Catching Up... Service Auction, Thanksgiving, and other fun!

Just wanted to catch up... I think my problem is that I take too many pictures!!

I took some pictures at the church by my Mom's house... I love when the leaves change!!

 Thanksgiving was up at the cabin this year!!!  Yea for the snow melting just in time so everyone could drive up!!  (now hopefully it will snow from now until March!!)  Since my pictures are out of order... shocker.. the centerpieces came from my ward service auction (i was in charge of decorations.. so it is ALL from pinterest... my addiction!!)  My mom was AWESOME and made little cornicopia's for each place setting out of little sugar cones, and Alana stuffed them with runts!! (I can attest that they were delicious!)

When there were only 5 of us at the cabin.. there were a total of 4 Ipads... we are all FREAKS!!  haha and we kept mixing up whose was whose!!

Mom really steped up the meal this year and added a chafing dish... meaning a lit flame at the table!!

Surprisingly no meltdowns!!! Just Smiles!!

Mom and Grandma

Grandpa making the gravy

Lori always takes good care of all the little kids!

Joni made it up even after her Turkey race!!

Dad and Avery baby... I have to add the 'baby' part on!

Cindy and Amy even came up for a day so they could see everyone!

We love ABBY!! (however she cleans a little better than the rest of us.. so I think the cleaning standards are being raised... :}

HA!!  this is my Dad's friend away from home.. no joke my parents have neighbor friends that they hang out with up at their cabin...

Beautiful time of year!!

 So my ward does a 'Service Auction' every year.  Everyone donates a service and then we get together, eat dinner and auction everything off!!  Then we take the money (we made over $5,000!!!) and donate it to making kits for the Road Home!!  Cool right?!  And this year I got to be one of the 4 people in charge... yea...  Luckily for me the other 3 were really organized and focused and helped me focus so it turned out really well!!

Recognize these... yep these were what was made for the centerpieces..

Melissa Bishop

Cody, Freddie, Callie and Chris

Callie and I- she is the most organized person EVER!!

We had over 80 people there!!  Made our 5 hour shopping trip worth it!!

 I got to babysit Alana and Ellie the other night and we had sooo much fun!!  We made a fort/tent, Alana cooked all by herself pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for the service auction!!  She is so great!!

Ellie coloring.. Ha!  I am so mean and make her sit in the highchair to color... You would understand if you saw the walls in her room :)

Silly Glasses



Then we watched a movie on my Mom's projector... perfect because Alana and I could watch and Ellie could run around and dance!

Dancing!

And to end with... beautiful sunsets!!! One of my most favorite things about fall!!

Girls Night!

My friend Cindy had a girls night party at her house and let us all use her nail polish.. because that's what girls do when they have parties.. ;) She even had all the stuff to do gel nails including the crazy tanning oven that you had to put your hand into!!  She also showed us around her house... which was my favorite part because I like snooping through peoples ideas! 

Ruth, Cindy, Katherine and Callie

Me and Callie thought are colors worked well together which resulted in an awkward picture..

My cute toes

Callie's beautiful fingernails

Cindy

Kaylee (i think i spelled it right?)

Ruth

Haha.. we watched the first part of North and South, and when we got done Kaylee noticed that she had popcorn crumbs ALL over her hoodie!!  It explained why the dog wanted to sit next to her the whole time!!

Thanks Cindy for inviting us over!!

More Cabin Fun!!

One of the best parts of having a crazy work schedule is that I can play when everyone else has to work!!  My parents were taking Alana and Ellie to the cabin because Alana had a day off school... and since I wasn't working... I went too!!  I didn't get up to the cabin until about 1am.. and I slept in the same room as Ellie just in case she woke up and was scared... Well she did wake up.. but wasn't scared she was just VERY awake... at 4AM!! (I had no idea that time of the morning even existed!!)  So me and Ellie had about 3 hours of quality playing time together... well mostly she played and I laid in my bed and grunted every few minutes.

 I feel like these pictures require no explanations... this is exactly what she did.. read books, played on the bars in her bed, and then sat their looking for something more fun to play with...

 Later in the day when everyone was up... BOTH Ellie and Alana let me do their hair... (this is BIG! neither of them like to ever do their hair so the fact that they were patient and let me play with their hair is HUGE!!)

 This is also BIG... Ellie NEVER shares her blankets (known as her "pink one" and "green one") with ANYONE or ANYTHING!!  So we were all very shocked to see that she was playing and sharing with the Moose.

 Alana enjoying the nature walk.

 This is how my Dad posed when I said "smile."??

 Mom

 HA!!  So we were trying to get a picture of everyone on the trail... but Alana wandered off and got stuck... literally we couldn't pull her foot out!!

 So dad went over to help her and Ellie insisted on holding on to his leg... it was all very funny to watch!! ...best part was it was not the only time Alana got stuck.. probably happened 4 more times after this, including some falls into the bushes with scrapes up her back!

 Right here was Ellie's favorite part about the cabin... the TOP BUNK!!  She would ask anyone who was listening if they wanted to go play with her on the bed!  So I went to go play with her... and all she wanted to do was tickle my toes!! (it worked for me.. I just had to lay their and laugh!)

 JEEP RIDE!!  Alana loves the jeep and was probably on it 2/3rds of the day... Ellie however was very nervous about going on a Jeep ride.. especially without her carseat.. go figure?  However, once she got in she couldn't stop screaming and laughing!!

 Alana helped my dad unload the trailer... her job was to sit on the big stick and tell him stories.

 On the drive home the sunset was AMAZING!!  So me and Alana stopped in Huntsville to take a picture.

It was a ton of fun to hang out with the nieces, especially because it was up at the cabin!!  I am so lucky to have parents with such an incredible place to stay at!!