Party of Nine: Thanksgiving

Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts

Monday, December 7, 2015

Thanksgiving in Kaysville

Jim's Ding Dongs, which stole the show!

Ruby, the host. She spent two days shopping, planning and cooking. I'm sure she did a better job than I would have!

Nana was dead set on staying home for Thanksgiving, but Jim convinced her to come, and I'm so glad.

Bill's bird

Our ovens are still broken, and there's no indication that we'll ever replace them. Ruby cooked everything stove top or in crock pots.

The new Dollar Tree in Kaysville!

Uncle Jim's dessert table!

The kids made the table look elegant.

Every day of our trip, each kid would get to open one small present I had left. But only after they did their practicing and listening, did their assigned chore and cleaned their room. Ptolemy later complained that Ruby hadn't let him play video games or watch YouTube videos the whole time. She's such a good mom! It will be a long time before she has as much responsibility in her adult life as she does now. Adulthood will be so easy! No high school homework and no kids to raise...at least not for awhile.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Dopp Thanksgiving 2014

Going to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving is one of the best highlights of the year. It might even be my favorite holiday. Everything is always so beautiful, so delicious, so welcoming and so comfortable. I know Bruce and Marlene put an awfully lot of work into making it like this, and we all appreciate it so much. I try hard to emulate Bruce and Marlene in the hospitality department. They are so welcoming. Everyone always feels at home in their home and at their cabin. They work tirelessly, what seems like all 24 hours of the day, and the result is always something the rest of us can enjoy. I admire Scott's parents so much, and I feel fortunate to be one of theirs. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Tyler and Austin

Jackson

The star of the show

The traditional tables were turned, as there was an adult table and three kid tables.

The siskins

Neeley, Araceli, Kayla and Grandma in her new apron

The girls also painted birdhouse ornaments at the sleepover and decorated a tree for Grandpa.

Scott and Jeff

Grandpa and Grandma reading notes Jeff and Richelle's kids gave them

Scott, Ryan and Rob, Jake's dad.

Xanthe has the best seat in the house!

Welcome to Our Blog!

We are a family of nine. We live at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We love life, learning, dancing, music, family time and traveling. Join us! We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll try to figure it all out together. I'm the mom, Circe, and I do the writing here. I am a teacher of ballet and violin, and I run a violin shop, but mostly I just enjoy being with my kids and helping them do what they do. Scott, the dad, does crowd control, undermines my authority with irresistible fun and works as an attorney to keep everyone in beach trips and ballet shoes. And the seven kids provide the entertainment. Come on, let's go!

Quotes I Love

“Happiness doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect, it simply means you decided to look beyond the imperfections.” - Audrey Helpburn

“What it means to be human is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsible, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census figures. It means knowing that life has an inside as well as an outside. And I think it means love.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.”
― Aristotle

Your beliefs don't make you a better person. Your behavior does.

“If you want a happy family, you are going to have to tolerate a lot of unhappiness.” Dr. Haim Ginott, child psychologist

"Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there someday." -from A. A. Milne

"Other people's problems are not my problems." -Me

"Dance is surely a most extraordinary fusion of thinking, doing, feeling. If we are concerned about the health of a child's mind, body and spirit, then how can we ignore the educational force of an art form which addresses all three at once?" _David Rockefeller

"Strong families require effort."
-Elaine S. Dalton at the Young Women General Meeting

"The function of study is to build character."

And a quote from my dad: "Successful people do things they don't want to do, when they don't want to do them." Thanks, Dad. That's been a great motivator!

"It was a result of circumstance that he learned the violin. Whether he liked it or disliked it is not the question." -Shinichi Suzuki

Good Quotes

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. -Mark Twain
Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the year. -Spanish proverb
The secret to having it all is knowing you already do. Or my dad's version: The key to happiness is wanting less.
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clark
Nobody ever became poor by giving. -Anne Frank
No one should ever underestimate the power of the arts. -Sheila Johnson, founder of BET
Life gives to the givers and takes from the takers. - a guy on The Big Give