Our tree falleth over - Thanksgiving this year

Instead of "my cup runneth over" with gratitude, this year maybe we should say "our tree falleth over".  Let me explain... We made a little grateful tree this year.  This year, the kids picked out a large funny shaped branch out to use for it and each night, we wrote what we were thankful for that night on construction paper leaves and tied them to our trees.  It was fun to see what everyone came up with - from butterflies to the U.S.A., Jesus Christ to the ability to read, brothers and sisters to Sonic, air conditioning to parents.  Pretty soon the leaves piled up and tipped our tree over because the little branches got so heavy.  So many blessings!

We also made a new little Thanksgiving craft, because I don't have too many around.  And I was thinking we need to give credit where credit is due and I think Thanksgiving should get more credit because of how it all started, what it stands for and how much we have all been blessed with.  So I pinned this cute 2x4 turkey on Pinterest a couple of years ago and finally got around to making it.  I thought it turned out so fun!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we were able to have a few guests come stay with us.  My brother and his wife, Adam and Meghan and their little cuties came to hang out.  It was so nice spending time with them, as we don't get to see them as much.  Lucy and Ruby are now besties, and Cal and Stephen picked right back up like they hadn't ever been apart.  Cov loved Adam, but kept mistaking him for my other bro Marko and kept calling him that.  We kept telling him it was Adam, but he kept forgetting, so eventually he just started calling him "that guy".  The kids had the times of their lives playing and we enjoyed chatting as well and catching up.  Adam just got called to serve on the high council and got set apart as a high priest by my dad while down.  So that was neat!  These guys are the best!

We also were able to have my "Twinny" (good friend who was mistaken as my twin in junior high and high school) Amanda and her husband Ted and their gal Genevieve who is Cov's age come visit on their way to their Thanksgiving festitvities.  They're such a great family!  Also, on their way back from their travels, they stopped through and visited our ward on Sunday and didn't know it was ours so we got to see them again, happy!

Having them here made me feel so thankful for good parents, siblings, in-laws, friends who helped shape me into who I am and encourage me to become who I can become.

We got to go down to celebrate the holiday with family.  The night before Thanksgiving, we drove down in snow.  First we went to visit Grammie at her new place.  It is nice and she is doing a lot better lately, so that's good.  I love that lady!  Then we went over with Aunt Christie and Rex, my parents, Grammie and my siblings to have a game night at the church there.  It was a blast!  We had Costco pizza and red vines.  The kids played sports in the gym, bopped balloons around and colored in coloring books.  They had a great time!  And the adults and older kids (when we weren't taking our turn supervising the little guys) got to play games.  We did Imaginiff and Pit, Super Fight and more.  It was good times!

Thursday morning, we woke up to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and eat a light breakfast.  Traditions, I love this holiday!  Then we went over to my parents for our first feast.  We helped get everything ready.  The decorations were cute, we had great company and it was amazing food, of course.  We made homemade cranberry sauce and a chocolate pie.  And we had all the usual fare, tasty!  After eating, we had a little program.  My mom read a poem, we sang a Thanksgiving hymn, some of the kids and adults played or sang music or did dances and then we went around and said a different thing we were thankful for.  It was a nice way to finish things off.

Then we went over to the Ryerses for dinner.  We go light at both, but like to try a little of everything at both feasts.  We had all of the traditional food, the usual plus a few extra things that we can't have a Ryerse party without like the green jello salad or marinara pasta salad.  Shirley brought peirogies, which is a Canadian dish and they were delicious!  That was my favorite thing about Thanksgiving.  And being with all of these cool kids.  I love my family so much and am so blessed to be a part of these peoples lives!  We also played games, like spoons, and Thanksgiving Scattergories, and of course the football games were on.  We laughed so hard when we played, it was so great!

It was so great!  The rest of the weekend, we hung out, ran errands, played lots of games, slept in, stayed away from Black Friday sales (it's Amazon Prime for us!), but went shopping other times, Dave went to see James Bond with his brothers, watched football games, and just spent as much time as we could with our family playing and talking.  We also celebrated Cal's birthday while there, but we will share that part later.

Friday night, we went with my siblings and nieces and nephew (minus Amy who had to get home) to Get Air trampoline park.  It was a blast!  Everyone loved it and got worn out.  Then we went to Applebee's for dinner, which is always good.  Mark's been working there lately as a waiter.  So we got the hook ups.  It's always fun being with these folks.

As I've been contemplating my blessings, I've been thinking lots of the hymn "Praise God from who all blessings flow!"  Truly, he is the giver of all good things and I'm thankful for Him!  Happy Thanksgiving!