Day of Thanks

Thanksgiving this year started out very nice. The weather was beautiful, so of course you know what that means for my husband...yes, he went golfing. That's okay though, the girls and I had lots of fun watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. The girls LOVED it!

Here they are with their bedhead hair watching Dora in the parade (I think they watched the Dora part about five times - thanks to DVR).

Once Rob got home we headed over to his parents for the Thanksgiving festivities. Here's all the prep going on in the kitchen.
And here is the delicious spread
and of course..The Turkey
All set up for a beautiful meal. We made sure to go around and say what we are thankful for before eating.

It was a very good Thanksgiving dinner. It's so sad that something that takes so long to prepare is gone within an hour. The girls did about as well as expected during a dinner when cousins are around. Aivree was at the table a total of ten minutes and Ani of course ate her roll and nibbled on the rest. They also both spilled their waters and Ani managed to break the glass hers was in. What can I say..typical dinner for my girls. ;)

After clean up, some of the adults relaxed for a minute and the kids went out to play in the beautiful weather. The kids just loved playing in the leaves. Rob raked them into a big pile and here are the girls jumping into the leaves.






Next we put together some fun (and sweet) gingerbread houses. I thought a marshmallow roof would be perfect for our house, since my girls just can't seem to get enough of those things. Lots of creative house building going on

And of course, much of what was meant to go on the house went in mouths instead. Aivree went crazy on the M&M's and the proof is all over her face.

The finished product

Now that it's in my house, I get whiffs of it every once in awhile. One of those great things about gingerbread houses.

After we got the girls home and in bed I headed to Walmart for some Black Friday shopping. Crazy I know. I'm still not sure what I was thinking. The bikes were on sale and I wanted to get the girl's bikes for their birthdays this year, so that was the main item I was scoping out. (I also got a Tag book for Anisten and that completed my Christmas shopping for the girls this year. Yay! So nice to not have to worry about it anymore.) At 10 pm the bikes "went on sale" and it was seriously a madhouse. I can't believe how crazy people get. I think the thing that made us the most crazy is the fact that we waited in line for two hours, so there was no way we were leaving without one. It really was actually pretty mild compared to other stories I've heard, but crazy for me. I did get everything I went for though and was home by 10:30 pm, so I felt good about it.

Here I am waiting with a bunch of other people for the bikes. The kind blonde woman looking at the camera made sure I got the smaller bike I wanted, even though she was ahead of me in line. I actually met a lot of nice people while standing in line. It was actually kind of fun.

So, the next day, since all my crazy Christmas shopping was done, we had a relaxing day at home and I got my Christmas decorations up. The girls had fun helping of course (and breaking a lot of things). Here they found some extra ribbon and wrapped themselves up.

After putting the tree up and shaping it a little, I put the ribbon on it and then my work was done. This year I figured, what is the point in trying to keep my tree looking pretty when I know my girls will just continue to rearrange it throughout the month? Why stress about having it look perfect? So I let them put the ornaments on, and it still changes everyday. They've broken a few too. Oh well, it certainly isn't an expensive tree and it's mostly for their enjoyment anyway. The important thing is that they like it and it still gets us in the Christmas spirit.

Don't you love how the majority of the ornaments are right at the bottom?

When we went to dinner at the Stevensons on Sunday, we got to make gingerbread houses again! Except I chose to do a train this time. It was pretty fun and it turned out pretty cute.

Now I get that wonderful gingerbread smell even more. Love it.
I recognize this year that I truly have so much to be thankful for. It's been kind of a crazy year with moving into a new house and putting a yard in, but we have loved it so far and look forward to another year of craziness to love. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.