Thanksgiving 2011

Oh my, I am so far behind in blogging....Christmas preparation has taken every spare second of my life and now that it is over, I feel like I can do some of the "normal" things again.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was a ton of work (at times like this, I really, really miss my mom!!), but it was memorable and a fun weekend.

We spent the day before Thanksgiving making pies. Jon does the crust, and I usually do the fillings. We ended up with 2 pumpkin, an apple, and 2 chocolate cream pies. Baking with Jon is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving.

We also spent the day cleaning the house in preparation for it...here is Hannah "helping."


On Thursday morning, we took all the kids to Murray Park. Jon played flag football with his friend, Carl, and the kids and I used the time to exercise. I pushed Hannah & Hailey in the stroller. Kate, Lindsey, Emily & Jack all went on a run around the park. Emily & Jack lasted the longest and everyone had a great time. We left Jon there to keep playing and we went home to continue dinner prep.

Hailey & Hannah

Kate

Emily & Jack

Hannah taking a pre-Thanksgiving dinner nap


We made a 21-pound turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, cranberry salad, raspberry Jello salad and creamed corn. We then took it over to the Cowden's to have dinner with my family. Becky Cowden is my dad's cousin and she was so wonderful to host all of us. We had a super yummy meal together and then enjoyed playing, laughing, and visiting with each other.

Hailey & Mike

Jon & Richard getting the final things ready

Thanksgiving dinner coma

We're so grateful for this sweet little one!

Around 5, we all made it back over to our house to clean up all the dishes from cooking in the morning, have leftovers and play games. Playing games is definitely a huge part of our holiday celebrations.

My mom had gotten all the grandchildren (7 girls & 1 boy), new pajamas. Instead of waiting until Christmas Eve, we decided to let them have them on Thanksgiving night when we get out our Christmas blankets. They loved them.

We had also done a secret sister gift exchange with Aunt Claudia, Ashlie & Meg, so we opened those as well. I had Aunt Claudia and had sent her a lighthouse wall hanging. Misty had me and I got the most amazing United States picture.

Brooklyn opening new Christmas pajamas

Misty had enlarged a picture of the US and then individually cut out each state, wonder-undered them on fabric and sewed them on. It is soooo cute!

We had a fun time doing the exchange and I think we'll probably do it again next year!

I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it was fun! And then onto Christmas....