thanksgiving, in review

If there's one thing we know how to do, it's throw a party!  We love get-togethers and especially love all the food that comes as a result of get-togethers!  Perhaps that's one reason why thanksgiving is such a great holiday.  Due to some scheduling issues, we did our thanksgiving a day late and we did it at my house this year (we didn't do it here last year).  I think it was quite a smashing success.   Here's pictures in review for you:

The day before, Samantha helped me paint a "football field" for an activity we were going to with the kiddos.  (pics later on in the blog)  She was a great helper and loved the freedom of painting anywhere on the paper!

We had loads of thanksgiving supplies, thanks to Josh's mom who bought me a box-full of stuff during last year's turkey day clearance.  All the cool decorations you see are from her!  Oh, wait...the cool little indian headdresses you will see in the pictures were made by yours truly - girls got braids, boys got feathers.  Last year, we went with pilgrim hats...this year was indians.

In an attempt to get them both to smile, we asked them to "show us your pumpkins"...and they did.  I didn't realize that wasn't a good way to get a good picture!

The whole indian family...
I made these cool little pilgrim hats from an idea in Family Fun magazine.  It was just big marshmallows dipped in chocolate, set upon a cookie, and then trimmed with icing.  Mine didn't look as cool as the ones in the magazines, but then again, nobody paid me to make mine.  
We also made no-bake football cookies.  As if we weren't going to have enough dessert options...
Here was the food spread.  Try to keep in mind that we are only feeding 6 adults and children.  We had an insane amount of food.  It's amazing the kind of food you can produce when you've lived out of the US long enough.  This year, we bought imported canned green beans for the green bean casserole, so that was probably my hubby's favorite dish. (However, I cannot claim credit for it - way to go, Amy!)  The turkey turned out nice and tender, as usual, thanks to annual turkey-maker, other-Rachel.  My major contributions this year were in the rolls and dessert categories, which makes sense considering how much I love eating foods from those two groups.  
There is no picture of the dessert table due to sheer embarrassment at the large amount of desserts that needed to feed those 6 adults and children.  I think we ended up with 7 dessert choices.  That's not such a bad thing...

Uncle John read one of our new Thankgiving books to all the kiddos in between activities...
And here are the three lovlies who made it all a fabulous day!
After lunch, we settled the kids down on the couch to watch a movie - on a HUGE projector - while we gathered around for a round of Settlers of Catan. I think Brad ended up pulling out the win this game...
Later that evening, the kids got to play the football game, which was a version of "pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey" except it was footballs going through a goalpost.  Each child's football had the logo of their family's most favorite mascot (well, in most cases anyway!  There was one case that was one family's favorite theologian...)

Samantha went first representing the eggrolls...
After Daddy spun her a few times, she was off!
Yay, Boomer Sooner!!
Emma, in her red Chinese dress-up dress, was next...
...and she represented us well!  Score!
All the kids together after the game.  There was one successful score from each family, so things ended up very nicely.  I've never noticed how hard it is to get 7 kids to smile at the same time!  This was the best one out of the group.
Anyway, we had a great turkey day, had lots of leftovers, and spent the day enjoying each other's company.  We feel so thankful for the many blessings we have received, and if we can't spend t-giving with our families back home, spending it with our family here is the next best thing!