Thanksgiving

Prepare for a photo overload. I handed Camden off after his blessing and put Micah down for a nap, so I was able to grab the camera and take a bunch of pictures of Thanksgiving. And since I took them of  course I love them all and had to include them. 

Cooks in the kitchen. Everyone was assigned to something so it wasn't too hard being hostess. I had the easy stuff like cranberry sauce, jam and butter and turkey. Ok, so the turkey wasn't easy, but I had help with that from everyone as well so it wasn't too hard either. I think my only contribution was making the brine two nights before. Robert was the one who actually put the turkey in the brine and roasted it. (Thanks for posting the recipes Sarah! If anyone is in need of some good recipes for next Thanksgiving check out her blog, Sarah's Fares) And I must say I think the turkey turned out perfect, it was perfectly moist and flavorful.

Hannah was actually only here for Camden's blessing. They left to have Thanksgiving dinner with the Kimballs, but we must document that Hannah made an appearance.

Reah getting artsy.

 The girls were all ready to start celebrating Christmas.

 Waiting for the food to be done and snacking on some yummy rolls. And there were plenty of rolls to be had. We finished the last of them a week later I think.

 Just making sure we had a picture of Michael.  I think I got a picture of everyone..except Rob and I.

Our Give Thanks banner that survived our move from Virginia. Julia and I made it while we lived in Virginia with all the beautiful nature things right outside our doorstep- pine needles, leaves, sticks, red berries, pine cones.

I'm happy with the way everyone fit. We moved all the furniture to the sides and set up the tables in the middle of the family and living rooms. We were going to have a separate kids table so the kids could be messy and not make a mess on the carpet, but we ended up having them at the big table and they did fine. Julia and Ali shared the piano bench as their chairs.

Camden gets passed around, Reah turns to hold him.

 Micah woke up from his nap just in time for dinner (lunch actually).

We set up the toddlers in high chairs next to each other along the wall by the tables.

Camden finally got put down and promptly woke up. He only sleeps for a long time in the day if someone holds him. In fact, I am holding him right now as he sleeps to buy me some time to finally blog.

"Yeah! Check out all my food!"

You can see our Thankful Banner. Every year as a family we cut out leaf shapes on construction paper and add leaves with what we are thankful for throughout the month of November. We still had some leaves leftover on Thanksgiving so almost everyone was able to write what they were thankful for. "Family" made it up there three times even though people were trying not to repeat words.

Now onto the dinner.

"Are you going to eat that?"

 And naps afterwards.