Thankful for Thanksgiving

(Isn't this a gorgeous picture? James took this at VVC on a foggy day)

Thanksgiving week was very eventful in both good and bad ways. The weekend before all the Thanksgiving fun began, Riley had to be taken to the Emergency Room where she was given antibiotic shots for pharyngitis. She was running a high fever the whole night before, and had such a sore throat that she hardly ate anything, but drank a lot.  Thank goodness for modern medicine and sweet doctors and nurses. After that, she got over her fever in the next two days and was okay enough to enjoy the company that came over on Tuesday night.

Brittany's brother Tyler came down from Utah with his fiancee MiLinh and it was so much fun getting to spend Thanksgiving with almost the whole family (we love you Elder Keel!). We celebrated Levi's 22nd birthday by going to see the Muppet Movie, and then eating some Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The movie was so cute and since we took both Dean and Riley (her first trip to a theater) they both got to enjoy it. Dean has been singing one of the songs ever since..."I've got everything that I need...Right in front of me"...over and over. We love it.  We played some interactive games like Loaded Questions, Pounce, Guesstures, and Catch Phrase. It was a lot of fun talking and laughing with family like it always is. We also got to visit James' family over at Janine's for a few hours. It was a very nice week of being thankful for vacation/family-time, health, and good food of course! Here are a few pictures (sorry some of them are a bit fuzzy, but we work with what we got!) and videos from the Thanksgiving gathering, and other fun and cute moments.

Riley learned how to clap on Thanksgiving! Look:

 (Dean, Levi and AnaMarie in the back, and MiLinh and Tyler in the front.)

Here's a video of Dean and Isabel drawing on MagnaDoodle's together: 

 (All the women-folk painted their nails, and Riley got hers done while she was sleeping too!)

 (She's standing a lot more now!)

 (She is so funny! This is her sucking on a wipe! She kept making the funniest faces and then putting it back in her mouth anyway!)

(She loves to be under chairs, tables and anything else she can squeeze under.)

 (This is her with her "Susie" doll. She got so excited when she saw it at the store, she had to have it.)

 (There she is asleep with her Dad.)

(She pulls herself up on furniture all by herself now!)

 (Dean loves to build towers with his blocks, and play quietly in his room, or read stories to himself until he gets sleepy. Then he puts himself to bed!)

 (Dean, where are you? Are you gonna take a nap in there? "YEAH!")

(He can stand on a stepstool to brush his teeth all by himself now, he's getting so tall!)

 (He got up in this box while we were all unloading groceries!)

 (Look who found the food coloring Daddy!!!!)

We sure have been having some fun lately with all the new things our kids are doing. Some days we feel so overwhelmed being parents and all the responsibility it brings, but MOST days we couldn't imagine our lives without them...we love you Dean Parker and Riley Mae!!! Thank you for being part of our forever family.

We hope you know we love you too, wherever you are, and that you have sweet moments too, that make the rest of life worthwhile. Happy Holidays! Can't believe Christmas is around the corner already and look forward to enjoying the season with loved ones, and thinking about loved ones near and far.

Love,

The James Anderson Family