November 23, 2017-Happy Thanksgiving!

(click here for today's pictures)

• My alarm rang a few times less than usual when I was about to climb out of bed. Whitman came and laid down beside us for a bit before I made it out of the bed. I reminded him about Thanksgiving and ran down the list of who all was coming to our house. He told me that he did NOT want to eat turkey but I do believe that he ate his fair share of rice krispy treat turkeys.
• Graham and Anderson were already awake when I went upstairs to wake up the girls. It looked like Campbell had just stumbled out of bed but Reagan and Keaton's beds were already made. I made the boys beds along with Campbell's bed and then headed downstairs to do the dishes before my shower. 
• The kids had breakfasts and before we knew it, it was time to start on the first of today's turkeys. The girls made a fruit turkey-usually we make two different fruit turkeys but this year, we changed things up a bit. The girls went to town washing and slicing the fruit. Reagan knew exactly how she wanted it to look and the girls went right to work. It was really cute.
• After they cleaned up from that, I made the corn casserole (new recipe which Robby said was one of his favorites). Then it was time for the boys to work on their turkey-a meat, cheese and cracker turkey. They were a bit more haphazardly than the girls, but they finished and it looked cute. Whitman tried his best to help. 
• Dana, Cash and Lilly arrived soon and Jason was not too far behind. I pulled out the hummus and cheese ball and we began eating that early in the morning. Soon everyone else had arrived and we played a game before lunch. We played pictionary-adults vs. kids. I was so in to the game that I forgot that I was supposed to be getting everything ready for lunch. Pops and I had to throw the rolls in the oven and scramble putting ice in the glasses while Robby was in the others room blessing the food.
• We have learned two things from Thanksgiving 2017-my house will be too small for me to host my kids and their families when they grow up. My kitchen could actually be a bit bigger right now to happily accommodate 22 people but we managed just fine. Lesson number 2 is that I need to buy more silverware. Now, yes we used paper plates but I did get out real silverware (even though I had plenty of plastic ready as well), but I have so few that people had to take a bite and pass their fork to the person sitting beside them (not quite but almost!)
• The cabinets were filled with food and desserts. Everyone had their fill and before I even sat down to eat, I saw the boys in the back playing football. The kids occupied themselves great all day long (well, all but the little one.) The neighbors and their cousins were over and everyone played outside most of the afternoon. The girls worked on making red and green pom poms to hang up. 
• There was also a pumpkin that I had out for the kids to put rubber bands on. Once there was enough rubber bands on it, the pumpkin would burst open or that was our hope at least. Thankfully, the pumpkin did burst when Lilly, Reagan and Campbell were nearby. We all were outside and heard the pumpkin pop but mainly we heard the girls scream and squeal.
• There was lots of parade watching, picture taking, football viewing and sales ad browsing throughout the day. There was also a lot of grazing as well. Everyone stayed until supper time and we pulled out all of the food and did it all again. 
• Les, Shelley, Josh, Zach, and Jason stayed the longest. Jason worked a lego car and the kids ended the evening watching the movie Greater while we picked up the kitchen while waiting on them to finish. When the movie was finally over the kids headed to bed. My favorite holiday was again a great one.