Thankful for Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day at our house is one of my favorite days!  I love everything about it.  I love the smells, the tastes, the fun, the games, the feeling.  But mostly, the people. This is the last Thanksgiving that we had Grandma Larsen with us.  She looks so bright and alive and beautiful here.  And that is exactly how I hope we can all remember her!  

Jen playing with the kiddos of course!  Having a ball!

"Hmm, I could eat me some finger, I mean turkey right about now!" 

Sam was wiped out...and this is before we ate I think too!  Holiday=sleep day for some.

Grandma helping prep the napkins. It was so neat to have her with us!

Daddy-o carving the beast!!

Dave's plate.  Just kidding!

Jen is ready!!

At the table and ready to feast!

I am so thankful for my family!  We have so much fun together. I love just having a day where we can lounge and hang out together.  

Love them.

Joey, Des and Nik hanging out.

"Where's the PIE??!!??"

Always end with pie....or start with it.  haha!  Had to make sure it wasn't disgusting!  I have no faith in my homemade pumpkin pie. Yet, every year I keep trying. Someday i'll be good at it.  For now, I am still so grateful for pie!!!

Thanksgiving Feast at ALA

The star of the show!  My little indian! ;)

Eating our little thanksgiving dinner.

Eating our feast!

Hannah watching us eat our feast. :)

Thanksgiving Day in Tucson

Thanksgiving was a riot this year!  We had Dave's bro, Tom, and his family come from L.A..  And we had my sister Pheobe & her family come from Round Rock, TX!!  And we also got to have my Dad, Grandma, and sister Jenny & her husband come down from the Mesa valley!  It was a full house and wonderful!

Joey flew up there! Kidding!  The kids (Abby and Joey had 7 cousins here!) played in that empty garbage can for hours!!

The night before Thanksgiving, Tom & Amy helped us make our little turkey name tag holders.  We couldn't find white frosting tubes...so they got black and pink eyes! LOL

 Joey could barely resist eating them...such restraint! :)

I think they turned out cute!  I went a little crazy and make some of them quite unique. 

My wonderful Dad helped me do so much of the cooking!  He is an amazing chef!  I never could have pulled it off without him. 

The kids played together non stop!  Abby and Joey were in heaven!

Of course it's tradition to eat a relish trey all afternoon 'til dinner...while we look at the black friday ads! :)

Table 1 crew...

Table 2 crew... 

We had a great time, and the food was delicious!  We are so grateful for wonderful family love and support.  We seriously have the best family ever!  So much to be grateful for all through the year.  But one thing we can't help but feel immensely blessed by, is being surrounded by loved ones on Thanksgiving day!  Thank you to everyone who made the long trek to come to Tucson and stay with us!  We love you all!

Black Friday....Rocked!

 
This was seriously the most successful Black Friday shopping I have ever participated in.  Reason #1 it rocked...we didn't leave until ab 6:30am.  Yep, not deathly early...no midnight craziness.  For that reason the crowds had died down quite a bit.  All the people that hate you and anyone else with a credit card...the people that are willing to run you over and elbow you in the gutt, are long gone.  (I didn't say the lines had gone down though.)  But that's to be expected.

With 3 separate households in 1 vehicle....we FILLED that thing to the brim.  It was AWESOME!

(btw- that's my sister Heather next to me, and my sister Jenny & her hubby Dawson in the back)

Hahahahaha!  I seriously got 3/4 of my Christmas & bday shopping done in 1 morning.  Gotta love it!

Afterward, we cuddled in for a nice competitive game of Dr. Mario. Jenny always throttles us. 

Ahhh, what a successful day!  

New Tradition

This year I wanted to start a new Thanksgiving tradition.  Something that focused a little more on family and gratitude and less about food...that part comes naturally.  :)  Well, I ran across the idea of a "Book of Thanks" on some awesome craft blog, but the book they used and the only decent looking, even somewhat like I had imagined it, book I could find in stores or online was $50-60.  

So, I decided to make one!  

Each thanksgiving for the rest of our lives (?) we will bring our Book of Thanks out and everyone that we are sharing that day with will sign it and write something they are thankful for from that year.  I think it will be a lot of fun to be able to look back and read the things written in it, see who we had Thanksgiving with each year and see the handwriting and content of our children's writings change from year to year.

I decorated the inner pages a little. 

And attempted to add some embellishments...i'm a wanna be crafter, not a real one yet.

Ta-Da!  There she is.  Thanks to all who helped in the making.  Here's to many wonderful Thanksgivings full of gratitude!  I am so very blessed.  

Abby had a blast painting the white pumpkins we picked out this year.  I think she did a fine job!  Makes me think of Return to Oz ...weird weird movie.

Here's what that brown ball of string turned out to be Heather.  Thanks for helping us roll it on Thanksgiving day!  

The Day of Thanks and Feasting

Two of my gorgeous sisters, Heather & Jenny.  I am grateful that they help me see how much FUN life can be! 

The outdoor FEAST was absolutely fabulous!  It was sad I had the stomach flu that day!  Woke up with it.  But I could not get myself to stay away!  

Dad made these beautiful Jello parfaits!  That one took Abby 3 days to finish!  :) 

And I attempted to make some new pies this year.  Lemon Meringue, Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake & French Silk.  I think they tasted alright....  Some day I'll be good at it!  Gotta start somewhere eh?

The Amazing Creator!

Here she is! My sister Pheobe not only made all of Thanksgiving dinner single handedly....

but she also makes amazingly awesome and cute things like all these bibs for the kids!

River the Pirate! "Arrrgh!"

Abby the "roll sniffer"!

Maddy the "calm and collected". Why are these names all in quotes?? I don't know! But it made you read them very carefully huh? huh?

PS- Note, these bib pictures were not taken Thanksgiving dinner...it was yet a light soup & vegis lunch to tide us over. :D