December 2nd

Rainbow Ellie Sparkles knows a good game when she sees one.

I had had this HP advent calendar in my Christmas stuff continually broke it out this year. It was cute. 

I was sick a lot of this day too. A lot of time in bed, some decorating, some turkey soup ala Matt, some unpacking. 

And hooray for being caught up! 🎉🎉🎉

Here’s to way more detail than necessary in my every day blogs again. 

November 30th-December 1st

 D and I didn’t feel well on Sunday, the 30th  I had already made plans to go to White Plains so I took a bunch of cough drops and made it happen and it was a really good visit/ministering day. Then that night we had our Area RSP’s meeting that I ran as the longest serving relief society President. I had a senior missionary come talk about some new programs and was able to share some wisdom won by experience and it was a really good meeting. 

Still didn’t feel great on Monday, just sonic coughing! I worked really hard before Thanksgiving to get lots of Christmas put up, but when Thanksgiving falls so late, it really feels like starting December behind.

That day was also the girls piano recital and Delaney made it there in the mix of time and with holey tights. And gross slides, obvi. 

We love Johnna so much! She’s the best!

After years and years of poster making, one of the Rays finally won! This sort of makes up for her playing one of my least favorite Christmas songs of all time - the Charlie Brown Christmas song. 

Frankie helped put up our adventure adventure calendar from Amy and we call that a beginning of December. 

With a funny memory for good measure. 🤣

Today was Aladdin

Since Matt is heading out of town and Tuesday is our only free night, we had our fancy Disney dinner tonight. This was my fav of the three we’ve had!

We had a Mezze Platter for our starter. 

Then the most delicious chicken shawarma and Mediterranean rice. 

Magic carpet hand pies for dessert. 

And The Blue Wish mocktail for our drink. Only i forgot the cotton candy. But I remembered the menu this time, so 🤷‍♀️.

I don’t even know if the girls had ever seen Aladdin and it’s been soooo long since I saw it. I am loving our phone free movie nights!

Even when they happen at 7:30 on Tuesday night because Frankie had a long and late field trip to Towson. 

Also, on Sunday before church Frankie and I went for a walk and 6 Blackhawk helicopters flew over us and kind of creeped us out. Everything feels pretty unstable right now with the US’ global standing. 

Today we had Inklings and then Alecia and I walked. I prepped for my staff appreciation event and made some trip planning progress. 

A very average Tuesday made a little more fun and fancy. ✅

November 28th-29th

 We took one picture on Black Friday  this was the Wicked 2 crew. Everyone else saw Zootopia 2. We ate leftovers and played games and packed and enjoyed our last day with the New Yorkers.

Anxious to not repeat the same traffic nightmare, we were up and at ‘em by 6 the next morning. Ehlyvia lives in Baltimore and it was enough on our way that she was able to cancel her train ticket and ride with us. 

First stop was tone the boys dreams come true and finally see The Statue of Liberty. 

It was sunny but so cold and windy!

We love an adventure. 

I  

Both cars stopped for brekkie and then I napped, we chatted, and we hit zero traffic. We dropped Ehlyvia off easily and gave hugs and promises to see her again soon and off to home we headed. 

We had pizza and a foreign yum box and finished the day with more games. 

We also cracked up at our grinch names. Usually those are really dumb but we thought these ones were so funny! For example, I’m a foul old crank and Lu was smelly psychotic abomination. Admittedly, it doesn’t sound as funny as I’m typing it, but it was funny then. 

We gave kisses and loves and that was a wrap on our 2025 thanksgiving season. 

Thanksgiving 2025 part 2

 The 2025 Thanksgiving crew! Complete with our favorite Thanksgiving food shirts!

The butter and rolls crowd - 

The mashed potatoes and gravy crew!

2 cute little deviled eggs cousins, almost exactly the same height. And Delaney repping our Maryland flag with her colors. 

The best trio - desserts!

The green bean posse!

And the miscellaneous sides. 

Getting a group together for a picture is always, always an adventure. 🤣

Thanksgiving 2025

 I love a big family thanksgiving. Sandy made me a fancy salmon lox bagel and it was soooo good! Love her!

I don’t remember where we acquired these dumb pilgrim hats, but I’m so glad we brought them to NY. 

Amy had a puzzle/art table out for people to enjoy. 

We went for a family hike that morning and then watched the parade. 

We’d made pies Wednesday night and we all had a job for Thursday but with so many people it was pretty simple. 

They invited a few friends so we had big team games that were very fun. Amy also got us each our favorite Thanksgiving food shirts. 

Christian and Jeanne took some pictures for their Christmas cards. 

So proud of these guys. 

Partying all day is hard for precious 4-year-olds, so he climbed into auntie henna’s lap and fell right to sleep. 

It was a delicious thanksgiving. We have so many blessings to be thankful for. 

November 25th-26th

Flashback to Thanksgiving weekend! On Tuesday we headed up to New York for a Seacruisin’ Turkey Day!

Damian wanted to leave early and I wanted to leave late so we met in the middle and left at the worst possible time  I knew I wanted to leave late but didn’t really even remember why. Until we hit the worst Thanksgiving  traffic. 😩

We brought the. It’s in our car which was fine except that they didn’t have any activities. 

We left around 11 and hit traffic in New Jersey and it was bad and everyone was a little grumpy and then it started raining and it was just a terrible drive. One of our worst. 

But we made it and had dinner together and we let the festivities begin!

The next day we all braved the Croton to Union Station train for some float watching city enjoying! These 2 cousins!

Henry’s second time in the city!

We each got a number and did many a count off to make sure we didn’t lost anyone. 

We did all our usuals - Starby’s for hot chocky and lots of walking. 

We found a cute hole in the wall pizza place for lunch and found some bleachers and it was the nicest little rest. 

Central Park pic!

We decided not to wait in the float lines this year. We walked outside of the fence so our view wasn’t as good and we didn’t see as many floats as last year, but it worked for our group. 

Our boys were total troopers! No complaints!

Henry got passed around and also had no complaints. He’s so loved!

We missed christian and Jeanne and Ruby, but Jeanne had to work. 

It was a lovely warmish day. 

Dancing?

We all took turns in the trees. 

We stared making our way home around 4:30.

Sandy had been having some knee pain so she stayed home and made us a lovely dinner. 

That’s what I call a good day!