We had a Happy Thanksgiving here!

Our Thanksgiving this year has been a little unusal, but it's been really good! 

 

We've been preparing for the holiday by reading books and talking about Thanksgiving.  I was also in charge of a playgroup.  We made pilgrim and Indian hats, little pinecone turkeys, turkey apple snacks, I am thankful game, and made little boats and floated them "across the ocean".  

Emma gave us a Family Home Evening lesson on gratitude.  She had us all draw something we were grateful for.  She was thankful to see snow.  She did a good job!

My parents were going to come for Thanksgiving, but my dad just found out that his job (where he's been for 30 years) will be eliminated.  So he has the choice to take early retirement, which he's not ready for, get a new job, or move to Sacramento.  So he's kind of stressed out and said they didn't want to put a damper on our holidays.  So we were sad they weren't able to come, we miss them!  Also, our other friends were going to join us but they had some other friends coming in town at the last minute, so they did Thanksgiving with them.  But we had a nice little holiday all by ourselves.  n Thanksgiving morning, we slept in, then watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The kids were delighted! 

Then we did lots of cooking, Emma and I.  Dave tried to convince me that we should go out to eat.  But it's just not the same!  I insisted even though it was just us we had to make dinner!  Emma was a good helper, and Dave helped a lot too!

Besides cooking, we read, made some Thanksgiving hats, and did had a few snacks to pass the time. 

The highlight of the day was playing football outside together!  We played boys against girls, and I didn't get any pictures, but we had a blast and laughed so much!  It was one of those moments I wanted to freeze in my memories forever.  I forgot to take any pictures though!  Then the kids played apple bowling on the deck, and I went back in to finish things off. 

Then, it was time to eat!  We had a yummy turkey, real mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, orange rolls and regular rolls.  Mmmm...

They all have their favorite things.  Emma's our carnivore and loves meat, she thought this piece of turkey was cool because it was a heart shape!

Cal got stuffed on orange rolls! 

Lucy loved the "jou" (juice) and kept asking for more.  We tried this cranberry sierra Mist and it was really good!

For pies, we had pumpkin from Costco, and I made a caramel apple stuesel and chocolate pie.  I didn't take the time to make them fancy, since it was just us, but they sure tasted good!

It was so wierd to be by ourselves, but a good experience. 

We had our Thankful tree in our entry way that we made.  When someone would come to our house, we'd give them a leaf and let them write something they were thankful for.  It added up and was fun to see the responses.  Everything from God, my bed, the scriptures, teachers, food, neighbors and lots more were on there!  It was fun!

I wrote a little note to Dave on our dry erase board in our room.  I got a cute one back too that made me laugh out loud!

That night, we watched Charly Brown's Thanksgiving, played some games, called and Skyped with family.  It was a nice day!  Just what Thanksgiving should be!  :)  Food, family and fun!