Happy Thanksgiving!

We were super excited to spend Thanksgiving in Michigan with the Fords, who we have missed terribly!  It felt just like old times all over again, except for Steve's turkey fryer.  That was brand new...

Steve has been itching to fry a turkey for years, and this year he finally broke down and did it, despite the trepidation of his lovely wife.  But I figured, hey, we can try it out at Jenni and Jim's first and burn down their house instead of ours.  Seemed like a good idea.  Carter thought so too...

He just really liked that he could be outside without a coat on, in November!
In the end, the fried turkey turned out really yummy and moist, and incident free! Yay!

One happy turkey fryer!  And one happy Jenni, seeing as her house was still standing...

Rolls upon rolls waiting to bake...

Looking at these pictures makes me hungry...
 

Where were the kids while all of this food was being prepared?  In cousin heaven...

Until it was time to eat, and then they became the ravenous bunch of hooligans you see here...

Hooray for a table full of family! And hooray for Aunt Jenni and a table full of yummy pies!

This is what Thanksgiving is really about, right? Not that turkey I showed before!

Apparently Sydney did not feel like sharing the chocolate pie, thus her "Sneak and Grab" campaign...


And what did Carter think of Thanksgiving?

The next day we had to do something to burn off all those pies so we had a wild round of bowling (anything is wild with 9 kids along, right?  Especially when most of them are boys).
 
And just in case you didn't notice in the picture above, here is a close-up to show you just how excited I was about bowling.  Or maybe this picture was taken right after the time I didn't get a gutterball.  Or perhaps I was still thinking about those pies.  Can't say I wasn't enthusiatic though, can we...

And, for those of you wanting to hone your bowling form, here are some excellent examples to choose from.  Personally, I think I might adopt Carter's method from now on.





At one point, Jim became so excited about his excellent bowling prowess that he got down and did a full on victory dance...

And here we are...

We are still working on a name for  our prestigious bowling club, but when we get it figured out, you will be the first to know!  If you have any suggestions, they would be happily welcomed!

The Latest

Carter had surgery last week to remove his little "nasal dermoid".  This is a post-surgery picture.  The doctor used dermabond for the incision, and for the first couple of days he looked a little freaky, but always cute...

On Sunday, Carter found this tie in his closet and wanted to try it on.  It didn't last 5 min., but at least I got this very awesome picture.  I might be a little biased, but I don't think it can get much cuter than this...

Sunday was also Steve's birthday!  The kids got to help with the birthday banner, in fact I pretty much turned it over to them.  Here are some close-ups of their work...

We had to have a bit of discussion on whether we use his name, or Dad or Daddy.  The kids voted for Daddy because it has more letters.  Then they came up with these adjectives for their Dad: "Dashing", "Athletic", "Dedicated", "Determined and Dynamite", and the Y was...
d s
Fitting!
The youth in our ward had planned to have a planning meeting for the night of Steve's birthday, so we elected to do that here and share Steve's birthday cake with them.  It was a fun night.  The picture turned out bad, but you get the idea...

We had a pretty boisterous rendition of Happy Birthday, and Steve did manage to blow out all of the candles!

Happy Birthday Steve! 

Happy Halloween!

Here is the Gordon Costume Parade...
The Mad Scientist!

The Red Ninja!

The Black Ninja!

Batgirl! (This was a total surprise to me!)

And the Pooh Bear Pumpkin!

The whole Haunting Crew...

And just a bonus pic...

Off they go...

"T"

I have been a real slacker with picture taking lately.  Evidence?   Tyler made the 6/7/8th grade soccer team this year and played lots of games. And this is the only picture I took of the whole season! Ugh!  This is Tyler's letter and pin that he is very thrilled with.  Tyler had a great season, playing forward for the B team and scoring probably 4 goals, including a PK.   His coach told us that when he sent Tyler up to kick the PK, his dad, who had come to watch the game,  was thinking to himself, "Why would he send that little tiny guy up to kick a PK?"  And then Tyler buried the ball right in the net!  His coach liked to call him "T".  I was really proud of Tyler through this whole experience.  The practices were really pretty grueling for 11 year olds.  I heard a lot of kids complaining.  About running, working, and about the coaches.  Tyler really never complained.  He had a great attitude and worked hard.  Proud of you Ty!  

Sydney's Birthday! Hooray!

If ever any little girl was excited about her birthday, it was Sydney this year!  Wow, it was almost a relief when it came so we could be done "counting sleeps" until the big day!
Sydney made out her own little list, complete with pictures, of everything that would make her birthday special.  The list included:
-Pink and Purple balloons
-a Purple "banister" (her birthday sign)
-Barbie Cake
-a birthday party with games
-a Dreamlight
I think we hit all the items on the list and ended up with a happy girl.




It took two cake mixes to get this skirt big enough for Barbie, and even still we had to add a bagel at the top to get it up to her waist.  Go Big or go home, girl...

Carter found this cute, purple elephant for Sydney and thought she would love it.  She did!

Not the best "blowing-out-the-candles" pictures, but we did capture something anyway...


Happy Birthday Sydney!  We are so grateful to have our "Sydney Princess" in our family!

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend brought a full house here at the Gordon's with the Fords and Mom and Dad.  It was awesome!  We also had lots of yummy food.  One of our conference weekend traditions around here is Cinnamon Rolls...

Zach was right in middle of all this, and even rolled out and doctored up a whole tray of rolls himself...

Notice the close supervision...


Yummo!  The finished product didn't last long enough to get any pictures! Sorry!

Sunday morning always brings the Comics, and Sydney managed to convince Grandpa to read them to her...

Gotta love it!