Amanda Comes for Thanksgiving!

We found out a couple weeks ago that Aunt Amanda would be joining us for Thanksgiving. We were very excited to have family. She was so excited that she decided to drive straight through the night by herself from Kentucky. It was a crazy thing to do but we are glad that she made it.

The kids took full advantage of Amanda's willingness to play with them, read to them and watch them do all of their "tricks". Hunter was also very excited about the wii she brought along.

McKenna is bowling and waiting patiently for her ball to knock down some pins. As you can see, it's taking a while for the ball to get there.

Hunter got pretty good at bowling. He renewed my resolve to not have video games as permanent fixtures in my home. We had a hard time pulling him away from the silly thing for a few days. I'm glad that he enjoyed it while it lasted though. It's fun to do new things.


Thanksgiving was a great day thanks to RJ! He took the kids with him to the anual turkey bowl. He knew I was nervous about the turkey so he took care of that, the potatoes and candied yams. What a man! We invited the Cleavenger's to join us and enjoyed a wonderful meal.

Our first turkey turned out great.

I had the kids color pictures of turkey and we taped them to paper cups. We had a fun turkey shoot.

The kids and I made these Indian headbands and pilgrim hats.

I thought half of us could wear headbands while the others wore hats just like the first thanksgiving. As I was researching the first thanksgiving though, I began to feel like Joseph Smith. There were so many different accounts, I didn't know which one to believe (the cordial feast shared between the Indians and pilgrims at plymouth rock in 1621 or the feast celebrated by the pilgrims after slaughtering the Wampanoag Indians)? I didn't care enough to pray about it so I decided to forgo the lecture about the first thanksgiving.

The Cleavengers

I drew this turkey and Pam colored it for me when she was here. We used it for a "pin the feather on the turkey" activity as well as a bean bag toss.

Hunter and McKenna were very close

RJ... not so much.

I made these bean bags for the toss.

Hunter had quite the aim

Here he is revelling in his victory (all four bags)!

RJ and I made a pumpkin and pecan pie wednesday night. They were yummy and quite easy to make.

Maren and Mike brought a pumpkin pie and apple pie (which we gobbled up like pigs it was so good).

After letting our pie digest, we sat down for a good ole game of Ticket to Ride. It was a really fun day.