Thanksgiving

Esperanza came out to Illinois for thanksgiving and I'm SO glad she did!

 Since the drive to the airport is so long we made a stop at IKEA before heading home. It was a good idea, I had never been and had been wanting to see what it was like. The kids LOVED it. We spent the majority of the time in the kids area.

These were their favorite toys, which they ended up getting for christmas :) 

While here Esperanza got to witness Snowball at his best. I think he escaped 4 out of the 6 days she was here. I found him in several places, I found him in way too many places that I was NOT fond of. Somehow he made it into our stovetop. I was so mad, I almost closed the lid and turned on the burners....but instead I took a picture.

Thanksgiving dinner was SO much fun to make!

 Here are our little helpers, they were pretty happy to be wearing the aprons!

And here is our dinner!! Stuffing, sweet potato soufle, green beans, turkey and rolls (that didn't quite turn out). The turkey was done in 1 1/2 hours! I don't know how that happened, but it was a miracle, because the kids were hungry and we all needed lunch a little early. 

Auntie Spwanza :)

Flat Stanley..

And dessert, we made a Pumpkin pie, a Peach pie, my grandma's Blueberry Cheesecake, 

and since we ran out of pie pans we made Cherry Turnovers instead. They were delicious!

 AND beautiful :)

Cole loved this blueberry cheesecake! He ate so much of it.

Devin got his Cherry pie :)

Sadie would only eat if she did it herself....from my plate!

The kids got to go see Frozen in theater the day after thanksgiving. Sadie stayed home with me and Esperanza. They LOVED it! It was their first time watching a movie at the theaters and they've asked us to go almost every week since then!

That night Esperanza and I went to see Hunger Games. It was GREAT! I was very impressed with how much better it was than the first one. I guess we'll have to make it a tradition to go see a movie whenever Esperanza visits :).

Thanksgiving was so fun and we were so happy Esperanza got to come share it with us!!!