Thanksgiving

Gus, our favorite Elf, likes to come to visit us on Thanksgiving morning. This year was no different! Not only does he come visit, but this year he brought a letter from Santa to the kids AND a small gift for each of them!So when we got up Thanksgiving morning, there he was, just chilling out in our Christmas tree!

Rhyan was expecting him and was SO excited to spot him!

She was also pretty excited to have gotten a letter from Santa (which basically told the kids that whether they are naughty or nice, he would still come see them. Because Christmas is all about celebrating Christ's birthday and Christ gave himself for everyone, even for people who dont love Him. So Santa would do the same... bring gifts to Rhyan and Mack if they were good or bad, because that he wanted to be like Christ). You can click the picture above to see exactly what he wrote.

Mack was in a mood and would not allow any pictures to be taken... he ran and fussed... till he saw a gift!

Santa sent each of the kids some pj's for them to wear when they came to have their picture made with him AND a Christmas movie for each of them! They were very surprised and pretty happy!

This year, Mommie had been in the hospital for about a week leading up to Thanksgiving. She had bronchitis and just wasnt feeling well  and Shlaine had offered to host it at her house and I tried to encourage the family to jump on board for a few reasons... for one, Mommie didnt need to be worrying about getting tables and chairs in and cooking too much food and just the general stress of hosting and secondly, there are usually 12 or more of us at Thanksgiving each year and its hard to have a sit down meal at Mommie's house because its pretty cramped. Shlaine also does a  LOT of Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving and so it was a great atmosphere and lots of room for everyone to roam :-)

Unfortunately, the turkey (which Mama/Jonathan cooked) didnt get done in time. So we ended up having to cook it at Shlaines house and didnt get done till after we were done eating. Heres the funny thing... when we did get it out, I think it was Steve who noted that it was upside down (breast down) and that we would need to flip it over to get an accurate meat thermometer reading. Turns out, its quite likely that it WAS done at dinner time but that we were just testing it wrong and getting into a weird part of the bird. On the upside, cooking it upside down like that made for the juiciest turkey I've ever had! We said we needed to make a mental note to do it that way  next year but that we need to flip it over and let the top brown so its pretty!

Mommie ended up not doing well at dinner at all and pretty much slept on the couch. It was pitiful to see her feel so badly :-(. I think that having to get things ready to transport to Shlaine's house ended up being about as stressful for her as hosting. Who knew... We had good intentions. So I have really no pics of the day except those above and then this sweet one of my baby boy, in his overalls, napping.

It was definitely a learning year as it always is anytime you try anything new. But it was so nice to have lots of space and be able to really visit with family and friends (Nat and Dorothy, Mommie's best friend, came!). And we all went around and shared something we were thankful for, of which there are really too many to name! We are all abundantly blessed, mostly with one another... family is priceless!