Thanksgiving

We just finished celebrating our 7th Thanksgiving together and our 7th different location to spend the holiday. We now have London, Arizona, Carribbean Cruise, New York City, Jamaica, Florida & Connecticut. This was our 2nd thanksgiving in a row that we've spent at home.

This year we invited our friends, the Carters, to come up from Philadelphia to spend the weekend together. Jackson had so much fun with Maelie and Griffin when we visited them in August and they picked up right where they left off. This time Abbie was able to interact with Reece much more and it was fun to hear them giggling together too.

On Thanksgiving morning Tyler and Rock braved the cold for our ward's turkey bowl football game. It was seriously freezing, like 30 degrees literally. But they claimed to have had fun! Courtney and I took the older kids to the new movie, Frozen. I hadn't been too intrigued or impressed with the previews but honestly loved it! The music was incredible and it had some great one liners and a powerful message. Jackson liked it too but on a whole other level I think :)

The crazy crew

Waiting for the movie to start!

That afternoon we got together with the Giffords and Rawcliffes for a Thanksgiving dinner at our church building. We thought of hosting it here but it would have been a tight squeeze so we opted for the relief society room instead. We split the meal 4 ways so none of us had to do to much. Tyler and I did the Turkey & a pumpkin pie. Not too much time was needed (hence the ability to go to a movie) but everything turned out great! The kids had fun playing in the gym while the adults played some games and chatted after our dinner.

Tyler's instagrammed plate

It was delicious!

The four couples

The fun kids table!

Helping the kids play Thanksgiving Bingo

Friday we did some shopping, nothing too crazy and got some pizza for lunch and went bowling. That night we stayed in and watched Despicable Me 2 and ate our yummy leftovers.

The next day we took the troops to NYC for the day! It was a quick visit so we just hit the kid essential. We started at Rockefeller and saw the tree and ice skaters. We all enjoyed some yummy treats from Magnolia Bakery before we headed over to Times Square & the ToysRUs store. Jackson loved the huge Jurassic Park dinosaur and got to ride the Ferris Wheel! We ate lunch at Tyler's favorite place - Carmines! He's tried to eat there for years but it's been too busy and wouldn't take reservations. But we got lucky and got to enjoy their yummy spaghetti & meatballs & chicken scarparello. From there we talked over to Macys and the kids got to meet Santa! Jackson had been there 3 years ago as an 8 month old so it was fun to go back again. This time around, he had quite the wonder in his eyes and was so intrigued with the magic train that transported us to the North Pole.

Riding the subway into the city!

The family in Rockefeller Square

We walked up from the subway stop and saw this! Welcome to Christmas in NYC!

Hard to capture a photo on a moving ferris wheel!

The kids were in the fire truck at the way top!

Jackson's favorite part!

Stroller buddies!

Jackson was not scared at all, mostly in awe - Abbie was terrified.

He told Santa he wanted a Dinosaur Train for Christmas :)

We headed back to the subway from there and rode to Queens where we had parked our cars. Even that was a fun adventure in the eyes of the kids :)