Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving festivities by... cooking!  Exciting!  I know.  I wanted less of the actual turkey day spent in the kitchen this year, so we did as much as we could ahead of time.  Our cousins came and it was a great time! 

The pies were all done by Wednesday evening, so we had pizza for dinner and pie for dessert on Thanksgiving Eve. Shh!  Don't tell.  I wanted to have everyone's pie of choice this year so we had 4 pies (3 pies and one chocolate tort) for 4 adults and 1 toddler.  Nice math, huh?  Christie made their two and I made ours.  Christie: chocolate tort, Derek: apple, Tyler: blackberry, Nicole: banana cream (no bananas on top yet...)

Thursday morning starting with the boys making stuffing and getting the bird in the oven.  Then we all headed off to the ward Turkey Bowl. 

READY, SET, GO!

Tyler's on the far right and Derek's on the far left.

 It was FREEZING!  At least for the three of us just standing and watching.

Caleb really wanted to play.

Attempted interception?

We got home, dethawed and relaxed while we finished up the rest of the meal.

Early afternoon the thermometer popped on the bird so we threw the beans and sweet potatoes in the oven, boiled the potatoes and made the gravy.  

Boys should always be in charge of the meat.  Look how good they did!

Caleb woke up from his nap just minutes after we sat down to eat.

Tyler did a great job leading us in a thankful discussion and prayer.

Then it was time to eat!!

What a great Thanksgiving!

The next three days with our cousins were spent relaxing, playing with Caleb, eating lots of leftovers, and ushering in the Christmas season.  We got our tree and set up all of our Christmas decorations.  We pulled out the music.  

We even went to see the sights downtown.

Market Square is so cute!  This tree flashes to Christmas music and there are similar balls all over the store fronts of the square.  Caleb loved it.

We saw the gingerbread houses and the huge tree and the ice-skaters.

It's great to just be out there among the lights and the people and feel the Christmas spirit.  And snuggle. :)

We did some Black Friday shopping.  We actually got some of our Christmas shopping done!

And of course Tyler wanted to see if Caleb would like Santa a little better this year... not so bad as last year, but he still hasn't a clue who Santa is.  I didn't even try leaving him with the stranger with a big fake beard.

So hooray for another great Thanksgiving and welcome Christmas!