Thanksgiving

Monday through Wednesday Jordan 'slept at work' doing a project at the district office in Irvine. McKay looked forward to calling him at night before bed and to when Daddy wouldn't have to go to work for four whole days. McKay often says 'I will be sad if Daddy has to go to work'.

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Jordan's brother Todd's house in Temecula. It is about an hour drive on a normal day but on Thanksgiving day it took almost 1 1/2 hrs! McKay was excited and kept saying 'Uncle Todd is my friend' all morning. I decided to try a new recipe and made a pumpkin roll. Actually, I made two. The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of pumpkin which left me with just over a half of a can of pumpkin left. SO I made another one. The second one turned out better so that is the one we took. We also took a huge platter of fresh vegetables and dip. Between all the carrots and cucumbers and the stick pretzels McKay ate before the meal, I was impressed with how well he ate! Of course it helped that he was sitting near Uncle Todd. Max was all smiles in spite of not getting his normal naps and kept me from eating too much by squirming on my lap (as usual). We tried letting him play on the floor but by that time he was ready for a nap and could tell he was being left out. Both boys like to be in the middle of the action.

Jordan & Max watching a little football. Max notices whenever there is something on the TV.

This was one of the highlights of Thanksgiving for McKay: playing catch with Eduardo (Shayla's boyfriend) and Ryan (Lisa's niece).

Friday morning I got to web-cam with my brother David who was at Grandpa and Grandma Cardon's house in Benson. It was so nice to 'see' them.

Saturday we drove for what seemed like for-ev-er to Julian. We'd heard it was a pretty neat place to visit. It was cold and windy which helped shape my opinion that it is overrated but the fall colors were sure pretty! We got some fresh hot apple cider and bought a Boysenberry Apple pie to take home with us. The pie was amazing!

Sunday Jordan baked the turkey he had purchased for half price from Costco the day after Thanksgiving. He read a bunch of recipes online and tried a few of the suggestions he found. It turned out fabulous so we had another Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday and froze the rest of the turkey (it was 21 lbs) to eat later.

We also finished decorating our Christmas tree on Sunday. McKay really enjoyed it. Last year he set all the ornaments on the tree in one little pocket. This year he hung them on the tree all in the same area. He had a blast decorating and Max did his best to see how the tree tastes. According to McKay, now that the tree is up it is Christmastime and we need to go to Nanna and Papas. Since we have room for our big tree this year, we decided to set up the small tree for McKay to use. He has had fun making ornaments to put on the tree and re-arranging them or even just sitting and staring at the tree. The lights are always on when McKay is around!

We were able to finish our Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving so hopefully we will be able to avoid the crowds and lines again this year. Oh, and Max started crawling on all fours this week. The doctor says they usually walk about 3 months after they start crawling, which means he'll be walking at 9 months. YIKES!