Awesome Weekend

I finally went home (although now I am back at school until tomorrow night...then I meet back up with the family in Virginia Beach)! I was so glad to be home!

Friday night Mom and I went to BJs to get some needed groceries for our dinner Saturday. I also loved on this little man:


Saturday (early) morning we had our family pictures at Portrait Innovations. They turned out okay, but my favorite family picture is still the one Mom took herself in Alum Springs Park. We do have a pretty cute family, though. Waiting around for pictures:


After pictures Mom had to run into the bank. Ryan has this little kid's coin collecting book, and he has started getting really into it. He has a bunch of pennies in there, some of the state quarters, nickels, dimes, and when we went to the bank, Mom got him some of the 50 cent pieces and a Susan B. Anthony coin. He still has so many coins to collect, and the Presidential Dollars (they won't even all be in circulation until 2017!), but it is like an addiction! Every coin I get I inspect for him now! I even bought a buffalo nickel off eBay for $1.35. It's going in his stocking. Anyways, after we came out from the bank, he was showing Dad his new additions:



After pictures Mom and Dad also took the family over to Chick-Fil-A for a little lunch. After we ate, this is what the table looked like (below). Dad and Gray found some new zombie game app, and were playing it all weekend.


We got home from pictures about 1pm, and were in the chicken for the rest of the day! We were supposed to feed the missionaries from church on Saturday, and since we aren't going to be home to cook on Thanksgiving (we will be in Virginia Beach), Mom decided to do a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I seriously love cooking and baking, so I was perfectly fine with it! We had a delicious turkey (the secret is Montreal Steak Seasoning... put it on every type of meat imaginable), homemade stuffing, blueberry jello salad, sweet potatoes, green beans, homemade Lionhouse rolls, and homemade apple and pumpkin pies. Mom, Dad, and I made the rolls and they were SO good. The best rolls I have ever had, and they were so pretty, too. Dad and I made the apple pies, which were a bit tricky. They were the first pies that we had ever made homemade crust for, and the dough was a bit tricky to work with, but they ended up tasting SO good. Mom went apple picking earlier in the week so we had fresh, crisp granny smith apples. Delicious. Needless to say, the missionaries didn't end up coming, and all of the little boys and Suzanne ended up leaving, so we had tons of food!


Harrison was having a lesson in church on Sunday about the Law of Chastity, so Dad thought it was a good time to sit down and give Harrison and Tanner the good old sex talk. The facts, very straightforward. Mom and I were sitting there for a while, haha. Dad usually does most of the talking (he did all of it with the boys, but when they talked to Gray and I years ago, I remember Mom in there too). Anyways, Dad is seriously so good about it. I think it's definitely one of the most important things parents have to do for their children, and I'm glad the topic of sex was never too taboo in my family (however, everything is pretty dang open in my house). It lasted for about an hour, and Dad draws diagrams and everything haha. We had to borrow Suzanne's whiteboard, and she was out at a church dance. Before she got back, we hung the board up with Dad's drawings and words on it still. Haha, her reaction was humorous :)

See, even Evan is interested...

Sunday we went to church, then I ended up baking up some goodies for our cousins serving missions. Austin is serving in California, and he just left the MTC last week. Jacob is still in the MTC preparing to leave for the Philippines on November 28. We sent chocolate fudge, chocolate walnut fudge, peanut butter fudge, and chocolate chip cookies! Hopefully the get to them pretty soon!

Now I am back at school. I've finished classes for today, and tomorrow I just have two classes to suffer through before heading to Virginia Beach for Thanksgiving! Can't wait for all that baking, cooking, eating, sleeping, and Black Friday Shopping (if you are a girl in my family, Black Friday is like a second holiday in and of itself).