insta-november

November was filled with playing in leaves, artwork (shown is "daddy in a plaid shirt"), cooking turkeys for our ward party, and yet another visit to Folsom for Thanksgiving.  We also bought museum passes to the Reno Children's Discovery Museum. They have proven to be a very valuable investment. We are there at least once a week, and it never gets old to the kids! Yesiree, we will be spending much of our time there in the upcoming year, and we look forward to it!

giving thanks...

We had a wonderful 2012 holiday season!  We kicked it off with Thanksgiving in Folsom since we had plans to celebrate Christmas with our Utah family.  It is always a good time when our family gets together.  Not only do all of the little cousins adore being together, but the siblings do, too!  My brothers and sister are just so hilarious and fun to be around.  To add to our joy, by some miracle my mom was able to convince her brother, my Uncle Rich, to barbecue us a turkey.  You guys.  I wish I could somehow convey the utter deliciousness of this turkey.  It's salt encrusted juiciness is TO. DIE. FOR.  And then you will want to come back to life for another piece.  Seriously.  It's amazing.  Add some delicious side dishes, and we had ourselves a thanks-givers paradise!  We also played some intense games of penny hockey, napped, dressed up as pilgrims, watched silly youtube videos, and played in nana's playhouse.  We like to party.
On our same trip out for Thanksgiving, we also took the kiddos on the Folsom Zoo Train.  The same little train I used to ride as a child.  They loved it just as much as mini-maci did:)

family photos...

Later in the fall, we returned to Folsom to take some family pictures and to visit one of our favorite places, Apple Hill (more on that later).  Our goal was to get at least one short that would be suitable for our family Christmas card.  The goal was the same for my brother Jesse's family.  We came away with some pretty cute ones, which, as anyone who has tried taking pictures with kids can attest, is a small miracle!  We also snapped a few photos for my brother Jensen's mission application.  We are total photography novices, but here are some of our favorites...