Week of November 23 - November 29

It has been a busy and exciting week for us! On Tuesday, Mariah was in a reader's theatre at her school that talked about Squanto the Indian. Here she is up on stage, that's not her with the microphone, though, she's two more children to the left. She did a great job! They even sang "Over the River" when they were done. Cool! Did you know that was a Thanksgiving song?



On Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa Elton arrived from Las Vegas. We were so excited to see them! They always bring sweet love into our home. Beth crawled onto Grandma's lap to help her with her phone.

She also crawled onto Grandpa's lap to help him with his homework. (He's taking college classes at UNLV. Cool, huh?) It was pretty nice of Bethany to help!

On Thursday, I had to get up early to put our 23.35 lb turkey into the oven. That is one big bird!! Around noon, my sister, Amy and Paul and their three girls arrived also from Las Vegas to help us celebrate. We finished our part of the "fixin's" and carted everything and everyone over to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's where we had a terrific Thanksgiving feast! Here's the little girls at their table:

And the bigger girls up at the counter:

And the grownups at the big table:

I still can't believe we all fit so nicely! Amy and Mandy are missing from the pictures. It was kind of hard to get everyone sitting down at the same time! Whenever you eat with kids, you get up and down a lot. This is an inescapable fact.

On Friday, we went to downtown Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square. None of my pictures of the lights turned out too clear and it was hard to get our big group together since there were a MILLION people doing the same thing. I did get this really cute picture of all the cousins in front of the giant gingerbread house in Little America, though. I think the gingerbread was even real! It sure smelled good!

On Saturday, everyone LEFT! Horrible, I tell you. That's when I read too many books and didn't get anything done. The days before it, though, were wonderful, and I was so glad that so many of my family got to spend so much time with us! What a blessing! What a happy Thanksgiving!

If you think our week was over, though, you'd be wrong! Mariah Marion Skinner turned nine years old today! Today is her birthday! So, this evening we went again to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house, this time decorated in balloons, and had ham and funeral potatoes for Mariah's birthday dinner (her request). Her favorite gift was a stuffed pig which she asked for at least a month ago. Funny, huh? As soon as the twins saw it, they both wanted a stuffed pig for their next birthday too! ?? I guess it is kind of cute. She got some cute clothes and a computer game and a gumball machine AND a ukulele. We are standing by for some stellar new performances!