Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Turkey Day!

Every year we alternate sharing the holidays with my family and Micah's, and this was the Russell's year all together for thanksgiving. My mother in law hosted the dinner at their house in Sandy but did a really fun turkey party at the All Star Lanes in Draper beforehand.

If you live in Utah and haven't been yet, you need to go. It's located right in the old VF factory outlets off of 123rd south and State Street. They have arcades, bowling, bumper cars, laser tag.. Seriously tons of stuff for all ages. 

We started out bowling with the whole Russell fam and got a few really fun pics. 

My cute mother in law Dianne and my nephew cuddling up with Livi. Andrew loves Olive and is so sweet with her. 

Total fat face pic but so cute

Liv getting a little help from daddy 

After the first one she actually got kinda scared of the whole bowling thing. She wanted to run down the alley and grab at the flashing lights but wasn't too interested in bowling. 

Little stinker did better than I did! I'm blaming the belly though.. Totally threw off my groove!

After we bowled our games, we headed over to the arcade and played around on them. Olive loooooved it!

Loved the merry go round!

And the cars

Micah also had some fun 

We played around on some bigger kid games too and won Livi some random toys with our points. 

We met back up at Lynn & Dianne's for dinner prep and games. 

I made my fave pasta, the fiesta pasta and Micah initiated this selfie.. He neeeeever does! Thanksgiving brings miracles apparently hahaha. 

My mother in law had the best table settings, so festive! 

My card holder killed me haha!

Mama Indian with a bundled babe!

Dinner was so yummy, I can't get enough of turkey dinners!!

After dinner we did the traditional award giving process and Lynn & Dianne did too much as usual in spoiling us all with the cash prizes. 

Once those were all handed out we went into the basement for some minute to win it games that wveryone participated in and totally loved. 

Olive was obsessed with the baby!

Micah and his bro Matt tied for the longest standing jump. 

Micah and I left after the tournament ended and all of the prizes were handed out. Such a fun night with fam!

We stopped over at Target for a Black Friday deal for me.. An Xbox One! I jumped in line and waited to go in for about a half hour.. The line was super long so I was a little concerned but also given that the Xbox One's came out last year, I wasn't suuuuper concerned. 

By the time I was in the store and had found the area where they were set out there were only 6 Xbox One bundles! Sketchy! I grabbed mine and hurried to check out.. Yahtzee!

That night I put my new goodies together and played for a while. Love love love. 

After thanksgiving day we hung out with my family as much as we could while my brother Matt & sis in law Cara were in town from Texas.  They haven't seen Livi since June and were missing her tons so it was way fun to see them play together and for Olive to say "rara" and "nat". 

My mom took Cara & I out to get pedis & we all got some fun festive nails done then headed back to my parent's house for turkey sandwiches for dinner. First we stopped at Fresh Market (looking pretty amazing) for some pasta salads. 

Here's a close up of my toes

I asked the guy (yep, a guy) for just a snowflake but he gave me a whole Christmas scene instead. Umm alrighty then!

At my parent's house, Liv got some much needed play time with my siblings. 

The next day, my mom, Cara, and I went to Gardner Village for some Christmas shopping and lunch at Archibald's. Livi tagged along with us girls and it was really fun. I found some fabric for Olive's big girl bed that I have pics of HERE. 

I put Liv in piggy tails and a denim tunic.. Cutest toddler ever. 

She was plotting something sinister here muhahhahaha. 

Not long after lunch, Cara and my mom had to leave but I stayed a little while longer to shop.. And miss Liv passed out adorably. 

Thanksgiving came and left far too quickly this year, and so did Matt & Cara! It was great catching up and so much fun seeing Olive warm up to them again and play. 

Before they left, they gave Livi her Christmas gift early -- the cutest bunny sweater I've ever seen! She calls her bunny "muneee" and when I pull it out for her to wear now she goes "muneee!!" 

Matt & Cara will be back in Utah for our little man's birth in April, but goodness, that's way too far away. Lots of FaceTiming will be happening between then!

xoxo

Mandi

Favorite Crafts Night

Last year I threw a super fun and easy party, a Favorite Things Party and it was a huge hit and a blast! This time around I wanted to try a variation of it, each person bringing a craft in place of a gift of something they love.

I used my fave app Rhonna Designs to make the invite:

{I whited out my address & our phone numbers.. I also have no idea why this pic uploaded as so grainy.}

My awesome friend Misty and I sent out our invites and got to thinking of our own crafts. I, of course procrastinated and decided on my craft the day of the party!

On the Facebook event we put this as the cover photo, again I used the Rhonna Designs app. Seriously if you don't have it, go grab it!

The Decor

The party decor was pretty much my fall decor. Because this style party is so laid back it didn't call for big elaborate decorations or flair. You can certainly do that for your own, but I got lazy ;)

A little pinch of fall decor in the entry. 

