Our Thanksgiving...All Three of Them!

Our first Thanksgiving celebration was last Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa Terry, Aunt Beth and Sarah, and Steve and Cathy Blanchard. Early in the day, Sarah and Beth came over to our house so that Sarah and Avery could play....and boy, did they! It took Matthew and I half the day Sunday to clean up after the tornado they caused in the playroom! At least they had fun. Beth had the girls make some hand turkeys with real feathers. Avery, of course, insisted that I not help her with ANYTHING, which includes glue. You can imagine how that turned out. After pouting in another room for a few minutes, Avery returned to let me "help" with the glue. That evening we had our traditional meal, and stayed until Piper gave out! The Blanchards couldn't help noticing what a total HAM our oldest daughter is! She spent the whole night creating "invitations" on construction paper and "delivering" them to Cathy and eventually Steve. We all had a great time!

Our second Thanksgiving was at our house with Great Grandma and Grandpa from Brazil, Uncle Michael and future Aunt Kayleigh. Matthew and I made quite the feast and I was really proud! After consulting our very old "retro" copy of Betty Crocker's cookbook, we made possibly the best ham ever with a brown sugar pinneapple glaze. We made a huge spread together. We were so happy that Michael and Kayleigh were able to find a way to come to our feast, despite having a few other placed to go. As we cooked, we watched the parade. The highlight of the parade was when one of the childrens' show floats got "Rick Rolled" by Rick Astley. You can view this unexpected parade surprise at http://yougotrickrolled.com/. So hilarious for those that know what "Rick Rolling" is! After we ate, Michael showed Grandpa how to play Wii bowling on the family shared Wii system. After figuring out the controllers, Grandpa was doing quite well! We even got Grandma to do some Wii bowling! After everyone left, I was exhausted. I ended up falling asleep on the couch! I was very thankful for such a fun, delicious, happy day. We really missed Mom and Daniel who were in Arizona eating steak on the grill, macaroni and cheese and pudding cups (Daniel's meal selection)! :)

Our third and final Thanksgiving is tonight. It is the sixth annual Friends Thanksgiving where all of our oldest friends get together at the Harlett's house for a huge pitch-in. The Friends Thanksgiving started much smaller with friends and a few girlfriends/boyfriends. Eventually mostly everyone got married, and now there are lots and lots of kids! It should be a crazy time. We are looking forward to having some playtime with Mary Bain and seeing all the other new babies that have cropped up since last Friends Thanksgiving. We are also looking forward to seeing people like the Peterson's, who we only see once a year at this very event!