Thanksgiving

Right after I got back in town from my Utah trip, my brother flew in from San Fransisco. Jae comes down every so often and it's always so fun. We spent Thanksgiving with him and my uncle Mark who lives around the corner. I cooked the turkey, rolls, gravy, and pies, and Mark made brought the vegetables, stuffing, and a mean batch of mashed potatoes. It was a great meal and so much fun to be with Mark and Jae!

Bryn LOVES Jae and had so much fun playing with him. Any time she'd catch him sitting down she'd bring out her blanket stash from her room and cover him, saying "Ok Jae, it's time to get comfy and cozy!"

One of Jae's best friends is getting married in a few weeks and specifically asked Jae to be sporting a mustache at his wedding, so Jae willingly obliged. Bryn, however, is very anti-mustache! The whole weekend Bryn repeatedly told Jae "I like everything about you, Jae, EXCEPT for your mustache!" She kept asking him to wash it off. When we dropped Jae off at the airport Bryn said "I hope I see Jae again! But not with a mustache. I like everything about Jae but his mustache." Despite the mustache, we had a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for flying down, Jae!!!

Black Friday

While Josh was working, I did my share of Black Friday shopping with Bryn and my brother Jae. Can you tell what's at the top of Bryn's Christmas list??

At every store we went to (well....except for Best Buy) Bryn found a Men's furry hat to keep her warm. I think she'd make a cute Eskimo.

Play Group: Thanksgiving Day

I hosted the Thanksgiving Day at playgroup and it was a fun one!

We started off by reading some Thanksgiving books, talking about cornucopias, and playing with felt cornucopias I made.

We played "Pin the Feathers on the Turkey"

Each girl got a little turkey snack plate with a PB & J body, apple and orange feathers, cranberry eyes, cheese beak, and pretzel legs.

I cut out lots of cardstock leaves and we made "Gratitude Wreaths". Each girl told me 12 things she was grateful for, one for each leaf. It was so cute to hear their answers! If you can't read the leaves, Bryn's answers were: "Grandparents, Ivy, Aubrey, Mom, Dad, babies, fruit cups, rocks, beans, going to Utah, Santa, and Disneyland. "

I had planned on doing one other craft where they would make "Indian corn" by using Q-tips to paint the kernels on the cardstock corn. BUT....the girls were extra silly and energetic and I was nervous to get out PAINT with them. So I skipped that craft and I printed out a quick Thanksgiving coloring sheet instead!

Quick Utah Trip

I just got back from 5 days in Utah and it was wonderful!

Cooking with Grandma

Playing the piano with Logan

Bryn's second-cousin Avery was verrrry friendly with her, but Bryn was completely focused on her food. Food first, cousins second.

A little performing

In HEAVEN at Grandma Tueller's house, playing with the Little People sets my Mom grew up with.

Uncle Rich brought Bryn a HUGE new book and read it to her before bed

Bryn LOVED playing this horn all weekend

She even played it while hanging upside down on Jordan's back

Hanging out with a skewer

It was fun to get to know Devin, my sister's fiance. He and Marie are so cute! Only one more month until the wedding!

We had a big family dinner on Sunday and Marie and Jordan drove up from BYU. (Pretend that I'm in a cute Sunday outfit instead of sweats!)

Bryn loves Jord

My mom, Bryn, and Logan

Not pictured:

Playing games at Grandma Tueller's house

Getting together with my dear dear friend Lindsey

Lots of fun play time

Talking wedding details with Mom and Marie

And....the whole reason I went to Utah: my sister's bridal shower! I didn't take any pictures, so I'll post about the shower when I steal pictures from my cousin.

- - -

As always, I was crying all through the airport after saying goodbye to my mama! And as always, I left Bryn's favorite red blankie in Utah....which I seem to do every time we visit!

A Good Pipe

Bryn finished her lunch today and said (in astonishment) "This lunch turned out to be pretty good, Mom!" When I asked her if she was ready for her afternoon nap she replied, "After a good meal and a good PIPE, I'll be ready for my nap." WHAT!!??

She's never used that line before, but I know just where she got it: Curious George. The page above reads "After a good meal and a good pipe George felt very tired." Oh brother!

Surprise!

My sister had a surprise visitor at her bridal shower last night: David Archuleta!

He knew this was his last chance to swoop in and steal Marie before she's off the market!

(Actually, he was headed to another bridal party in my parent's neighborhood and ended up at Marie's shower by accident when he saw ladies carrying gifts into the house.)

As sad as I am to have missed little David, rumor has it that Justin Bieber will be making an appearance at Marie's second bridal shower next week. And you bet I'll be there for that one!

What We've Been Reading

Josh has a month break from any studying and I haven't had anything big going on lately, so we've had lots of quiet reading time in the evenings. Here's our current reads....

Josh: "The Brothers Karamazov"

This is one of my all-time favorites, and finally convinced Josh to read it. He's enjoying it, too.

Me: "Emma"

I love the movies of Jane Austen books, but I've never actually read one of her books until now. I'm 1/3 of the way through Emma and so far I'm loving it! (Thanks for the book, Rie!)

Bryn: "A Little House of Your Own"

Bryn has about 100 favorite books right now, but this one is read very frequently around here! It's a book I grew up with, and my Mom tracked down an old copy on Ebay for Bryn. It's a cute story. The only down side is that every time she reads it she wants to make a "little house of her own" with blankets, chairs, etc. :)

October

A few last October pictures before we get too far into November....

Bryn was really excited to carve pumpkins, but once she found out about the messy goop inside of them, she decided to let Josh do all the carving! She just sat next to him doing Halloween stamps. (As a side note, I am still not used to this SoCal humidity! Our jack-o-lantern got squishy and gross in just 2 days!)

This is Bryn's favorite thing she got Trick-or-Treating

And Bryn will miss this crow now that it's packed away in the Halloween box. It followed her all over the house!

M Day

Today was M day for play group. I didn't take many pictures, but here's what we did:

They practiced tracing their names and the letter "M", and then colored their "M is for Mouse" worksheets.

We read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie", which is a fun one. (Thanks to Dede for our copy!)

We also read "Squeak-A-Lot", which is another cute mouse book. Bryn loves checking this one out from the library!

I made little puzzles for each girl with a mouse on one side and cheese on the other side. (I don't know why that mouse picture is flipped sideways). They needed a lot of help with this activity, so I should have used wider and fewer craft sticks...or waited until they were older!

Not pictured:

Doing a mouse matching game

Going on a mouse hunt for cheese (yellow post-its with hole punches in it)

Snacking on string cheese

Easter Egg Hat

This doll with the Easter egg hat has been positioned all over the house today and it's been cracking me up. Bryn knows it has been making me laugh so she keeps showing it to me again and again and laughing hard herself. Why do silly little things like this make me laugh all day?

In other news, Bryn just exclaimed, "Mom! Some of your hairs are white like SANTA! What in the world!!!???"

Thank you my observant child.

L Day

I'm hosting playgroup again this week and today was L day!

We talked about LEAVES today and started off with some leaf rubbings. The girls had a lot of fun with it! (If you were trick-or-treating in our neighborhood last night and saw a grown man combing through flower beds in the dark....that was Josh finding leaves for me. Ha ha. He's a good husband!)

Then they did a little matching game with different leaves

We read "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert

Love this book!

And another cute one: "Leaves" by David Ezra Stein

Cute, cute story

No play group is complete without felt, right? The tree branches were glued down, but the girls had to arrange the leaves onto the tree.

Bryn admiring her work

Hooray for L!