Thanksgiving and cousins and Christmas

Thursday morning Davyn asked, "so when does Thanksgiving start?"  Well, the whole day is Thanksgiving, so it already started.  The answer clearly did not satisfy.  So he asked again.  And again.  And with each repeated explanation, he grew more and more annoyed.

The boy finally found satisfaction when I changed my answer to:  Thanksgiving starts when we get to Grandma's house. 

Perfect. 

Grandma Kay and Papa definitely know how to entertain kids.  With chickens and turtles, climbing trees and a huge backyard, it's one of my boys' favorite places to be. With a quiet backroom for sleeping babies and a napping couch for tired moms in the upstairs theatre room, I wasn't complaining either. 

The food was delicious, and we enjoyed a relaxing day with Jim's family.

I never think to take family shots, but saw this on Shanon's blog and stole it (thanks!) because it perfectly encapsulates my biggest Gratitude.  I love these four humans I get to call mine!

On Saturday we enjoyed all of the Hendrix cousins.  Since JoDee was visiting from Utah, Megs came up from Tucson and we had a cousins party/Christmas gift exchange.  Imagine 17 cousins ages 16 to 1 (but mostly 5-8) in my house.  What you're imagining is Chaos.  But I still love seeing them all together.  Andersyn helped me make the decorations for this cake we made for that night.

I love spending time with my sisters and mom.  The only humans in the world who can get me to wake up at 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning to shop.  They not only make me laugh, but they always manage to inspire me with ideas that make my life better.  

After writing this, here's my vow for Christmas/December:  more pictures! 

cookies for Tyler

I can't figure out why I look fully 36, while my same-blooded brother doesn't begin to look the 35 he turned last week. 

We're big on kids' birthdays in my family, but the adult birthdays get little attention other than a phone call.  But I ran across some hunting decorated cookies a few months back and knew I had to make them for my Tyler.  Mandi came over, and we had a blast with these.

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

perfect chaos.

I picked up my phone and snapped this picture while I was elbow deep in icings and food color last Friday.  Five fat flies were buzzing through the house by the time Jim got home, but the open door policy of the late afternoon was a worthwhile Bliss.  The boys ran to & fro, while the girl watched in delight, while the mom piped and Enjoyed.

Lately I feel like my life is pretty near perfect. 

I have zero free time, a DVR full of unviewed shows, a stack of unread books, and a mess of laundry to be done.  Every morning we patch Aidan's pants, dig for matching socks, and sweep more cereal crumbs to the floor.  But every morning we also pray, hug, kiss and hold. 

It's the only kind of perfection I expect to attain. 

Someday the house will be spotless.  Someday I'll get to my book pile.  Much of the chaos will vanish, but I can't imagine life will feel quite so crazily perfect without these Three.  These are definitely years to Enjoy.

more baking vanity

Alexandria's shower cookies were this weekend (see post below), but my sister-in-law Tasha was triple booked on showers, so I threw together some of these cookies for one of hers, which was an easy task to add on with the large number I was already baking. 

{for glace icing recipe, go here)

They were much simpler {and infinitely faster} than Alex's, but I thought they turned out cute.  I'm obviously obsessed with baby initials lately. 

Names are important!

A friend in my ward blessed her baby Samuel today, and I owed her big time for help she gave me with my girl's camp programs last summer.  So this was the payment they ate at her family party honoring the sweet boy:

They decorated his bedroom very cutely with a beach theme, so I went with that as well..

{my boys loved the sharks the most}

{I was partial to the surfboards}

cookies for baby Alex

I'm getting a niece for Christmas.  It's Daniel (Jim's brother) and Tonya's first baby, and we couldn't be more excited.  I did the cookie party favors for the shower, but snapped pictures of the rest because it was all put together so well.  Her name is Alexandria, so they went with a Greek theme. 

first, the cookies...

This picture is of the cookies in process.  The design mimicked the invite, but was so detailed that I had to develop a new skill.  So I made a stencil for the leaves.  Jim spent a good hour cutting out the tiny details, and it worked surprisingly well with the royal icing.  It was a huge time saver that I will definitely try again.

bagged cookies make me smile. 

but here are some of the shower details that I loved...

Jim and I both had a slew of Saturday commitments, so we divided the kids, and I ended up with Azure as my shower buddy.  She loved all the other littles that were there, especially her cousin Abby.  I love this picture I snapped of them from inside...Abby's little arm guiding my Azh.

Grandma Kay has introduced each of my 3 to olives.  Azure readily gobbled them down.

And here are all of the Scott girls:(Tonya, Jenna, Shanon, Kay, Abs in front, Tonya, me with Azh)

Now we just have to wait to meet Alexandria!