Simple thanksgiving chalkboard art. 

Side note - Misty saved it from looking too Halloweeny by bringing white napkins.  :) 

Printable "happy thanksgiving" sign I made via Pinterest. 

I made these lovely fabric teepees and I'm totally in love!!! Super easy and I think I may be making more for Olive's big girl decor. 

Two different times of day pics to show the new banners I made. These big windows are sooo fun to decorate but sooo hard to take a good pic of! And in case it's a little hard to see, the two banners on the sides are leaf shaped lovelies, found that tutorial and pattern on Pinterest. And the "happy turkey day" I simply cut out of sparkly orange paper and glued to bakers twine. Love!

Give thanks banner in the kitchen that I made from another free printable on Pinterest. 

The Party

Micah took Liv on a date to hang out with her Gammy (my mother in law) so it was a baby-less night at the Russell house!

Misty and I set out the food (which I totally forgot to take a pic of) as people arrived and started snacking as we went.. A girls gotta eat, right?  ;)   I made my favorite pasta dinner, fiesta pasta. Here's the recipe:

Variations:

You can use chicken breasts instead of canned chicken, add more or less of any of the ingredients, depending on preference. Also can use regular vinegar over he balsamic. I prefer the richer flavor the balsamic gives. 

The fiesta ranch packets can be found in the salad dressing aisle at Walmart. I haven't found it at any other grocery store unfortunately. 

Misty made some incredibly addicting chocolate turtles.. Yes, she made them. Serious skills. 

Here's her recipe:

The other snacks and goodies included:

Chips and spinach dip (pretty addicting!)

Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies,

Chex mix amazingness

Mixed chocolate cookies

Salsa verde chips (my personal brand of crack cocaine)

Cookie dough

EL fudge cookies

Lots of cookies, cuz lesbi-honest, what girl doesn't LOVE cookies? :)

The first part of the party we just stuffed our faces and chatted. It was so fun to catch up with some friends I don't see regularly! It's amazing how quickly you can fall back into the comfortable groove of friends that you shared lots of awkward middle school years with. Something about seeing each other in braces and horribly mismatching clothes makes you forever bonded!  ;P 

I forgot to mention, as everyone arrived we had them write their name on 3 slips of paper and put them into a bowl. So once we were done with eating (well, kind of done haha) we sat down and each drew 3 names from the bowl, making sure we didn't accidentally grab our own.  

We went around the room, starting with Meg and anyone who drew her name from the bowl raised their hand. She then passed her gifts out to each of us and briefly explained her craft. 

She gave out puffy paint sets, designed for us to make puffy paint art or shirts or really any variation of it. Seriously so fun! I still have a shirt that she made me back in high school (maybe even middle school) from puffy paint. Check out its amazingness!

So we continued around the room, each of us explaining our crafts and handing them out. 

I gave out a hand stitching set. I love the Grinch so I made copies of the pattern and put the needed fabric, needle, & strings in the bags. It's the kind of craft you can do while watching tv then either make into a pillow once the stitching is done or frame it for a table decoration. So fun!

This is mine that I am not very far on but you can see the basics of it. It says: "It came without ribbons, it came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Christmas can't be bought from a store, maybe Christmas means a little bit more. -Dr. Seuss"

Sheridan brought yarn poofs to make into pumpkins! She included the yarn, a square of burlap for the leaves, and a little sprig of cinnamon. So clever, I've always wanted to learn how to make pom poms so this was a perfect intro to them!

Misty brought paint chip garlands, in Christmas colors to make Christmas trees, candy canes, or snowflakes, out of the green, red, and white paint chips. I've seen so many examples on Pinterest but have never gotten around to making any, so excited that I drew her name to make them!

Courtnie brought a DIY chalkboard set with red Christmas bells. She provided the picture frame & paint so you just take the glass out of the frame, paint it, and boom! You have a chalkboard! 

Totally forgot to take a pic of it, ugh fail! :(

Ashley brought paper pinwheel sets with lots of paper colors to choose from! I've seen these on Pinterest too and have saved a bunch of how-to's but never gotten the "correct" way to make them before. She included the instructions and everything. 

Brittany brought red paper lanterns with black paper and silver square stickers. I never would've thought of this, but love love love the idea. Santa lanterns. You open the lanterns and cut a strip of black paper, like a belt, then use the silver square sticker as the belt buckle. Done! Instant Santa decor!

It was such a fun, laid back party, to get to have a night of girl talk and food, then to go home with some easy fun projects was a really great break! It's the kind of party that's perfect for any time of year, on any budget, and with a large group or a small group. I highly suggest throwing your own!

I love these girls, so lucky to have them in my life!

xoxo

Mandi