To Grandmothers House We Went

   We took of at noon and Liam passed out, it was a nice quiet drive and my sweet Chad and I finally got to talk with each other! Really talk, and not about when we had tithing settlement or who was going to clean the bathroom or what study group Chad would be going to that week. We got to talk about us and our future. It was my favorite part of the day.
   We stopped at Smith and Edwards to stretch our legs and tried every military hat ever made on Liam. He was a great sport and had the time of his life playing with us and being out of his car seat. We stopped at Breeas apartment next and got to see her awesome bachelorette pad if you will. We also got to meet a special friend of hers, Andrew. He got drilled with questions for about an hour then we let him loose to finish his tests so that he could drive with Breea down to AZ to meet the family. Andrew, I'm sorry about my family. But on the bright side, you'll have a new found gratitude for your crazy family after spending a weekend with ours.....who am i kidding, I'm so jealous, hug my parents for me.
  After dinner with the love birds we headed over to Scott and Loris and as we drove up to the house, we were welcomed by the sound of the family band booming in the front room. It was so good to see everyone and visit as we sat by the fire and made smores.

   The next morning we woke up early and got ready for pictures at Battery Park. The kids were absolute champs. Every form of family pictures that could have been taken, were taken. it took two pain saking hours, one very patient Samantha and fruit snack bribery, but we did it! And Sam did such a great job, we got some seriously beautiful shots of the whole bunch.

                                 

  We went home ate lunch then were off again to go ice skating. It was wonderful. Liam kinda hated it but Chad and I enjoyed it. Chad, Preston and Gail raced around the rink until Chad got going a little too fast and when two kids stepped in front of him, he dove to the side and biffed it so bad! He didn't get hurt which means I can laugh at him.

   I got some great videos and we were all exhausted by the end of the day.
We went home at some pizza and watch Maleficent. after all the kids were out and homework was done we played a famous game of Merrell Spoons.

Some of my favorite quotes of the day:

"Mr.slowpoke, this is why I dont' like playing games...i get nicknames"
"That wasn't a spoon!"(after Gail grabbed a spoon out of Rays lap)
"S-P-O-O-N, oh and S! Thats SPOONS!" (Gails rivalry is unmatched)
"She doesn't have OCD, she's just extremely structured in matters of no importance"

There were many more but what happens at grandmas stays at grandmas.

Thanksgiving morning, after the boys all took a bath together,  we all headed over to Scott and Loris for the Turkey Trot.It was awesome. Preston and Scott had an actual competition going out of it but the rest of us just ran for fun. Darren finished first, afer preston and Scott and they rest of us followed suit. Liam wasnt to happy to be in the race (or maybe he wasnt too happy to be loosing the race in the back with mom and dad) so we turned around early and got ready with the video camera at the finish line. Chad and Madi sprayed all the winners with silly string that shower the Oyler beautiful lawn for the next few hours (sorry Oylers!). A bunch of the family played a game of Basket ball while the others cheered them on and by two, we had all worked up a good appetite...which was very important since Gail had prepared the feast of the century!

We ate and ate and ate.

After cleaning up, and spending a little time at kohls, we had a relaxing evening.

The next morning Chad and Liam and I just hung out at the house when everyone else went to Walmart. We had a very peaceful morning and it was nice to be with just my little family for a while.

The afternoon was spent at a craft fair and then we went to the Spanish Fork Christmas Lights parade. I have never seen flouts made of light or trees riding around on bikes so it was a real treat to be able to see this fun tradition. Liam loved every second of it!

The next morning, we packed everything up and got ready to say our goodbyes. I can't begin to describe how grateful I am to have so much family that is so actively in my life and chad and Liams as well. Grandma was definitely the favorite person for Mr. Liam. He went through some serious grandma withdrawals afterwards but that's ok, Liam loves his family and I love watching him recognize his cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles. he knows he has a strong family that loves him and will always be there for him.