Thanksgiving

November 20, 2012

This year Zachs sister Jaimi and her family came out to visit us.

 She gave Zach this leg lamp from the Christmas Story movie.  It's a little wall plug in light.  Zach laughed so hard!

November 21, 2012

Everyone watched the Thanksgiving Parade on TV.

 Santa's on TV!

 The most exciting part of the parade!

Next we headed to Gage Park to let the kids play.

 Summer loved jumping in the huge pile of leaves.

 Wyatt and Gracen loved the little kids playground.

 Gracen, Wyatt and Summer riding the rhinos.

 Gracen posing :)

 Going down the fireman pole in the huge shoe.

Climbing the octopus.

 The big alligator, or lizard...whatever it is.

 The ship

 Jaimi and me

 Our little family, by the big elephant...kinda how I'm feeling right now ;)

 The gorillas

 Walking on the train tracks.

 I told them to show me a silly face, and this is what they did.  HAHA!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

 Carving the turkey!

 All ready to eat...after many many hours of cooking and preparing.

 Sweet Potato Souffle, Green Bean Casserole

 Pretzel Jello Salad

 Rolls, and Mashed Potatoes

Oh yes, and stuffing of course, gravy, and cranberry sauce.  I think that's about it.

It all turned out great and we all ate way to much.  Just like you should on Thanksgiving!

 Jaimi and Zach. Awww siblings :) 

 Gracen, Jeff and Summer

 Wyatt and Me.  Look at those chubby checks, oh ya, and Wyatts too :)

 Wyatt LOVES meat on the bone.  It's one thing we know he'll always eat...if it's on the bone.

Later that night Jaimi and Zach went to Walmart for the early Black Friday Thursday Deals. They got some killer deals!

November 22, 2012

Jeff and Jaimi wanted to see the church sites and some of the cool stuff in Kansas City.

 Our first stop was the Kansas City Temple.  It was FREEZING cold!  It's crazy how it changed so quickly in just one day!

 Then we went to Libery Jail.

 Crown Center was our next stop.  It's a huge mall owned by Hallmark.

 They had some fun characters there to take pictures with.

We ate at Fritz's next.

 It's a fun place where you order your food by phone and a train brings it to your table.

 The kids really loved it! It was worth the wait.

Summer, me, Wyatt, and Zach

 It's so funny, we ran into my cousin Joel!  He was there visiting my Aunt Marci (his mom).  It was fun to see his family and Marci and John.

 Wyatts favorite color of crayon!

 You can see the fountains in the distance. (You can't see Jeff and Jaimi off to my side, laughing at how many picture I take. I know, I love to take pictures!)

Next we went to the Kaleidoscope Museum

 It was Zachs first time there.  I hadn't realized he'd never been before.  He thought it was pretty neat!

 Wyatt loved showing him around.  They were dancing to the music. Can you see that Wyatt is moving his hips :)

 They had a painting station where after your artwork is complete you send it through this machine that drys it.

 Wyatt loved the little play house.

 Jaimi entering the dark room.  It's my favorite.  

 I love the glow in the dark wax.

 The light makes a drawing on the wall.  It's pretty cool.

 Zach's trying to show Wyatt how it's done.

 Now he's figured it out.

 Peeking through a hole to look at yourself in the mirror.  Wyatt thought that was cool.

 Getting ready to leave.  The kids didn't want to go they were having so much fun.  Summer ran around grabbing all the art projects she could get before we left.  It was so cute.

After we headed to the Hallmark visitors center, and we got free record-able gifts.   I love that they give away really nice stuff to families.

 Like father like son.

Then we went to Chips Chocolate Factory

 We watched how they made the fudge and flung it up into the air to cool it off.  It's quite the show!

 Picture time at the Weston Hotel

 We went to Union Station - it was so beautiful with all the Christmas decor!

 Jeff and Zach-what a goofy guy my husband is ;)

 "I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain"

 They have stars hanging from the ceiling and Christmas trees everywhere.  It's so festive.  I will make sure to come back here every Christmas season.

 In we go to the miniature train displays.

 Wyatt LOVES to watch the trains.

 It was cute to watch Wyatt and Gracen show each other all the little things they were seeing.

 In the center there is a HUGE Christmas tree with wrapped presents around it.

 We headed to dinner for some good Kansas City BBQ

 The kids crashed as soon as we got going.  They were so worn out!

Soon enough we arrived to Oklahoma Joes!

The kids woke right up and were ready for some BBQ!

 Here's our dinner, we shared a full rack of ribs...sooooo good!!!!

 I think Wyatt has this face because all he wants to do is dig into those ribs!  HAHA!

 Jeff, Jaimi and the girls loved it!

 Summer loved the ribs too!

On our way home we stopped off at the Legends.

 We had to let them experience the "Yellow Brick Road".  We are in Kansas!

 The kids loved running on it.

 They had a huge tree in the middle of the fountain.    It played a light show to the music.  It was so cool!

 Wyatt has a love/hate relationship with the T-Rex Cafe.  He wants to show it to everyone.  He talks about it all the time, but when we get there he hides his face and has to be held.  He's so freaked out of the animatronic T-Rex.  (I think I'd be scared too if I was your age Wyatt.) The T-Rex moves, opens and closes his mouth, and growls.

 The fish tank is pretty cool.  They have some pretty prehistoric looking fish in there.

 We went around and saw all the different dinosaurs and watched them move too.

 More of the light show Christmas tree.

 Even though it's freezing, he still loves to touch the water that shoots out.  Burrrrr!

November 23, 2012

 Summer had talked about wanting to decorate our Christmas tree.  So Zach thought it would be a good idea to set it up and let the kid decorate.  I was glad to have them do it for me!

 So sweet.

After we headed to a tourist location: Brown vs. Board of Education

 It's at a school which has been turned into a museum.

They showed how blacks and whites weren't treated equally and how they tried to stop segregation in school.  Brown vs. Board made is so they couldn't segregate.

 It was very interesting, and sad that that kind of stuff happened not too long ago.

That night we watched "Elf" together.  It's now a classic Christmas show we love to watch every year.

We were so glad Jeff and Jaimi and their girls could come visit us.  We had so much fun!