Thanksgiving 2011

We stayed in town for Thanksgiving again this year and hosted my parents and my sister, Mary Jo, as well as a family from our small group with their three kids. And this was the first year that I actually cooked the entire turkey on my own--pulled out the neck and all on my own! I didn't realize it, but my kids have come to see the 'neck being taken out of the turkey' as an actual event in our household. Maybe it's because of my shrills and shrieks and how disgusting this actually is, or maybe it's because in years past I haven't been able to do it and have resorted to asking my mom to do it or to putting on rubber gloves. Whatever the reason, my kids started asking about a week before Thanksgiving, "Mom, are you going to pull the neck out or is Nani going to do it?"
Clearly my mom has never had an issue doing this because I didn't even know there was a neck inside until a few years ago! No great spectacles of fear in my house growing up! So this year, I called the kids away from watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade to witness the unthinkable---Mommy pulled out the neck and gizzards, cleaned the turkey, and stuffed it all on my own! What a site!

Wyatt brought this home from school and I loved seeing what he came up with that he was thankful for...makes you feel like you might be doing something right.

(the 3rd one is America and the picture at the bottom is a kayak)

In our haste to get everything ready and eat while the food was still warm, all while my family was skyping with my sister and brother-in-law in New Zealand, I completely forgot to take a picture of everyone at the table!!!

I did, however, take a picture of this....

Matt was cutting the pies for dessert and the knife slipped and landed like this, right next to his toe!

The kids all played with Matt and my Mom's iPads as well as the numerous iphones floating around.

And Sadie was playing waitress/hostess....one of the things my kids love most about Thanksgiving is getting to drink sparkling juice out of the 'nice' glasses, just like the adults!

Our friends, the Perry's, left around 6 because Jeff is a store manager at a local Target and he had to be to work by 8pm for the midnight rush on Black Friday. So we all relaxed, watched the Packers (which we had DVRed since we were eating during the game), and enjoyed a very relaxing day.

Poor Wyatt wasn't doing so hot. He had come down with a fever a few days earlier and had no other symptoms, but was so lethargic and had zero energy. So he spent all of Thanksgiving in this exact spot.

And many games were played!

Blake showing Nani 'Lanesplitter', the motorcycle game

And discovering his 'duck lips'.....we had never seen him do this before, but once he did it and got such a reaction out of everyone, he loved doing it all night!