And last but not least for today . . . Dad got all the patio poured!

We have had such a mild fall that Dad was able to complete pouring the cement patio under the deck. He worked so hard. We are so excited. It will be so wonderful to have. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of him and the big digger taking away the hill under the deck. He did a great job. The machine was so big it was like doing brain surgery with a chain saw but he did it!!!! And had a lot of fun too. You can see the wall he built. We still have to put away the cement mixer, etc. and put the stairs back up but it is so fun to have done. Now in the spring we will parge or stucco the walls and put in lighting fixtures. It will make such better use of the space than the ivy was. Thanks Dad and Grandpa. I got a great picture at Thanksgiving that I will include.

Christmas at Thanksgiving???

Because most everyone was going to be away for Christmas we decided to ave Christmas the night before Thanksgiving. It was a big hit with the Grandkids. It was lots of fun. It was mostly just a gift exchange. Grandma actually had all the presents purchased and wrapped. Thanks to Micki and Mindy the upstairs tree got decorated. They did a beautiful job. Thanks guys. And thanks for all the wonderful presents. You are all so good to us. We love you sooooooooooooo much.

Then the next day after the Thanksgiving feast we had the fish pond. It was lots of fun and everyone seemed pleased with their 'little' presents they 'pulled out'. The next day when everyone was over Emma said, "Grandma when are we going to get our presents". When I reminded her that she already had them she just said "oh". I can't blame her for thinking that we had a good thing going. She is such a sweetheart.

Thanksgiving Feast

It was so fun to have almost everyone here for Thanksgiving. We sure missed having Marcie and Brackon and Kennedy, Morgan and Emree here. We know they had fun at home with Grandma and Grandpa Curtis. It was so wonderful to have John & Mindy and Johnny, Maggie and Josie here and Honey and Ryan and Rylee, Clayton, KC and Lucy here. We miss all of you so much that are far away. And we love all our close family. It is such a blessing and treat for us to see them all the time. We just love all of you and are so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Cassy took pictures of all the couples. (We had John and Mindy's friends - Kendra and Michael Anderson and Dallin and Ella with us too.) They are far from family too. I was a little late in getting pictures of everyone seated so you can see that the kids have mostly left the table. We had 36 for dinner. It was great.

Presenting . . . after almost 2 years of sitting in the Garage and the Basement

Can you believe it!?! Grandma finally got the couches done!! YEAH. We really enjoyed them at Thanksgiving. Now I am excited to finish the other wing chair that has been waiting even longer. (We'll see how the New Year's projections go this year.) I've included a before of the loveseat. The couch was worse but I forgot to do a picture. Grandpa was so excited to have them done. It was so fun to do it especially when he was so complimentary with the results. We love you all.

Halloween? How late is that?!!

All of the 'Masterpieces' are all in a row. (I wonder if we'll have any stray seeds that grow next year.)

You can see Grandma with the "talking Pumpkin". It is so fun to do each year. Blake really liked to talk to it. When he came back after Halloween was over but the pumpkin was still out he couldn't figure out why it wouldn't talk. He would say 'no working'.

We had so much fun at our Annual Pumpkin Carving/Soup Potluck! I like Ben's name for it - "Soup and Scoop".

Everyone did a great job of their pumpkins. Uncle Spencer's were very intricate and turned out great. We love you all.