Thanksgiving fun





Everyone came to town for Thanksgiving this year.  It would be our last time all together for a while since Natalie is moving to Idaho.  As always, the anticipation is great when the cousins are coming to town.  How many more days?  When are they coming?  I love Thanksgiving food, it is my favorite of the year.

 

Since there are so many of us, and only one in a high chair, we had to do three tables:  one for the adults, one for the older kids and one for the youngest kids.  The big kids got to drink out of Grandma's goblets which was very exciting.  Unfortunately, illness once again threatened a family get together.  Natalie and Elaina both got the stomach flu on Thanksgiving.  Elaina made a brief appearance, but Natalie missed it altogether.  Here Ryan is enjoying the buffet.  

 

Unsupervised small children led to a few issues, but mostly because they were too excited to be eating together that they didn't eat much.

 

I was in charge of making a few things for dinner, one of which was a dessert for the kids.  My mom suggested something like cupcakes, but I wanted to do something else.  I had made most of my other items the night before so I was planning on making these candy turkeys the morning of, but the turkey was cooking faster than planned, so we had to go with plan B.  Mandy and Lisa came over and we finished up the sweet potatoes (new delicious recipe - and I usually don't like them) and we made these turkeys.  The first few were a bit of a challenge, but once we got into an assembly line it was much easier.  They are made from two double stuffed Oreos, candy corns, one small peanut butter cup, a whopper and lots of icing. 

 

 

The kids loved them, luckily we made two for each.  They even managed to save two for Elaina to eat when she felt better.

 

Here they are enjoying their treats.

 

In order to get some energy out of the kids we took them over to the school to play.  Landon and Andrew had a great time with the football.  We even organized some races with the kids.  





 

 

The monkey bars were more popular than football with the girls.

 

McKenzie turned out to be quite the monkey bars champion.

 

We played until it was too dark and cold.

 

I think it was Mandy's idea to do a cousin gift exchange.  Since we weren't going to be together on Christmas, they opened presents on Thanksgiving.  We started at the youngest with Mateo and worked our way up.  By the end, Andrew and Landon were dying to open their gifts. 

 



Not to miss an occasion for a picture, my mom arranged for family pictures to be taken on Friday.  My goal was to get a nice picture for our Christmas card.  We got good cooperation except for Grant.  He smiled a few times, but not for our family picture, but that's okay.

 

Here's one of them all smiling.

 

 

And finally, the group shot my mom wanted.  It was going to be nearly impossible to get everyone smiling, so we did the best we could.  It was hard to group everyone with their kids as well. 

 

 

On Saturday, Ryan, Mandy and I took the kids to the movies to see Rise of the Guardians.  Danny volunteered to stay home with Grant (funny how that works).  I didn't see much of the movie as I was refilling drinks and popcorn and taking Claire to the restroom.  We also went with Mandy's cousin and his kids.  We tried to get a picture outside the theatre, but it was really bright.   

 

 

Since we were already in Santa Clara we thought it would be fun to show the kids the new 49ers stadium.  We parked across the street from it and looked at it from a distance.  It is really big!  Then the kids had fun playing in the dirt parking lot.  Who needs toys or parks?

 



Overall, we had a great weekend until more people starting getting sick.  One of these times we will get together without being sick!