Thanksgiving

We had a w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l Thanksgiving this year at the Tanners' cabin. One of the best parts was that Tricia came home from New York for the occasion. Blake was thrilled to make cranberry sauce with his favorite aunt.

Tricia and her boyfriend, Jacob, took Blake on a walk while the feast was cooking.

The Thanksgiving feast required all day preparation. We were joined by Troy's aunt and uncle, Grandma Tanner, and lots of Tanner cousins. There were 16 people in total at the celebration, helping out in the kitchen at various times.

It is a Tanner tradition to go around before or after the meal and share what each person has been grateful for in the past year. It usually turns into a testimony meeting-like event, but it is something that we should do more often. It took a while for 16 of us to each share our blessings, and we laughed when Blake got bored and disappeared, and shortly after, all of the lights in the house mysteriously dimmed to off. Blake still has an obsession with lights and light switches.

Troy took his place at the head of the table, ready for his meat. The food was SO delicious that it made my tiredness after eating almost painful. Blake enjoyed the feast as well and added his own very loud "Amen!" after the blessing on the food.

Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without a little family football, even in the snow.

The brave bunch endured the cold.

There was also a lot of wii Rockband that occurred, including a guitar debut by both Blake and Troy's 89-year-old Grandma. 

Blake wanted to be just like his dad with his guitar strapped around him.

Just the three and a half of us.

In addition to the feasting, football, and Rockband, we popped bubble wrap with our feet.

We colored file folder games for Humanitarian Aid.

We spent time on the hammocks. Blake found a new best friend, Troy's 12-year old cousin Alex. The two of them were inseparable as Blake dragged her around the house. It's too bad that she lives an hour away from us because we would hire her to watch Blake every weekend.

The cabin was the perfect place to have Thanksgiving. There was so much to do both inside and outside and everyone was able to fit into beds or couches to spend the night. We did have a few electrical problems, however. The lights randomly went on all night long in two of the bedrooms. Of course one of the bedrooms was where Blake and I were sleeping (Troy slept separate so that his 5am work alarm wouldn't wake Blake up). I think I put Blake to bed at least four times because every time he mellowed out or drifted off, the light and fan came on full speed in his room and he stood right up in his crib with confused tears streaming down his face.

It became an all night long battle with the lights; I'd turn them off and they'd go right back on. These battles lasted for several minutes at a time and happened every couple of hours. Then, each time the lights stayed off, I lay in bed wide awake anticipating the next time the battle would occur, hoping that Blake wouldn't wake up. We finally outsmarted the lights by unscrewing the light bulbs. I'm sure that there was some electrical wiring issue, but it was kind of creepy and also incredibly frustrating to be at war with the light switches all night. We had a good laugh about it in the morning when I found out that the same light switch battle was happening in the room full of cousins below me.

The day after Thanksgiving, we all went to Zermatt, a Swiss resort in Heber. They had the most fun life-size chess board; life-size for Blake anyway.

We pointed out various locations on this indicator by the chess board. We all posed by the Moscow locator for Troy's aunt and uncle who are serving as mission presidents there.

Tricia and Jacob are from opposite ends of the country.

Zermatt also had a carousel that everyone rode on, including Grandma Tanner. She hadn't been on a carousel since she was 20, but she saddled herself with ease and enjoyed the ride.

 Blake loved the carousel as well. He is still mentioning the "horses" we rode on two days later.

Our final event for the Thanksgiving that never ended was a stop at a quaint little train diner in Heber. Blake was in heaven as he watched all of trains and trucks on the ceiling and played with the train table. I don't think he has ever played that long with something independently; it's a good thing his birthday is in a week, because trains just may be involved.

We feel so blessed to have family nearby to create holiday memories with. We hope that you had a great Thanksgiving.

Miscellaneous

I feel like I haven't posted much lately and that is probably because my organized mind hasn't been able to sort our recent pictures and activities into central themed posts. So, much to my dismay, here is a random assortment of what has been going on with us lately!

As far as projects go, I have been constructing something big for Blake's 2nd birthday (more on that later). I have also whipped out a few small things this week like some scrapbook pages for a Christmas album I started, and some tissue box covers. Troy thinks that I just invent projects to do while Blake is sleeping, which is probably true, but it has always really bugged me that the tissue boxes clashed with the rooms. We go through a lot of tissues in our house, so only having them in one location is not an option. So, I made these slipcovers for the ugly boxes. It was the first sewing project that I completed without my mom sitting next to me dictating each step. So, although they are not perfect and I now have cuts on two fingers, I am happy with the sewing progress that I have made.

I made a tissue box cover for our bathroom.

And one for the family room.

Sometimes, while I am working on projects or folding laundry, Troy and I like to watch TV. This is somewhat embarrassing, but we have gotten really hooked on the TV show "One Tree Hill." Ever since Blake was born and our evening activities after 8pm became limited, we started watching various TV series. We have watched series such as Prison Break, Friends, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Alias, The Office, etc. We love giving our commentaries about the acting and plot. It is fun to have something to do together that we look forward to. 

