Holiday Wrap Up: Part I.

Let's start from the beginning: I never posted anything about Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here at our house.  My parents and Dan's dad were here with us just like last year.  It's a great number of people: just enough to make it feel like a party but not so many that you have to cook two twenty-pound turkeys.

We started with the cinnamon rolls.

 And hot chocolate.  With marshmallows or without... whatever you choose.

 At 9am sharp, the Thanksgiving Day parade started and we soaked in every minute.  The picture below is the girls watching the Rockettes and Michaela trying out her high leg kick. 

 Even the pilgrims came.  And a turkey made of pinecone that Jenna made in school.

I was cooking and getting the table ready, but managed to pause for some pictures after I finally got myself cleaned up.  I was thrilled- embarrassingly so- that we got some great pictures of Dan and I.  We have so few of them that each one is precious.

And of course the girls wanted in on this action.  They are wearing their special Thanksgiving Day shirts and really got into the picture taking. We have about 20 shots of every possible combination of people in our family.  It was really cute.

Before the guests arrived, I grabbed a shot of my three cherubs. 

 We had a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving feast, with turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candied yams, peas, corn, crescent rolls and a new cranberry relish, which was tart and citrus-y.  So delicious.  For dessert I had apple crisp and cookies and brownies and a pumpkin pie that I completely forgot to bake.  But that was fine: between the many appetizers, the dinner and the dessert, we were all too stuffed to notice.  After dinner, Alec succumbed to the dreaded Triptophan Malaise:

Some of the cookies were sugar cookies and I got some frosting and Christmas-themed sprinkles for the girls to decorate the cookies.  Jenna really loved doing that, and it's written all over her face...

 The night before, we attended a church service and I was able to get all three kids to sit still and smile on our stairs.  It's one of my favorite pictures from the whole year.  Church was lovely: full of beautiful hymns and thanksgiving for the blessings God has heaped upon us.

And at the end of the day: perfection. A gorgeous pink-purple sky right outside out front window to see.  

 It was a day of plenty, and we are grateful for every last piece of it.