(This blog post is written by Ellie- my Mom's pretty busy today...)
This week we enjoyed having time off from school. We had lots of time to do other fun things.
This is Brenna with one of her best friends, Alllison, in nursery last week . Brenna talks about Allison daily and they play well together.
Last Sunday we had tithing settlement with Bishop DeFerrari. He's really awesome and we enjoyed talking to him.
Brenna, Sterling and Trevor enjoyed watercolor painting together in the office.
On Monday most of the family went on a hike with the Rolphs, and Ryan's good friend Ian Thomas. (I stayed home to finish a reading assignment due for my history class next week.) It was at a fun, new hiking location that the Rolph's showed us. It has lots of cool trees and a bog.
All the kids.
Ryan and Ian.
Ryan and Trevor went through a Badminton phase this week. They've been playing at least twice a day and are getting good at it-their high score is now 53.
On Tuesday we went to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento with our friends the DuForts.
There was some cool/interesting art there, but some of it was pretty weird.
Sterling walking down a winding staircase. (He's the cautious kid in the family, you can see him gripping the railing tightly...)
This is one of my best friends, Madison DuFort. We enjoyed looking at the art, but we were talking the whole time and might have missed some of it...
Ryan likes to pose like the pictures or sculptures he sees. Here's him posing as a little girl holding flowers.
Brenna with the pottery. In a different room, a security personnel had to come in to stop the little kids from touching things.
Ryan and his friend, Reed with a sculpture depicting a tower of playing cards.
Reed, Ryan and Trevor looking at a large painting titled, "The Father." When you walk up close to it, the painting looks like a colorful pattern.
Our "thinking faces."
Brenna liked the kids room where she put on a puppet show.
Sterling's really liked creating his own abstract art
Here's the whole group. (The DuFort's have 4 other kids who weren't there.)
There was a large area completely covered in leaves, where the kids had fun playing. Trevor and his friend, Sadie, tried to climb the trees, but they were a bit too difficult.
Mom made really great food this week. Pictured above is her very first batch of Natural Yeast Sourdough Breadsticks. They were delicious! We had been growing the yeast for three weeks in our refrigerator. We named the yeast Bernard, and got a bit attached. Trevor thought it was kind of weird eating it.
On Wednesday, the Thanksgiving preparations began. Mom went to the store at 6 AM and found this turkey hat. Brenna really wanted to wear it, so you can see her trying to grab it in the picture.
She eventually got a turn.
We listened to Christmas music while we did all of the cooking, Trevor was pastry cutting the pie crust when the song "Let it Go" started playing on Pandora.
Rolling out pie crust is harder than it looks...
Everyone pitched in on making the pies. They took longer than we thought, but they were definitely worth it. We made peach pie, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. We also made two gluten and dairy free pies for one of the Missionaries who is intolerant.
Ryan made decorations, turkeys and apples, for pie toppings.
Here are the finished results. (Minus the sugared cranberries I made that were still soaking.)
Because Mom had cooked all day, Dad took her out to Rubio's for dinner.
On Thanksgiving morning, Dad got one of his Christmas presents early. It's called the "World's Best Flying Disc." We organized a game of Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of friends at a nearby park, and for the first quarter we played with Dad's new frisbee.
The kids did a turkey trot, with signs around the track where they would have to do specific actions.
Pictured are some of the boys doing the, "Green Bean Ballerina."
The kids got a fruit snack if they did the track once, and larger prizes of they did it three times.
Brenna wasn't feeling herself because she had to wake up pretty early, but she did better eventually.
The Ultimate Frisbee game was awesome! We had four missionaries there and they were really good. Dad, Ryan, Trevor and I were all on the same team, and we won!
Here's the whole group of Ultimate Frisbee Players. It was a lot for one game, but it made it fun.
Sweaty and cold family picture.
We did some more cooking on Thanksgiving to get ready for the feast.
Better family pictures, with everyone dressed up.
Apple pie with the sugared cranberries on top.
There was a lot to hold in the car, we were all squished between pies, toppings, and savory dishes.
Our awesome friends, the Fifes, invited us to Thanksgiving Dinner. Their house was beautifully decorated and the food was amazing!
The little kids table being goofy.
The "older kids" table also being pretty goofy. We had a really fun time talking and laughing.
Every year we decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. We get our Christmas pajamas and Christmas ornaments to so that we can enjoy them the whole Christmas season.
I found my Angel ornament in the BOSCH mixer, because my clue mentioned baking. My Christmas pajamas were some gray leggings, a grey and gold snowflake sweater and a shirt that says, "Have Your #Selfie A Merry Little Christmas."
Brenna got a horse ornament. She was really excited to find it in her dollhouse. She named it Sleek, and later wrote an entire book about him, with my help writing it all down.
Sterling's found his train ornament in the office, next to his art supplies.
Trevor found his robot in the Bonus Room.
The boys got two sets of matching pajama pants, and grey shirts. Pictured is their favorite set of pants, the sports ones.
When we were decorating the house, Brenna decided to decorate her dollhouse as well. It now has Christmas lights, a tree, a wreath and other Christmas stickers.
Trevor turned his present for Ryan into an elephant. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but there are ears, eyes, and a trunk.
Dad and the boys worked hard getting the lights up outside.
The Front Room with the Kid's Tree.
The tree took a few hours to put up, string with lights, and decorate, but it looks really great this year. It doesn't look very good in the low light picture though.
We were pretty tired after a big day of decorating, so it was nice to relax and watch our traditional movie, "The Polar Express."
Ryan got a new LEGO set and built it really quickly on Friday afternoon. The one in the picture is a combination of three LEGO sets that he made himself. He calls it the, "Ultimate Battleship."
On Saturday night we had the DuForts and Swensons over for a "Pie Night." We ate pie, played games and chatted. We were pretty busy having fun and Mom didn't have time to take more than one picture. But we do have a picture of Trevor, Callie, and Sadie playing HeadBandz. It was a great end to a wonderful week!
