Happy Thanksgiving

November 26-27:  Over the last several years we have enjoyed hosting Thanksgiving with a variety of family and friends and joining us.  This year we traveled for the first time since Kinnick was born.  We went to Burlington to spend a few days with Marc's family.  We left on Thanksgiving morning and made the drive.  We had fun eating a delicious Thanksgiving meal prepared by his mom, followed by some fun time hanging out and relaxing.  Kinnick got to open his birthday presents.  Marc and I did some Black Friday shopping.  We had lunch at Great Wall Buffet (a favorite when we are in Burlington).  We watched the Hawks win.  Another fun thing we got to do was shop for a family we adopted from my parent's church.  We chose a family that 3 kids (2 girls and a boy) similar ages to our 3 big kids.  They each had fun helping pick out some items.  It was a great break for our family and a fun time away from home.

Kinnick's Birthday:

Hawkeye Game on Black Friday:

Presents for our Adopted family:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Although we were not into our new house by Thanksgiving (as I had originally hoped!) it was a great Thanksgiving! Marc's parents and sister came for a long weekend. We were able to have a relaxing time filled with food, games, Christmas movies, and lots of laughs!
We started our morning with cinnamon rolls in front of the fire while we watched home alone. We did a lot of prep work ahead of time for our Thanksgiving feast (including cooking the turkey overnight). This is the first time I've ever had over an hour to sit and relax and enjoy breakfast in the same day as preparing a Thanksgiving meal--I loved it!
The kids made these cute wall hangings at MOPS the day before Thanksgiving (while all us moms made apple pies--it was so fun!) The kids also made the cards (below) to send to their great-grandparents.
A first for this year--Marc went black Friday shopping with me! We got the kids to bed and left around 9. We went to Wal-Mart for 10 o'clock deals and then hit Target and Kohl's at midnight. We were home around 3 and able to sleep in Friday morning. Marc was amazed by the experience but I think he will be okay if it was a one-time deal!

Cousins' Visit/Thanksgiving

Nathan (Marc's brother), Cori, Jaren, & Emery came to stay with us for the week of Thanksgiving. They arrived the Friday before and left the day after. We had SO much fun! We tried to cram in as many fun activities as we could while still leaving plenty of time for the kids to simply play (and for us adults to recover from the meltdowns and outbursts--mostly coming from two little girls!) Marc's parents and his sister joined for Wed-Fri. It was a full house, but we wouldn't change a thing! The week went fast... too fast!

Saturday was a lazy day... Emery remembered having a tea party this summer and couldn't wait for another one! (Sadie was also excited b/c we hadn't had the tea set out for awhile.) This summer we had the tea party in the tent--so we had to improvise. This picture shows the girls enjoying their treat in Sadie's princess tent. In case you were wondering what you would eat at a "Gorsch Teaparty" here's the menu: Tea (w/ cream (almond milk), sugar, and lemon slices), marshmallows, fruit snacks, grapes, dried cranberries, cereal pieces, and crumbled bacon. (That's right, we did have bacon at our tea party!)

Jaren was such a good sport to be the official waiter!

Kinnick also joined in the fun although he wasn't allowed in the tent.

Sunday after church we packed shoeboxes. Sadie was very excited for this because we buy and store things throughout the year and still she remembers doing them last year. She took her packing job very seriously!

Jaren, Aunt Cori, & Sadie--fixing "treat" bags for the shoeboxes... Sunday afternoon Nathan & Cori kept the kids while Marc and I dropped off the shoeboxes and went to see Harry Potter!

Cori helped the kids work on this craft project while we were gone. They painted pieces of a ceramic nativity scene to give to Chuck and Janet for Christmas. They each worked on one piece (including Macey!)

Kinnick was SO proud of his donkey--he kept sayig "Bubba's donkey!"

The girls spent a lot of their time in pajamas--specifically these (not so weather appropriate) nightgowns. Emmy left this night gown here this summer and was so excited to be reunited with it. Sadie wanted to match, so I had to dig her nightgown out of a tub in the basement.

We spent lots of time reading!

Hawkeye Ballerinas!

On Wednesday afternoon I got out one of our little trees and the kids helped me decorate it so we could have our family Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Wed. night.

After dinner we let the kids make some Christmas cookies to have after gifts... Here's what we ended up with :

The kids were so excited to open some Christmas presents (early!)

After gifts, we enjoyed our cookies and some hot chocolate:

Kinnick's birthday was on Thanksgiving this year. We started our day with "birthday" cinnamon rolls. (We have a tradition of waking the kids up by going into their room to sing Happy Birthday. This year, Marc and I were actually sleeping in Kinnick's room--when we heard him waking up, we got to sing and spend some snuggle time with him!)

He enjoyed opening some birthday presents--including this spider man riding toy from Grandpa & Grandma!

Earlier in the week, the kids helped make little pace cards for everyone for our Thanksgiving dinner. Inside the place cards everyone got to write reasons they are thankful for that person--Macey helped Cori write hers!

The girls helped me make some sweet potato chips--they got a little over-seasoned and a little over-baked, but I think I will try them again. They were yummy (crunchier than the fries we usually make).

Emmy helped make her very own (dairy free) pumpkin pie!

For Thanksgiving night we made all appetizers (the kids were so excited to eat only "snacks" for dinner--they kept talking about it all day!) and watched the Santa Clause 2.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, since it is well past Christmas and into the new year, this Thanksgiving update is a bit past due! It will be brief (with lots of pictures)... Enjoy!

The CO cousins came for a week to visit--we had a blast while they were here! Nathan & Corinne stayed at our house through Tuesday (and kept Sadie & Kinnick for me for two days!) Sadie had so much fun playing with her cousins. While they were here we made handprint calendars as Christmas presents and attempted a photo shoot at Sears!

By Wednesday night, we were all at Grandma & Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving. This was right before our big dinner. We made turkey hats with the kids and my little turkey wouldn't wear hers!

My other little turkey let me snap a picture of him.

Thanksgiving Day: Jaren (6), Kinnick (1), Emery (almost 4), Sadie (almost 3)

My cute nephew & niece...

Sadie & Emery are most certainly two peas in a pod! Because of this, they had A LOT of fun together and also got into a fair amount of power struggles... they're both used to being in charge and both somewhat stubborn (must come from their dads!)

On Friday we had our family Christmas. Cori and I did get up before 5 to do some early morning shopping, but we were back in time for breakfast. The kids were very excited to open presents and it was fun to all be together for our Christmas celebration.

Sadie received a special jewelry box from Emmy and she LOVES it!

Sadie & Emmy with their matching bubble bath from Aunt NeeNee.

This is one of the handprint calendars the kids made. They put so much work into them--they were very excited to show them off!

Friday afternoon the girls decorated some Christmas cookies. It continues to get a bit easier each year...

Sadie was a HUGE fan of this activity!

Kinnick decided to put on his dad's hat while we were packing up.

Sadie & Kinnick in their matching IA shirts with their Grandma Janet and Grandpa Chuck.

We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and Christmas with our family--can't wait for the next visit!