Thanksgiving..

Thanksgiving.. Holidays are complicated. Holidays are hard when your loved ones are gone.

Holidays are fun and exciting when you are a kid. Holidays are delightful and filled with magic when you are loved and secure.


My kitchen helper's on Monday.

This year we decided to do thanksgiving lunch at home. The kids really enjoy helping me cook, so it did not feel overwhelming. We love turkey and I cook turkey frequently through out the year.

Crockpot mashed potatoes

However, because I know how my life goes, we started cooking on Monday. Lee and David mucked out the barn then came in and begged to make pumpkin custard. I believe in teaching my children all kinds of life skills and Lee makes a better pumpkin custard then I ever will...
I made mashed potatoes (which I froze in a crockpot) and Elizabeth made oreo pudding for dessert!

I was really glad we had worked ahead because Tuesday and Wednesday passed quickly and I did not have time to do more cooking!! 

Thanksgiving morning from my back deck!

Wednesday brought us a beautiful snow day.. absolutely beautiful!

So back to Thanksgiving.. we had originally invited my family for the holiday but no one was able to make it. We can not do the 6 hour drive to family due to health/allergy issues and my absolute paranoia of driving in over the mountains in the snow in a 15 passenger van loaded with precious cargo.

We then made plan B. Take a trip to the beach for the weekend. We had made preliminary plans and started working out details but things just did not come together. So the kids and I decided to do our own formal Thanksgiving dinner! 

 
We pulled out my wedding china. We set the table all nice and fancy like.. 

We may have forgotten to get dressed, something I realized when I went to take the pictures as we sat down for lunch.. this picture is #reallife 

My 10 yr old's lunch plate!

The kids had been out sledding for the majority of the morning, while I prepped food. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, and salad for the first course..

I cheated and bought stuffing in a box and gravy in a jar. #reallife

Dessert.. oreo pudding and pumpkin custard!

This is the second holiday we have done at home where I prepared the food. The kids and I are really liking this tradition. It feels good. I want this for years and years and years to come..

This is what you eat for lunch when you are on a limited diet.. holidays are hard.

Everyone pitched in to help with clean up..

My first thought after lunch was  "why, oh why, did I think using china was a good idea?!?!?" 

But when everyone works together the work is fine and is done quickly.

We spend the afternoon coating chocolates. This was a first and the kids loved it. We made chocolate covered chips, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered ritz crackers and chocolate covered sour patch kids!! That was def a a highlight in our day! 

We were invited to the in laws for the evening. We left our house around 4 pm and headed to Grandma's house. The boys watched football with the "men" while the girls begged to learn how to play settlers. 

Yes, Lady gets to go to Grandma's house too.. 

This rowdy bunch of boys had a lot of fun wrestling!

This was one of our best Thanksgivings ever. I love hanging out with my kids, they are old enough to actually have real conversations with, to really hang out, to do things together.