Thanksgiving

Lots of people have been posting things they’re thankful for every day on Facebook. It’s nice, but… I try to be thankful every day, for the not-so-great things too, and I just don’t need to tell everyone about it. (I feel this way about lots of holidays: Veteran’s Day? Thank one in person, don’t post a photo of an aircraft carrier on your Facebook wall and feel good about yourself.) Stepping off my soap box now.

In the past three days, we drove almost 300 miles and were never more than an hour from home. Our kids have fallen asleep in the car four times and have eaten about four times as many treats as normal. While it was wonderful and we had a great time, I am ready for normalcy. Also, this year was also completely nontraditional. Usually at this point I have all of my Christmas shopping done, wrapped, and under the tree because my house is decorated too. And my cards are in the mail. This year I rebelled: I didn’t go shopping. Not at all. Forget putting the cards in the mail, I don’t even have our picture done yet. But a full week of November is leftover after Thanksgiving, and I think five weeks of Christmas is too much. I decided to wait until December 1st to decorate, put up my freshly made Advent Calendar that I am desperately trying to finish, and start playing Christmas music. (What was that about a soap box? Onto the good stuff.)

These pictures posted in backward order and it is a lot of work to rearrange them. Let’s be nontraditional again. Starting with today… we had a lovely prime rib dinner at Jim’s parent’s house. Before that, we watched Alabama send Auburn home with a lovely 49-0 score at final. Before that, we had family pictures taken. Haley and JT had a great time playing with their cousin Travis.

Grandpa and Travis

Uncle Jim snuggle time

On Friday, we went to a friend’s house for Apple Cup and we extremely embarrassed, along with half the state, to watch the Huskies hand the game over to WSU, a team which could have been beat by my high school team this year. The kids didn’t notice, though: they were having too much fun wearing Husky tattoos, eating Hostess treats, and running like maniacs around the house.

Thursday, the kids helped me make some yummy things for Thanksgiving dinner. I contributed the pumpkin cheesecake, cranberry relish, apple pie, and sweet potatoes. Here are my two sweet potatoes. 🙂

My mom and mother-in-law cooked and made it a wonderful family meal. Thanks Moms!

The kids played puzzles with Grandpa and got to end the night with a Curious George before bed. Grandpa Cole thought it would be nice if they used headphones so the rest of us wouldn’t have to listen to Curious George too. Haley’s headphones were a little big so he put folded socks in between… too funny. She didn’t mind, as long as she got to watch the show.

Wednesday night we went to Thanksgiving Eve service at our church. It was great… no picture, which is too bad because Haley’s dress was adorable. We did spend some time reading The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George this week, and talking about the meaning of the holiday.

But it all began on Tuesday, with JT’s Thanksgiving Feast at preschool. Haley and I went (seriously, that girl hasn’t gotten a good nap all week) and had a wonderful time feasting and listening to a few songs that the class sang for us. The kids also got to each bring home a balloon, which gave us hours of fun and minutes of tears and arguing for the rest of the week.

Happy Thanksgiving!