November 27, 2014-Happy Thanksgiving

(click here for today's pictures)

Thanksgiving 2014

• Thanksgiving morning and pretty much as soon as the kids were up, we were out of bed and started working.  The food that we were making was pretty much made and the house was pretty much cleaned but there was still plenty to do. Graham's first questions was "how many chores do we need to do?" Fortunately for him, there was really nothing left for him to do except get ready and anxiously await the arrival of our Thanksgiving guests.
• The kids watched a movie after breakfast and then Robby turned the parade on.  This caused quite a stir and everyone was excited to watch the parade.  Robby and I even sat down to watch the parade some-I told Reagan that was on my bucket list to see the parade and she said "you have a bucket list?" like this surprised her.  
• In the middle of our parade watching, I called the girls to make their fruit turkey.  This is at least our 3rd year to have a fruit turkey with the girls making one and the boys making the other. The girls really worked well together this year making it-they are all big enough to follow Reagan's instructions on how to make it her way.  I guess that is what big sisters are for!
• Now Graham was more than ready to work on his fruit turkey but since Anderson was at Grannymom's house, he had to wait.  He asked me about 7 times when Anderson would show up and as soon as Anderson walked in the door, Graham told him it was turkey time. Anderson hadn't planned on making the turkey so he was not too pleased about this but he did graciously go and help his brother.  In hind sight, I guess that I should have had Whitman help them some but he was upstairs napping (though he wasn't really napping-I just gave him some milk and put him upstairs for a few minutes so he would stop pulling stuff out of my cabinets).  The boys turkey looked much different than the girls-the girls took their time and discussed what to do next while the boys just threw some fruit on the plate and called it done-my little men!
• Soon everyone started arriving-Les, Shelley, Josh, Zach, Dana, Lilli, Jenna, Cash, Grannymom, Grandpa, Nonna, Pops and Jason.  Twenty one folks all together which might seem like a lot to some but to us that isn't that many.  Some day if all of these kids that were here today (11) all have one spouse and 2 kids that would be over 50 of us-sweet! I am going to need a few more tables!
• All of our food was delicious (my favorites were the dressing, snickerdoodle bars, cranberry sauce (I liked it on top of the dressing) and the turkey (can't beat a good turkey).  The kids had a puzzle to complete and the winner won a prize (provided by Grannymom).  Keaton was the winner and she won movie tickets for everyone-woohoo!  The kids were excited but not as excited as their momma and daddys were!  
• The boys had a bit of time to play outside and the girls worked on making some bracelets.  I had suggested them making bracelets today-what was I thinking since I had to do a lot of the bracelet work myself but if anyone would like a friendship bracelet, I would be the girl to ask!
• Soon we were all loading up (except Nonna, Pops, Les, Josh, Grannymom, Grandpa and Whitman) to go the movies.  We saw Big Hero 6 and it was pretty good.  Or maybe I should say, what I saw of it was pretty good.  Campbell and Keaton were pretty wiggly until our potty trip and then Keaton climbed in my lap and we dozed through the rest of the movie.  I don't think that Shelley had to elbow me to get me to stop snoring.
• Once we made it back home, it was already time to eat again.  I pretty much just let the kids eat desserts and rolls for supper-it is a holiday after all.  And then all too soon after supper, everyone started leaving.  I think that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but how did the day pass so quickly.  Makes me kind of sad thinking about how quick the day was over.  
• We looked through the ads today but never really saw anything that we had to have.  I don't even know what I am going to buy the kids for Christmas this year-they haven't asked for too much and we need nothing at all (except maybe for a cookbook, towels, pillows and some sweater boxes-notice how I mentioned a different list than the other day?)  Seriously, we do need nothing.  If I believed in hashtags, I would say #blessedbeyondmeasure
• Pretty perfect day around here and the kids hung out into the living room until way too late so hopefully, everyone will sleep in tomorrow.