thanksgiving in grand rapids

this year, jenn and don volunteered to have thanksgiving at their house and i'm sure mom was more than happy to oblige! unfortunately jess and justin spent thanksgiving in florida but as far as i know they are back home now (thanks for calling, jess!)
mom and dad went out to grand rapids on wednesday to help jenn out while we all headed over on thursday morning after a stop at the cracker barrel for breakfast.
the boys loved having such a big open house to be able to run around in and talan loved having all sorts of new toys to make a mess with. at one point jenn said her living room had never been that messy.....just call talan's decorating service to experience it yourself!
dave was more than happy to hang out downstairs and watch the big screen while the kids went back and forth from upstairs to downstairs.
jenn and mom were working hard in the kitchen and we had a great thanksgiving dinner. on the drive home dave and i discussed that the twice baked potatoes were our favorite part.
we had been talking to hayden about all the different foods that we were going to eat for weeks and had been telling him he would have to try some of them. he ended up eating his turkey fairly quickly and then, with a bit of resistance, tried the cranberry...which he said he liked but didn't want any more of. next up was to try the squash. again, another small fight but he eventually did it and then proceeded to gag himself. i honestly thought something was coming up. after the squash he tried the stuffing which i think surprised him that he actually liked. in order to get another pumpkin muffin he was told he had to take one more bite of something on his plate. he chose the stuffing. he wanted a few more pumpkin muffins which meant he took 2 more bites of stuffing. pretty impressive. he did it all for the pumpkin muffins and root beer we bribed him with. eh, whatever works.
after dinner dave ended up back downstairs, the babies played, hayden played a pinball game on the tv in which he got the high score of over 700,000 points, and we all checked out ads and mapped where we were going to go the next day....ok, so that was pretty much just me.
we ended up heading home around 8pm and talan fell asleep almost immediately while hayden stayed up playing his video game.
we had a great time and a great meal. thanks again, jenn, don and rainah for having us all over!

doin' work in the kitchen:


talan taking a short rest with daddy:

every thanksgiving mom gets an ornament for everyone. and this year the tradition continued. talan was too busy playing and didn't want to open his present:
but hayden couldn't wait to open his:
hayden's soccer ornament:

dad's tool bench ornament:
rainah looking for more:
mom's jim shore ornament:
what the guys did:


talan finally got around to opening his ornament and he LOVED it...a drum set. what else?!:

now what do we do?!:
the transfer:

the twice baked potatoes....mmmmm:
even though it isn't his house, dad still had to do the carving:

rainah's hands and feet turkey place settings:
waiting to eat!:
not looking forward to eating!:
for all the vegetarians in the house:

the baby moochers:


talan pulled out his laptop so he could "do work" like jenn:

trick-or-treating: take 2

as we have done every year, we went over to mom and dad's house on halloween for dinner and then some good 'ol trick-or-treating.
the weather has been really cold here but it turned beautiful for us on halloween. i think every year since we've had hayden, the weather has been great. i had gone out and bought several pairs of thermal underwear for spiderman but he didn't need any of them since it was 60 that day! in fact, we were getting completely annoyed with all of the mosquito's that nite!
jenn and rainah were already at mom and dad's when we got there. it was so nice out we all went outside and let the kids fight over the trucks and balls for awhile. rainah willing gives hers up and really needs to start becoming a bit more aggressive if she's going to ever keep a toy that she wants when she's around my kids.
i discovered some mushrooms that let off some poisonous green smoke when you popped them so of course i showed hayden and he, in turn, showed talan. hayden and talan sat there popping gaseous mushrooms with sticks for quite awhile.
we eventually pulled them out of their coma's and brought them inside, washed them up and had them eat some dinner before we got them dressed in their costumes one last time.
rainah was NOT a fan of hers and cried as soon as jenn put it on. she looked completely miserable, defeated and adorable all at the same time.
we then headed out to the front yard to get some pictures....which didn't go nearly as well as last year when rainah and talan were 2 babies that couldn't really move.
dave showed up just in time to try to help our helpless picture cause and tina made it just as the kids were walking up to the very first house. hayden's first few years trick-or-treating, it was him with about 5 adults. at least now we have 3 kids!
rainah was pretty much not happy almost the whole time she was out there. some of it was because she just wanted to follow dogs that were taking walks but she couldn't keep up with them. but later that nite we found out that she also had a bit of a fever.
hayden did great walking up to all of the houses saying "trick-or-treat" and then "thank you" all by himself. towards the end of the evening he would then tell everyone "happy halloween!"
talan had a great time too. he actually held dave's hand and walked for awhile but he kept tripping and was walking much to slow to keep up with hayden so then dave put him on his shoulders. eventually i ended up with him and let me tell you....he's heavy. jenn, rainah and mom headed back early and eventually talan was moving so slow with me (and the fact that people wanted to talk to me and become my friend when we went up to their house....so i look friendly, who knew?!) that dave, hayden and tina finished up going to the rest of the houses and made it back to mom's WAY before we did.
i put talan down to walk and he would look like he was just going to keep walking straight down the street but then would decided he really did want more candy, and up we'd go to another house. he has as much energy has hayden has always had and he could have kept walking if we had more time!
after the trick-or-treating was done we all met back at mom and dad's where dave and tina ate their dinner and hayden dumped out all of his candy and tried telling the babies not to step in it or take it. after a bit we put them all to bed and then played a game of catan in which tina won.
i am saying all of this because jessica feels as though she missed out (and she did) and then she yelled at me about not getting my blog up soon enough.
we had a great halloween and will be eating candy for months now. and it's great not having to steal hayden's candy since we have all of talan's to eat!
thanks for dinner and the use of your neighborhood, mom and dad!

hayden and his great ideas:

hayden figured it'd be even funnier on talan but talan didn't think so:

he gave up:
tried getting a picture of the babies. that worked as well out of costume as it did in costume:
rainah has had enough:

a rare shot of rainah not crying with her costume on:

spiderman's mug shot:
these are what we got. i'm impressed we got these:






let the trick-or-treating begin!:



he just decided to lay down in the street. i have pictures and video of hayden in his chicken costume at about this same age laying in the middle of the street:


tina was into posing that nite:





eatin' soup:

i think tina took this one...but it could have been hayden, he likes still life shots:
eating a cupcake that he made. actually he pretty much only licked off the frosting and took one bite:
yes talan, we think she's crazy too!:

jenn and rainah "smiling":
not sure if tina or hayden took this one, but it's funny:
there were about 5 of these pictures. hayden tells me his eyes were closed in every one because the light was too bright: