Happy Thanksgiving!

How can it already be Thanksgiving? Where on earth has this year gone!

Here in western Colorado it's beginning to get pretty cold. Amazingly, we haven't had any serious snow yet. It's not at all unusual to get completely snowed in, in October and here it is, mid-November. Everyone out here got all atwitter one day last week because it actually started snowing, but seriously, I think maybe 16 snowflakes fell and it stopped. But the sky is looking pretty ominous this afternoon and as crazy as this will sound, I honestly think it smells like it's going to snow. :)

Of course it does. Mandy and Aaron are leaving Wednesday morning to make the drive across the Rockies to come out here for Thanksgiving. According to the weather gurus, it's supposed to start seriously snowing in the mountains Monday and continue all week. Of course. Thank goodness they have a 4-wheel drive vehicle (Jeep) but still, the mom in me isn't thrilled about them making that drive in those conditions. It does help to know the ski resorts all throughout the Rockies do a pretty good job making sure the skiers can get to them.

However, I.have.not.seen.my.daughter.since.the.first.week.of.June.

Ridiculous. We've never ever gone this long without seeing each other and I'm beyond excited about them arriving Wednesday afternoon.

I've already waited so long to post these photos, I was tempted to just wait and post them for Christmas instead of Thanksgiving. LOL But what kind of nana would I be if I didn't show you how cute my little grandkids looked on Halloween. This was before they went trick or treating and little Avery wasn't sure what was going on. But she caught on very quickly once she realized a lot of chocolate was involved. She's such a girl - LOVES chocolate!

The first time I saw Cameron's costume, his mom had called me and asked me to run down to her house real quick. Didn't say why...just said she had something to show me. When I got there, I was standing in her kitchen and Cameron jumped out of the laundry room, in that costume, and I almost wet my pants.

That had nothing to do with having a 60 year old bladder - he just flat out scared me half to death. :)

So Cameron was a real scary dude, and....

...Avery was a ladybug.

Please notice that she is wearing her big brother's red crocs and they are on the wrong feet. Those shoes are way too big for her but she loves them and Krissy just avoids the tantrum by letting her wear them. All the time. Everywhere. LOL

You know, I totally remember how much I hated Playdough when my girls were little. I swore I'd never have it in my house again. And then I got grandchildren. And now I don't care. This stuff keeps them occupied for hours when they're here with me on Fridays.

They rummage around in my kitchen drawers and find "tools" and away they go.







And on a bit of a sad note, the plant you see in the first photo is the avocado tree you all watched me grow from a pit, starting over a year ago. It's toast. No matter what I did, I couldn't make that thing be "not ugly" and every time I looked at it, I got mad at it, so I picked it up one day and tossed it in the trash.

I shall start a new avocado pit. And it will be more cooperative and become a bushy, pretty little tree. Or else.

Like all of you, we're getting ready for the holidays. We'll be having our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, as we do every year, so that Krissy and Andy can go to his family's on the holiday itself. And you know, I kind of like that. It gives me an extra day to float my Butterball in the bathtub since no matter what I do, I never manage to get my turkey completely thawed in time. And it gives me the perfect excuse to totally avoid Black Friday. :)

I made a big decision about Thanksgiving this year. We'll have all the same things we always have, but downsized. I have no idea why I've always thought I had to buy absolutely the biggest turkey I could find. A 28 pound turkey is just hard to deal with, all the way around. Hard to thaw. Hard to handle and move around and hard to make space for on the table.

And hard to eat for two weeks after the holiday, since that's what Rob and I end up doing year after year. So this year? Smaller turkey and smaller amounts of everything.

I'm trying a new appetizer this year. I saw this in the Sunday paper last month (Parade Magazine). It's a Pillsbury crescents recipe - bacon cheddar pinwheels. They look wonderful and if you're interested, the recipe is here. There's even a little how-to video which cracks me up because I swear, it's about 15 seconds long, yet it's actually helpful.

If that link doesn't work, just go to Pillsbury.com and look for bacon cheddar pinwheels because truly, there's no way I'm typing in all the letters and numbers in that URL!

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me behind the scenes to make sure I'm OK. I'm fine. It took me a long time to completely recover from being so sick early last month. The biggest challenge was getting my energy back, and my enthusiasm for much of anything, to be honest. But I did get it back and quickly jumped into fall cleaning which was particularly challenging since I totally skipped spring cleaning this year. LOL The blinds. Oh my word, I think I hate them. I love the way they look, but cleaning them is right up there with ironing and scrubbing toilets.

If I weren't fine, one of my daughters would commandeer this blog and let you know. :)

I hope you have a wonderful holiday planned. And I hope you're a lot farther along in getting ready for Christmas than I am! I'm not remotely ready but you know, somehow it always comes together and our little family has a very nice Christmas. It's mostly about the being together of course.

As we approach Thanksgiving, be aware of all you have to be thankful for. We all tend to forget that our cups are half full. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!