Thanksgiving Fare

My contributions to our Thanksgiving feast this year:

Here's the recipe I use (can't even remember where I got it)  for sweet potato chip dip...It's my favorite.
8 oz. container of whipped cream cheese
1 Tbsp. mayonnaise
3 teaspoons soy sauce
4 oz. can of crushed pineapples, drained
4 green onions, chopped
Mix the cream cheese, mayo, and soy sauce together and then add remained ingredients.  Chill for a few hours or overnight before serving. YUM!

And here are my three favorite little taste testers.

Turkey Day 2013

What a beautiful Thanksgiving we had at Nana and Papa's house.  

Thankful

An Afternoon Building Bears

For a while now, whenever we pass Build-A-Bear at the mall, Ellery and Marin ask to go in and, well...build a bear.  Their wish came true yesterday when we had a girls' day at the mall buying new shoes, eating pretzels, and creating stuffed friends.

Each picked out her favorite bear.

Ahhh...The Heart Ceremony.  The girls touched the hearts to their heads to make their bears smart....

....and to their cheeks to make the bears smile with happiness... 

And then they squeezed the hearts, closed their eyes, and made a wish.  As you can see, Ellery was totally feeling every single part of this experience.  She is crazy, CRAZY about stuffed animals.

Time for Marin to stuff her bear.

Then it was Ellery's turn.

Next stop was the washing station where they gave their bears a bath and brushed their fur.  This station could have taken hours, but alas, there was another group of girls behind us, so we needed to move along.

The girls picked out outfits for their new stuffed friends.

Finally, they named them and made sure to get a birth certificate for both.  Marin named her's Kiki, and Ellery wanted her's to be called Penny.

And that is how it all went down yesterday for the
Bushwar girls, Kiki, and Penny at the Build-A-Bear Workshop.

After ICE

After going through ICE, we went to Kung Fu Panda's Snow Tubing adventure.

Before going to dinner, we took in the 1.5 million lights and 15,000 ornaments that make up the Gaylord's Christmas decorations.  So festive and beautiful!

Ice+Nutcracker=Family Fun

Nana and Papa took us to ICE at the Gaylord Texan today.  This year's theme was The Nutcracker. Sculptors used over 2 million pounds of ice to create this amazing display.  There was even a New York City bonus room.  What a perfect way to kick off the holiday season.