Thanksgiving 2017

Because our life has been completely up in the air, we decided to just do Thanksgiving at our house with our family. It was so fun to just have a non-stress holiday, because heaven knows, we have enough stress in our lives right now!

 Here are my kitchen helpers, with cheesy grins included!

And here is our pose at the table!

Davis is THREE!!

We had a fabulous little party for a fabulous little boy today! He is so much fun!
The one request that he had for his birthday was cake and ice cream, so we delivered on that!
I made an elephant cake for him, which has now been through three generations.
Here is me on my third birthday with an elephant cake:

 And here is Davis's elephant cake:

 Reagan liked it too. It was a warm-up for her birthday in a couple of weeks! She knew exactly what to do with it!

 

We also had some great friends come to help us with the present opening, like Alvin:

 And Great Grandma and Grandpa:

 And Damian and his grandma:

And Grandma and Reagan (playing with the balloon that Great Grandma and Grandpa brought):

 And Damian's mommy (sorry for the blur):

In addition to cake and ice cream, we opened presents and gave hugs to all those who gave them:

And Davis got a bike!

After the party, we took naps (Well, Daddy and Reagan took a nap) and then went to the festival of trees and saw a very cool tree with a train theme that we visited like 15 times. We also saw Olaf!

And then we went to a pizzeria and got pizza. . . and olives!

All in all, it was a fantastic and well-celebrated birthday!

Things I want to remember about Davis as a 2-year-old:

• He is so sweet to everyone. He is especially sweet to his little sister, and loves her so much. in fact, when she cries, he usually yells and cries too because it makes him very sad to see his sister sad.
• He USUALLY loves to share, which is pretty unusual for someone his age. He is just a kind little boy.
• Whenever I am upset, he tries to make me feel better by saying, "Don't worry, mommy. You are big!" because being big really helps things a lot. :)
• He has a profound love for his family. He loves mommy, daddy, Reagan, Grandma, Grandpa . . . he loves everyone in his family!
• He knows his ABC's and his numbers and colors. Not because I taught him, but because he is intensely curious about it all.
• And countless other reasons--we love you Davis Christopher Rusch!

Thanksgiving

We have sooooo much to be grateful for, and we were able to celebrate that during Thanksgiving at my family's cabin in Island Park.  We love Island Park.  Anyway, we were able to go up there with my parents and our very dear friends, the Kennards.  Here are a few pictures from our adventure, in no particular order!

Our yummy meal.

Snowmobiling in Island Park!

 Davis doing his two favorite things at the cabin--watching TV and riding his "bike"

 Davis with one of his favorite people during this vacation--Araksya's mother

 Reading with our boy.

What a cute kid!
Things we are grateful for:

• A great family who loves each other
• Comfortable circumstances in which we live
• A free country
• Living close to so much family
• A husband who has a great job to provide for his family
• Being able to stay home and take care of the kids
• An education
• The comforts of life--Araksya taught us, once again, how well we have it!
• The gospel
• The Savior
• Temples
• And the list goes on and on and on . . .