For Leann's family reunion this year, each family was assigned to make a video of their family and what they had done for the year. This is that video. It is mainly our family, in shots where they are with Leann's family-- not a lot of shots of the Williams extended family, because the audience for this video was the Lay side. Hopefully ya'll can get the music and stuff. Leann's pretty proud of how it all came together. We just wish we could put more in, but we honored the 5 minute time limit so we had to leave a LOT of things out. So here it is, without further ado, the Williams Family Thanksgiving Special:

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!!!

Clayton wanted to be Leo from Little Einsteins. So, I made a Rocket for him out of a red plastic tablecloth--it wasn't pretty, but it worked. He has the red hair, the glasses, the shirt buttoned up, a baton, the whole shebang. He LOVED it!! Until he saw this picture, and then he freaked out and didn't want to be Leo anymore. Go figure. SO, we had a dragon costume from who knows where laying around, and he wore that. We have, below, Ira the soldier, Joy as Hannah Montana, Tommy as a cowboy and his horse, and Clatyon as a dragon. They dressed up for the Williams grandparents' ward party, our ward party, and Grandma Lay's ward party-- all before Halloween. They were at their other mother's on Halloween and I won't say what they dressed up as, but it involved blankets and garbage bags, so I can brag that ours were way cooler. :-) So, we never got around to carving the TWO large pumpkins and 6 small pumpkins we bought for Halloween, so I decided to make canned pumpkin out of them for pie. My children are, as I've mentioned, from another planet and the ONLY pie they like is pumpkin (I remember NOT liking pumpkin pie as a kid--I'm not the biggest fan of it now, either...so it's weird to me that they love it.) Anyway, here are the smaller pumpkins, cut up. I didn't think to take pictures until the big ones were pretty much done. This looks like a massacre of the Great Pumpkin. Poor Linus. He'll never be the same. The finished product. It was actually enough of a pain in the butt to can this stuff, that I decided to freeze the rest of it. I pureed it really well, drained as much liquid off as I could, and measured 2 cups into freezer bags, which I then froze flat. When I made pie for Thanksgiving, it took like 5 minutes in hot water to thaw and I had my pumpkin. It was great!

Since then, I got chicken and ground beef on sale and oh... I already told ya'll about that. I've discovered that I'm tired on the canning thing, at least for this week. I need to take a little break. Except that I bought a whole bunch of potatoes which I'm gonna cook, smooosh, and freeze in baggies like I did the pumpkin so I can have it on hand. THEN I'm gonna take a break.

Okay, ONE more post is forthcoming today, then I'll be caught up!

Okay, it's time for me to catch up on pictures. They are gonna be a little out of order. These pictures are Joy reading to Clayton (both of them love it). Joy is turning into a good little reader. She has been tested for Project Inquiry, the school's gifted program. Just shows you what hard work and practice will do-- Joy was in the reading "catchup" program for a few months, but once the light bulb went on, she's really blossomed. Joy reads out loud to Clayton, and Clayton's "homework" is to listen to Joy do her reading. It's adorable to watch.

The rest of the pictures are Tommy's birthday. He wanted to go camping for his birthday. That wasn't possible, so we had one at home. We had marshmallow roasting, hot chocolate, and for a cake, I had to make a peanut butter cookie cake with chocolate frosting. Tommy really is smiling in the picture with the cake, but his mouth is full of Whoppers.

This one (if it posts correctly), is Clayton in his dragon costume at our ward's Halloween party. He'll be thirty and still eating cupcakes this way.


okay next I'm posting Halloween costumes and what I did to the Great Pumpkin :-)

I have about a million pictures to post... but I don't have the energy to post them. I'm in the middle of canning (SHOCKER!)--- I'm canning chicken and ground beef. I made bread and butter pickles last night and canned them. Sprouts (our local "farmers market" for you who may not know) had a great sale on chicken breasts, and since they don't have fillers or preservatives, I thought it would be a good time to really go for the canning thing with them. Thanks to Mom Williams for her help (she got suckered into it when they came over briefly today). Turns out, it doesn't take all that long to get everything ready, its the hour and a half per 6 quart jars to process them that takes for. ev. er. I'll be up til at least 11 pm to finish. Oh well, it's my own fault. I wish that I could catch the exercise bug like I have the canning bug. I have my sweet little boy Clayton on my lap watching me type and moving his head back and forth to follow the words. He's getting so big--and is a character and a half. Tommy just turned 5-- we had a campfire party with hot chocolate and marshmallows, we had a blast. I need to post those pictures. (even though they look kinda like our OTHER campfire pictures).

Clayton is yelling "DO IT" every time I pause in my typing. He's also leaning on one arm so I'm having to pause more than I normally would. Just a commercial break there---

We started a chore chart with stars that the kids have to complete to get dessert. They start out with 3 "behavior stars" that they lose if they act up. They have their regular chores that they can mark off, and then they have "extras" that they can do to either earn back their behavior stars or, if they've finished all their other stuff, they'll be able to earn money with the extras. Today was our first day and so far it is working! Yeah!!! Okay, I'll sign off and my next post will be a catch up with photos.
Leann