The Thanksgiving Season

The older I get, the more I appreciate the simple joys associated with the Thanksgiving holiday.  It offers all of the family, food and fun without the stressful business that can easily accompany the Christmas season. 

(Of course, I have yet to prepare the feast for a crowd and we do live near family).

 Our Thanksgiving Tree

During the month of November, members of our family took a few minutes after dinner to write down what we were thankful for that day.  We encouraged originality with a 'no-repeat' policy.  It's a wonderful thing to really think about daily blessings.  The kids shared some precious gems.

Quinn is one of those 'precious gems'.


Since the kids were out of school all day on Wednesday, we convinced Hilary and Adam to bring their crew up Tuesday night to hang-out with us before the big feast.  My parents joined us Wednesday in time to celebrate Korinne's 6th birthday.

Anna, Jenna and Elsie

Korinne, Britton, Quinn

The cousins quite literally had a party together and the adults enjoyed catching up and 'earthing' or getting grounded - thanks to Mom and Dad's latest and greatest.  And, Hilary stayed right on track with her daily production of knitting/crocheting six Beard Beanie caps  - very impressive.

Turkey Day at Brent and Kathy's place.

Anyone reading this post already knows about the amazing food and exquisite homemade chocolates.
(I didn't really want to know Kathy only used 10 lb. of chocolate and 30 lb. of sugar...)
We did plenty of snacking before the real meal even began.

See what I mean?

Three cheers for the fruit/watermelon basket that Jake and Marcy brought!

We always know the 'official' feast is about to begin when Dustin does his thing.

Meanwhile, the kids had great fun creating turkeys of their own.

Anna shows her masterpiece...

.... while Brinley samples hers.

My Aunt Kathy is the most amazing hostess and comes up with these clever ideas!

After stuffing ourselves silly, we worked it off with a rigorous game at the local bowling alley (or not).

Dad and his sister, Kathy 

The next generation....

Elsie was so excited to inform me of her "new cousin".  I think Oakley felt the same way.

Korinne and Elsie

These two really cracked me up.

Korinne was pretty serious about the whole bowling idea this year.

She took matters into her own hands and decided Elsie could use a little guidance.

Not sure what Korinne thought of Elsie's idea to just kick the ball down the alley.

But she stood her post until the ball painfully finished its course.  Elsie, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less about the bowling experience.  She was in it for the social aspect....

And I was too!  Bowling a 77 clearly demonstrates that fact (my score not Aaron's - the guys are seriously competitive).  Brent took the title this year.

After such stellar performances at the bowling alley, we headed back to Brent and Kathy's for the annual pinatas (bigger/smaller kids = 2 pinatas now).  The kids LOVE this tradition.

Jantzen swinging for the bigger kids.

It was a happy moment for this little guy!

After checking out their loot, everybody headed outside for the fireworks.  The 'balmy weather' was awesome.   I heard the show was great, but I remained inside the house studying the Black Friday ads with several of the other women folk.

My Mom and I thought we might check out a few stores on our drive back home later that evening.  We are not typically Black Friday shoppers but were willing to venture out a bit....until we saw the parking lots!  No thanks.  We just kept on driving and arrived home to our warm, comfy beds.

Unfortunately, we couldn't be in two places at once.  However, we were able to spend some time with Aaron's kin on Friday - more cousins to play with, a trip to the dollar theatre, pizza and games at G-ma and G-pa M's place, a little hot-tubbing for the kiddos (thanks Chris & Julia).  I love visiting with the incredible people that are part of our extended families.

We enjoyed having my parents around for a few days and were able to accomplish a few projects (of course).  On Friday morning after the crowds calmed down, my parents joined me for a little Christmas shopping.  Dad would wait in the line while my Mom and I tried to quickly make our decisions.  I had my list and we were quite efficient - except for the one time we missed texts from Dad telling us we were up in line...

This beauty represents DEATH to the voles!  Dad constructed several of these to stake around his property and Aaron spent time Saturday accomplishing the same task.  The poison will be dropped down and made available to the little rodents all winter long.  Lovely, isn't it?  We'll see how well they work come springtime.

After saying our good-byes to everybody, it was back to business.  Aaron did a great job fulfilling his assignment to speak in Church on Sunday.  We were short-staffed in primary so I played secretary, 1st counselor and music leader.  It was exciting.  And even after all the crowds, Bob and Janene invited us to enjoy Sunday dinner with them.  It was a fabulous week!