oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree...

On monday night we got our tree.  Our tradition is to eat In-N-Out first and then head to the tree lot.

(There is no cooking or food clean up at our house, we all have full stomachs from really tasty food so we are ready to tree shop with no whining.  It is a GREAT part of the tradition♥...)

 Our tree.  (Eden just did not want to be held...)

We usually put the tree up while listening to the Pink Martini holiday album.  It's our favorite!

This year our tree got a nice dose of home made, kid friendly happiness.  (Ok, it might not make anyone else happy, but we sure are♥)

 I absolutely love how it all came together... 

I hope that you are having a wonderful day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kit left today to speak at a conference in Portland.  We are missing him already...

thanksgiving

We had a wonderful thanksgiving with our family!  We were with Kit's family for the first part, and then down in Redlands for the second part.  It was so great to get to be with all of our family!

Some highlights:

Family time outside:

(Their yard is INCREDIBLE!)

Time at Waller park:

We got to spend time Grandma and Grandpa Pierce.  We got to be with them Thanksgiving day.  

I can  not tell you how much we love these two:

They were showing Grandpa their recent hunting photos and then we asked grandpa to tell us his.

Ryder was in HEAVEN!

(We found out that got his first deer when he was 12, hunting with his dad out at Lake Cachuma.  They would sometimes use a burro to get the deer back home.  I asked Grandma what she made most with the deer meat and she said jerky, steaks, and roasts...)

On friday morning, we bundled up and headed to an area outside of Santa Maria where you can see deer and wild turkeys.  We pulled over at one point so that Ryder could get a better look.

I think we counted almost 17 deer, 1 buck, and too many turkeys to count.

We had a wonderful time and I am so thankful that we could be together and we already have a time on the calendar that we are going to be together again!

Our time in Redlands:

Split between time by the tree:

and time at the table:

and a trip to sky town too!

We had a wonderful time getting to be with our family, with great conversations and food and laughter.  We are so thankful and our hearts are so FULL!