Happy Thankgiving!!!

Hello everyone! Today is a beautiful day! We are in Orem, Utah staying with Steve's parents and we are loving it! We haven't been to visit since last Christmas and so it's been a nice little reunion. It is absolutely freezing here. We left AZ with a beautiful 83 degrees. Today the low is going to be 23. Yikes! Nicholas and Matthew are having so much fun with their cousins. I always forget that as little people, the cold doesn't bother you. Nicholas was let loose with the chalk on the driveway and he was out there so long that I had to beg him to come in. His poor little tiny hands were freezing and I had to run tepid water over them so they would defrost. Matthew had me go on a walk with him and it was so nice to have one on one time with that little guy. He is a tad bit quieter than Nicholas (in some respects anyway) and so I don't always get to spend as much time with him. He has become such a little mama's boy though. He is right by my side in cooking, cleaning, and other such things. It's so funny to see the different fazes that my boys go through. Matthew is just following in Nicholas' footsteps. Last year it was a horrible thing (for Nicholas) if we didn't have "Jingle Bells" playing in the car 24/7. Now Nicholas is on to talking about Santa and presents and isn't quite so fierce about the little details, such as "Jingle Bells". Last night Matthew woke up screaming and Steve and I went in to see what was wrong. By this time Matthew had woken up Nicholas. Nicholas gets so sad when Matthew wakes him up and so to get them calmed down and back to sleep we had the request to sing "Jingle Bells" and then all was right with the world again. The boys have been so excited to see what Thanksgiving will hold for them. They can hardly wait for all of this "All the pie you can eat" business. In preshool Nicholas learned a turkey song and made a turkey hat and placemat. He can't wait to use them today! Matthew just keeps saying "I want chocolate pie". We are eating at a Thanksgiving buffet at the Mariott so that the craziness of tons of adults and kids can be contained elsewhere. This will be different than any other Thanksgiving I have ever had, but I am up for different and you know the food will be fantastic! My little Katie girl has been confused in all of this commotion. She never cried once (except once in her sleep) the whole drive up here. We got her into Grandma Soter's house, she saw all the people and just lost it! I could barely calm her down. I guess she thought that she had been nice for long enough and wanted no part in anything other than her own home and her own bed. Poor baby. It has been a bit of an adjustment for her to be somewhere completely different for so long. For all of our kids as babies, coming to Utah was always a bit tricky because we stay for awhile and they don't get the change. She is a little trooper though. I love dressing my kids up in warm clothes for a minute. It's all been great and as long as I can find something in the ads today that I want to purchase, bring on Black Friday in all it's insane glory! I love love LOVE this time of year!