Thanksgiving 2011

Ball Family
Thanksgiving 2011

One thing I'm very thankful for is a dear sweet lady we all know as Mrs. P. When we lived in Warrenton she was the one to come and "play" with the kids while I take an afternoon off. She taught my kids so much, but one thing I'm grateful for is their love for helping out in the kitchen. I guess before Mrs. P. I was just all about doing it myself, but now I have many hand to make the work lighter.


A family tradition for the Ball kids is to write down a wish list and fold the paper up to go into a basket to be drawn by siblings for a Christmas Eve Gift exchange. Chloe thinking very hard what she might want as a small gift from a sibling.



And meat rolls made 3 different ways....Lunch meat, cream cheese, and pickles might be what you think of. Well in our house we have some that don't like cream cheese so we take that out for some. Then there are mine, because I love these little gems. Mine are made with Tofurky lunch meat, Tofutti cream cheese, and a good ol pickle Yummy!!!!



Matthew is home for the Holiday's. It wouldn't be a visit without a Dad's special haircut. So in between cooking the barber shop opened up for a brief moment.



Then back to the food....Our kids are funny....They do not like Turkey. So we always have Ham which is a favorite of theirs. We still cook up the turkey, but it is mostly used for left over noodle stuff.


We were so excited to see Christina "Tina" show up at our party.....Her and Grandma came over for some fun and food.


Baby Sean.....First Thanksgiving and starting to sit up by himself.


The family gathered around the couch. Everyone was here except Angel had to work. Hopefully she will have Christmas off.



We tried to take a picture on the stairs..... That is a lot of faces.....

I'm so thankful for Family....
I'm Grateful to know Families are Forever.

Then dinner was over....Thomas drew the short straw.. just kidding, but he was on dishes duty. He wanted me to make sure I posted this picture for all to see his pile of dishes.



Another Family tradition.....
I drive back to Hillsboro with my mom and prepare for Black Friday craziness. This year Matthew and Emaliee thought they would join us

We started at Kmart

then headed over to Walmart in Forest Grove. It was MESS!!!!!!! It took about an hour to find a parking spot, then wondering if the car coming the other way is going to steal it before you can turn in got my heart pounding. Now do you know why it was such a stress for me to pull into a spot. People are crazy I tell ya.

So once in the store, not really looking for anything in particular we took a tour of the sides and back of the store I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Left there and headed over to Target. Not open for couple more hours so we sat at Sheri's and had a little snack.

I have to say Target was very organized and pleasant..... We did stand in line weaving through the aisle to get up to the check outs, but we made some really cool friends......

Then we stood in line for 2 hours at Fred Meyers. It was cold, but not that bad.

All in All....I think I'm getting to old for this Black Friday thing. Shopping online from the comfort of my own safe home in my pj's might sound really good next year.