Usually we spread the seasons out over several months, watch episodes here and there, and eventually get burned out with whatever series we are watching about half-way through. However, we are completely hooked on One Tree Hill. It is a pretty well-written drama with interesting characters. We are going through the discs so fast that we can't even keep up with the library holds, so we've had to turn the couch around to face our computer and watch them online on several occasions. We are just too eager to find out what happens next to skip a night and wait for our library holds to arrive! We just started season 4 and we have only been watching for about 4 weeks. It always gets to be about 10:30pm and we debate about going to bed, but we always end up watching "just one more episode...," leaving us both tired the next day. It is pretty pathetic, I know, but we are completely addicted.

Wish List

I have been teaching Blake about Santa Claus. He has a copy of "The Night Before Christmas" that he wants to read all the time so that he can pick out Santa and the yum-yums (candy). Today, as I was unloading the groceries, he saw a can of ravioli and exclaimed "Santa! Santa!" I suppose he wasn't too far off. Chef Boyardee does have similar resemblance to Santa Claus.

Blake made his Christmas Wish List for Santa last night. Here are some of his requests but unfortunately my card ran out of memory at the end. He does really want the last item I suggested!

'Cuz I'm a Gangsta

Comin' to you straight from the hood.

Blake would probably look a little more gangsta if he wasn't wearing my scarves and hat, but regardless, he loves finding and putting on random hoodlum articles of clothing. I'm still figuring out how to be a mom to boys; is playing dress up ok?

Gangsta snowsuit.

Daddy's hat = ultimate gangsta fighting champion.

Blake wouldn't be a complete gangsta if he didn't give "bones" or "knuckles." That and "oh no!" are our favorite things that he says right now.

What Does a Goat Say?

We had a random stretch of really nice weather in the 70's last week so we took advantage and went to Wheeler Farms with Blake's playmates. We have gotten together with these moms and toddlers several times for fun outings to the park, water streams, and pool, but I always forget to take pictures. It is so much fun that Blake is getting to the age where he really enjoys such outings. He pointed out the sounds that the different animals made and we also enjoyed a tractor-pulled hayride and a picnic lunch. We'll take more November days like these!

Blake's buddies Zenden and Sadie.

The highlight of the day was feeding the goats. None of us could figure out what a goat says. Baa? Gruff? Bleat? Maa? Who knows.

The goats really liked eating the fallen leaves as opposed to hay. Blake was cautious and nervous at first to let the goats eat out of his hand, but he eventually got brave enough to enjoy the activity.

In fact, he enjoyed feeding the goats so much that he made this hysterical laughing face each time the leaf was snapped into the goat's mouth.

Zenden and Blake fed the ducks together. Zenden is the seventh friend we know that was born the same week as Blake. There must have been a storm that week to put everyone into labor (oh wait, there was). These boys are exactly the same size and into the same things.

What would a day at the farm be without a souvenir stick? Blake is such a boy.

Blake Button

Blake is talking a lot more and putting words together. One of his favorite recent new words is "button." He loves everything that has buttons; remote controls, cell phones, garage door openers, toys, lamps, the insides of cars, doorbells, credit card swiping machines, handicap door openers, etc. For about a week he couldn't quite finish the word "button," so everything was a "butt." He begged for "butts" everywhere we went, which was getting somewhat embarrassing in public. Thankfully, he can now finish the word, as well as say some other new phrases. He also thinks that dragging his head on the floor is the funniest thing in the world.

Boys are Buds

Blake is so blessed to have such wonderful male role models in his life who love him so much. He absolutely adores his dad, his uncles, and his two grandpas. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to see all of these people all of the time, but he can recognize them in a flash when he sees their pictures or hears their voices on the phone.

Blake loves to spend time with his dad. They are always forming hobbies for just the two of them, which most of the time contains rough-housing. However, the other night when I came home from a Young Women's activity, I found them sitting in separate chairs quietly reading individual books. Troy had given Blake a stack of books to flip through so that he could enjoy some quality reading time as well. I thought it was sweet and Blake didn't even catch on to the fact that his daddy was trying to focus on something else. He just thought that he was so cool sitting in a big chair, imitating his dad!

Blake also learned how to "chill" from his dad.

If Troy doesn't instigate a daily evening rough-housing event, then Blake does. He says "Up, Up!" until Troy lifts him onto the couch and throws him around.

How could his dad resist that little giggle?

Blake went trick-or-treating at his dad's office and then "helped" him with his settlements. He is already learning how to juggle the headset and the computer at the same time; maybe he is business bound just like his dad. Troy's work team decided to dress up as The Jets from West Side Story. That was mostly just their excuse to wear jeans and t-shirts instead of their normal attire.

Blake also loves his grandpa (and his other grandpa too, but he lives far away). We had Troy's family over for dinner on Halloween and then the whole crew went trick-or-treating. Even Blake's great-grandma Tanner walked from door-to-door around the block with us.

Boys are just buds. Blake was thrilled to stroll on his grandpa's shoulders. I was relieved to not have to carry my 25 pounder around when he got tired of walking.

Blake: "Pease? Pease? Ohp? Ohp? Hep Me!"

Interpretation: "Please? Please? Open? Open? Help Me!"