the night: riding the courtesy cart from the ticket gate at the bottom of the hill to the stadium. Sun Devil stadium is built into a mountain side and has a steep walk-up. 2. Watching the game with Daddy with their fancy new Sun Devil pom pom hair ponies. 3. Eating some of that pricey cotton candy. 4. Daddy shelling out the cash.

The girls have several decorations for their own room. I passed along our first nativity set to Lindsay several years back when I got my first larger set. I have since bought the girls each a small set and plan to do so every once in a while. We also started a tradition of buying them a snow globe each year (just started last year) but I have already purchased one for them this year so that makes it a tradition, right? They have a 4 ft pre-lit tree (with colorful lights - they chose it, not me...I would have chosen clear of course.) They have all their own ornaments they have received as gifts or trinket ornaments from parties, Santa jingle bells, etc. Turns out this tree is great leverage for bedtime behavior. It gets taken out of their room if we hear a peep (or a crash against a wall which is usually more likely). Since going up, it has happened once. They got it back and (so far) went to bed perfectly.

The girls in the process of decorating. They cleared a toy shelf for their nativities and snow globe.

This is, of course, the official decorating for Christmas weekend. A few highlights...and a lowlight.

A prayer answered.

About 4 or 5 years ago, I convinced Steve that we needed to buy a pre-lit fake tree. This goes against everything I believe in because where I was raised, outside of Portland, OR, was the heart of Christmas Tree Farm Land, that magical place where all the lots that sell fresh trees have banners that say "Fresh Cut Oregon Christmas Trees" get those trees. It really pained me to buy a fake tree but it was $100+ well spent. I don't remember how much it cost but I know it has paid for itself in what we had been paying for a dead fresh tree every year.

Now, we say a prayer to the Pre-lit Artificial Christmas Tree Gods that the tree lights work each year after spending 11 months baking in our garage.

Babes enjoyed sitting in her saucer watching the tree spring to life.

Obviously, we forgot to pray for the outside lights. This is the current state of our exterior lights.

We finally get to the outside lights late Saturday afternoon. We have a good set-up with plugging the lights into the coach lights by the garage so they are on a switch and timer. It works great...when the whole strand lights up! I think we forgot that last year some of the strings were on the fritz and only lit part way. (Note to self - if they aren't working, just chuck 'em - Christmas lights can't be repaired and sitting in the attic all summer certainly won't do them any favors.) It was starting to get dark so we had to abandon the lights until I bought some new ones. They are in a Wal-Mart bag as we speak. Hopefully, we get them up Saturday.

Few. I wonder how many calories are burned creating a Marathon blog post? Probably none. Lucky me.