Thanksgiving

We had a full house for Thanksgiving! And, it was a blast.

In addition to Barbara, we had Melinda's cousins from Santa Barbara, Phil and Mikki, Uncle Dave and Jed and Eve.

The only hiccup was our oven breaking just a couple days before the holiday. What's a holiday without a minor disaster or two? Every time Melinda thought about kicking the oven or chewing out the Whirlpool reps that kept her on the phone for hours, she was able to look at our family's gratitude tree and remember all the blessings in our lives. A peaceful calm would fill her and... just kidding, she ate a lot of chocolate.

It was a nice gratitude tree though.

The animals were Adelaide's idea. It was a nice touch.

Melinda was able to borrow a toaster oven for the rolls and switched the rest of the recipes to stove top (blanched green beans instead of green bean casserole, for example). Fortunately, Uncle Dave volunteered to bring the bird and Eve and Klisa were on pie duty.

Melinda and Adelaide had a lot of fun picking out decorative hors d'oeuvres on Pinterest. Our favorite was the cheese and olive penguins. The girls were in charge of stuffing the carrot noses in. But, they kept breaking the olives on purpose so they could eat the mistakes. Olive lovers, the both of them. They take after their Mom and Grandpa Jeff.

Melinda: "Look, it's a Penguin Army!"

Adelaide: "No Mom, it's a choir." 

(Non-violence, another reason to love Adelaide)

The hummus and turkey veggie platter was fun too.

And, you can kind of see Adelaide's pinecone 

turkeys, she made one for each visiting family. 

Eating the choristers...delish. 

The well behaved side of the table...

 And the rabble rousers...

Bennet is having none of our, "Cheese!" 

Turkey dress, turkey bow, pumpkin pie at the ready...

Eleanor has got this Thanksgiving thing DOWN.

Thanks to everyone that came and crammed into our little house. It's hard to believe we fit 14 people in here, plus all the delicious food! We are so grateful for our family, near and far.