A Whirlwind Thanksgiving

Once again, Luis and I found ourselves far from family for Thanksgiving, but thanks to wonderful friends and special visitors, we had a beautiful weekend.

On Thanksgiving, Luis signed us up to go with a group of Western Students to put together meals for needy families.  I admit that the idea sounded great, but I kind of thought I would rather stay in my bed.  However, knowing this would be the last year for a long time that we would be able to do this sort of thing helped me roll out of bed.  We showed up at 6 and began our arduous task of bagging rolls. (I guess they could tell we couldn't handle anything much more than that.)  We only stayed for a few hours, but it was very satisfying to participate in some service.

Next, we bought our copy of the Black Friday ads, turned on the parade, and relaxed for an hour or two before beginning our meal preparations.

Since we were getting together with 3 other young families in our ward, we gathered up our food items and headed off.  Cute Jen did an amazing job creating a beautiful Thanksgiving table that felt very "Better Homes & Garden."

Our feast was delicious and we had such a fun time being together for the holiday.

But of course my favorite part was watching my darling Luis entertain the kids.  It makes me smile to think of him playing with our own kids and I know they will just adore him!

Although we bought the ads and looked through them for hours, we ended up NOT shopping at all on Black Friday.  Lame.  I know.  However, we did get to sleep in, which is a rarity these days.  Luis was thrilled to learn that I planned for him to help me put up the Christmas decorations:)  We also had our family pictures taken, which I will post soon, and went out to a local taco joint with a Hispanic family in our ward.  We walked away from that experience with an authentic Mexican cookbook and brand new tortilla maker bestowed upon us by Gigi, the very generous mother of the family.  You better watch out because I'm turning more Hispanic by the day!

On Saturday we picked up my sister, Charisse, and her husband, Jason, who were in town for a cruise.  Since we got them all day, we decided to have our own Thanksgiving feast at our home.

By the way, here was this month's bulletin board.  So the head is a bit too small and the wings are a bit low down.  I thought I did a great job at free-handing my huge turkey.

Yet Another Girl's Night Out

One more birthday means one more girls' night out.  This time, we got to celebrate Jen's birthday.

This time, instead of going out, we chose to stay IN and make flowers.  Yay for crafting!

Here are 3 of my creations, and I can't wait to make more for baby!

She'll be so stylin'.

Happy Birthday to Jen!

Thankful Turkey

Once again, it was time to make our annual Thankful Turkey.  This year, Luis had the sweet idea to have an all-pink baby theme.

I think we'll call her Miss Pinkie.

Pumpkins, Needles, and Mexicans

OcToBeR FuN

First, 

Luis and I went to a pumpkin patch.

Despite careful planning, we got there too late at night and weren't able to pick our own pumpkin...lame.  So we had to content ourselves by pretending to pick our own pumpkin instead.  Yes, there were people walking by wondering what we were doing squatting in the middle of the picnic area.

Later, we carved our dear pumpkin.  Have you noticed Luis often gets this manic look in his eyes?  I have.  It's creepy!

Second,

Question:  What do you do when your final is over and you have an entire day off school?

Answer:  Go to your wife's 2 hour pregnancy glucose testing for moral support!

Yes, this appointment was scheduled to last 2 hours, and yes, I did convince Luis to come with me.  We actually had a TON of fun thanks to some smart planning by yours truly.  We started off with several rounds of Battleship (which we brought from home), much to the curious glances of the entire waiting room.  Next, we raced each other with some Halloween word searches and crosswords.

Then, we tried our hands at creating mazes for each other.  The difference between our creations was quite comical   Surprisingly, mine is the one on the right.  Luis's attempts are on the left.  I had to remind him that I'm not 3.

2 1/2 hours + 4 needles later we finally got to go.  

We ended our "date" with a trip to the not-so-local Cafe Rio.  It was yum yum YUM!

Third,

Speaking of food, check out my random Halloween-themed grub.  Next year, I plan to try even more throughout the month.

Spiderweb Pizza

Candy Corn Cookies

Witch Finger Pizza Sticks

Finally,

this month we had some Halloween parties to attend.

We've been thinking for months now about the perfect Halloween costumes, but since we couldn't think of anything, we just decided to be ourselves.

Despite my Hispanic roots, I've never had black hair.  For a more authentic look, we used black hair spray to get me some black hair.  WARNING:  BLACK HAIR SPRAY IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!  I like long, hot showers, but 45 minutes spent in black water is not my idea of a relaxing evening...not to mention having to spend another 15 minutes bleaching our stained tub.