Bring on the Bustos Thanksgiving!

I was really excited when Autumn agreed to come down with her family to Mesa for Thanksgiving! My favorite time of the year is October through December. Those months always seem to go by so quickly and I always feel like I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. SO, having company come makes me stop and enjoy some of the season instead of rushing through so much!

 

There is a family in the ward that hosts a "Cheshire Chase" each Thanksgiving. I think it's their alternative to the "Turkey Trot" that takes place here in Mesa every THanksgiving. The Turkey Trot costs money to run, and the Cheshire Chase doesn't! So, guess which one we picked? Btw, Cheshire is the name of the street that runs along side the park where the race begins. Pretty clever name for a run huh? (Thanks Matt and Melody!) So, there is a Fun Run which is ONE MILE and there is a 5k...which is like 3 miles I think.... We picked the fun run just to stay all together as a family....I with much shame will admit I haven't been running for a while, so the mile sounded like plenty to me!

 

Uncle Gus just got home from Iraq in September. The kids all look up to him with his BIG muscles! So, when he started to stretch out, all the kids started to follow him and kept asking "what's next?" He was a good sport about it all. Abbie was naming some of the stretches. The only one that comes to mind is "the butterfly"...which is where you sit down and sit with the soles of your feet together...I guess that looks like "A butterfly!"

 

Dallin Randall is quite a cook and has this smoker. He cooked our turkey for us this year. Isn't is a beauty? It looks professionally cooked! It's funny how much less stress I felt by just not having to cook the turkey! I cooked lots of other stuff!

 

Here are the starters to a great feast. We had a few neighbors over playing most of the morning. I thought I'd bring out the munchies to get everyone's appetite going!

 

Mark and Liz Peterson came over for dessert in the evening. I"m so glad we have Mark and Liz in our lives! We moved here to Arizona without any family. They are our family here in ARizona! We have had so many fun memories together with them! They brought their fire pit and we had a "bond fire"...I know the real words are bonfire, but that's what we named ours. Maybe cuz we like to bond while watching the fire. :) It was so nice to just sit and visit and learn more about each other. Gus had so many funny stories to tell us about being a Marine in Iraq! Mercy, I don't think I could've handled any of that stuff! I'm just really glad that they came. I feel like I know Gus so much better and I'm really glad he's part of our family. I"m glad he's my brother. :)

 

Well, as you can see, I have a special place in my heart for Aaron Bustos. That little charmer is something else! I tell myself not to get too attached cuz he's not staying long, but somehow, that little cutie just warms my heart! He is the most gentle good natured, gorgeous little boy ever! I truly love him like my own!!! He was funny. He didn't want to take naps cuz he was too curious about what was going on around him! His poor little eyes were so red and blood shot! Finally, I just snuggled with him and put him to sleep and for the rest of the trip, I just kind of spoiled him! I couldn't help myself! Autumn sure is good at getting me without makeup! I held him so much more when I was dressed and ready for the day, apparently she thought it would be more fun to take pictures of us when we all first got up! She's just trying to humble me or something!

 

Gus was very excited about learning to play the drums. I guess he tried to learn in Iraq or something and didn't make much progress. Abbie went out there and helped him and he really caught on! Of course the master of the Drums, David got him going with some pretty cool beats. Gus practiced so much and started making up his own beats and really seemed to enjoy playing the drums. In fact, I was worried that he was bored out in the garage and wondered if we should go and do something. Autumn said he was perfectly content playing the drums! We have to tease him that he kept the neighbors from taking their naps because he was on the drums so much! He'll just have to come back for lesson number 2 to learn the next level of playing drums. He has the basics down for sure!

 

The kids had so much fun just hanging out. We had such nice weather during the week! Mesa really is the place to be at in the wintertime. Yes, it's hotter than Heck in the summer, but it is a lovely place to be in the winter! The kids rode bikes, scooters, rip sticks, 4 wheelers, and played basketball. It was cute because Lucas was having so much fun that he told his mom he wanted to stay for "29 more days!" The cute thing about that is they were only going to stay until Friday morning and then were going to go to Legoland. Lucky for us, they were having so much fun, they decided to stay until Saturday and headed back to Utah. We wish they could stay a week, but an extra day was good too!

 

Autumn and I woke up Friday morning, and then decided to go fight the crowds on the dreaded Black Friday. We got to the stores, and found everything we wanted gone...and the lines wrapped around the stores, and NO parking spaces...so came back home. To our surprise, David had some of the Christmas stuff up. The kids were so excited that they got the ladder out and started to decorate the tree themselves. It is really cute, because all the decorations are on one quarter of the tree. Each bough has 4 or 5 ornaments on them! They were doing a great job taking turns going up and down the ladder to hang their decoration on the tree. Oh to be a kid again. Everything is so simple and fun. I told the kids this year they wouldn't be getting much, and so they looked on the dollar tree ad for what they wanted. How cute is that? I told them they could venture out to the Target or Walmart ads, but to keep it to 3 things a piece. They were totally fine about that.

 

As you can tell, I think anything and everything about Aaron is cute. This trip, something I noticed was how much he did things with his feet! How cute is that big toe hanging on the the end of the highchair? Or crossing his chubby little feet underneath?

 

David was overcome by Aaron's spell too! What a little love bug! Can't get enough of him. David was kissing him so much that Aaron just fell asleep. Then, David didn't want to put him down, so he sat down on the rocking chair by the Christmas tree and took a little nap with him! That was the morning the Bustos left. We were trying to get every drop of time out of their visit! When they finally pulled out to leave, I looked into the car and saw Aaron's little brown eyes and I started to cry! What a blubbering aunt I was! I must have hormones raging or something! I don't usually go so gaga over a baby! Aut, you have a keeper! I love you so much and I'm glad we're sisters...and I'm glad you and your family came to spend Thanksgiving with us! It will be one our family will never forget!