November 28-Thanksgiving at Our House!

All of the siblings/spouses, minus one on a mission in Russia, and Mom and Dad on the Berg side, came to our home for Thanksgiving this year. Mom and Spencer came a few days early, driving half way one day and half the other due to a painful blood clot in Mom's leg. I am so glad they were able to make it. Dad flew in Wednesday Night while David and Jaci's family came Thursday morning. The women worked hard in the kitchen while the men gladly took all the little youngsters outside to play. It was fun to have so many different kinds of foods. I requested that Laura and Jaci and I all try something new.....experiment. Everything turned out great!!! I love when we are all able to pitch in and make such a huge meal, less work and more fun.

Danny and I have always wanted to try basting a turkey to see

 if it would be more tender and less dry. 2 days later...perfection. 

I think I will definitely use less butter next time though. Goodbye 6 sticks!

A side note on the Figs wrapped with Bacon brought to us by Laura: We thought they looked like little rabbit hearts and teased the kids as such. They were so grossed out the Aunt Laura would bring such a thing. Our Eldest Son decided to be brave and give them a try.

 "Ummm...these are good! I can even taste the blood!" Whose kid is that? 

While our princess, continued to refuse and never tasted the heavenly "Rabbit Hearts".

                       Shrimp Dip (Mommsa)                              Savory Yam and Potato Dish (New Recipe)

                         Basted Apple Turkey                                        Regular and Orange Rolls (Jaci)

 

   Rabbit Hearts/Fig Wrapped Bacon (Laura)    Msh Potat, Broc, Stufng, Swt Potat, Cran Sauce

Homemade Cranberry Sauce                                             Sausage Potstickers (Laura)  

Game Time before Pie...while Dad shreds the Turkey 

Pie Time!

You can never have too many varieties of pies and flavors. This Thanksgiving our consisted of: Pumpkin Cheesecake, Blueberry (David), Raspberry Jello/Pretzel, Chocolate Suicide (David), Pumpkin, Cherry, Strawberry Cream. All so scrumptious!

Our princess was embarrassed by all the silliness

 

Ooooo!!! I want that one!

Time to say Goodbye.....until tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Pre-Fesivities

We have been doing a lot of creating at our house. Here is some handy-work.

I wanted to do something fun for us to see some of the things we are thankful for instead of just talking about it. All month we have been adding feathers to our plump turkey.
Here is how he is looking so far.

The kids have been having a lot of fun thinking of different things and keeping me on track. 

Here are some close-ups of our assortment.

Our other female artist wanted to make a turkey too. Very nice.

Somewhere I have a picture of the turkey our young prince made...must find it. He did a very impressive job. Instead of cutting out colored paper like the girls, he drew and colored a picture. Then cut it out, pasted it on another piece of paper and then colored that to make a background. He then proceeded to color, cut out, and paste and heart for the turkey and a cookie for it to hold. All in all it took him about 2 solid hours of hard work. Proud momma?...yes I think so.

November 26 - Class First Day of Thanksgiving Performance 
Our growing Pilgrim and his class put on a performance, telling about the First Thanksgiving. They also showed pictures and told what are some things they are thankful for. Their class was the only one in the school to do this. I love his teacher so very much. This is her first year of teaching all on her own and she is doing an outstanding job.
I love to hear about what she is teaching her class. She not only wants them to know what is required for them to learn, but is teaching them how to be upstanding citizens in society...teaching them some key life lessons as well. Bless her heart. She is amazing.

Grandma Berg (Mommsa) and Uncle Spencer arrived in town right before we headed to his performance. Danny also didn't have any classes during this time. 

So all of us headed to surprise our pilgrim. He was all smiles when he noticed his cheering squad.

Crazy Silly Pilgrim

With Miss Hawes

How we love her!

A Festival and a "Tea" Party

November 22 - Utah Valley University Family Festival

UVU put on a Festival to teach kids more about money and investing and attending college. They earn more "bucks" by going to different stations and even were able to put some in the "bank" that doubled its value if you left it there for 20 minutes. There were many fun things for the kids to do and a few snacks for them to purchase all with the use of their "money". It was a fun evening.

Getting all "dolled up"

Dramatic Entrance

Hangin' in the castle                            Fist Pump and Web Shooting

Story Time with a princess

Listening to her own personal story from Snow White

 Helping Spiderman cleanup

Always ready to battle any willing opponent  

2 of our friends ended up being at the UVU Festival at the same time. Too much fun!

November 24 - For Fun 

Our little party planner has been wanting to make Homemade Lemonade for forever. After delivering a "Thank You" pie to our friends for helping us move a new entertainment center into our house (which I bought for $10...sweet!) and acquiring a nice bouquet of flowers from one of my for-mentioned friend's flower arranging classes, I decided today was the day and we would have a "Tea" Party. Doll-face was more than thrilled. I had previously purchased a bag of lemons to juice so we were set. I love when everything comes together to make your planning even more great. We peeled about 8 lemons, juiced them in my fancy-smansy juicer, and added plenty of water and sugar to taste. Doll-face insisted that we had to add mint leaves, because she had seen it in her show Max and Ruby. Thankfully we had plenty growing outside, so off we went in search of mint. All in all a fun way to have lunch (no this is not all we had...just a sampling. I promise I feed my family more than cheese toast and grapes with Lemonade.)

I happened to find some fortune cookies in our storage room.

Thought they would be a fun addition.

Turned out I bought them quite a while ago....not so tasty anymore. 

Bluck! But fortunes are always fun.  *Wink*