Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving was "small" and quiet this year. As always, we invited people to invite people that might not have a place to go that day, but it ended up just being family. The immediate 12 of us plus Aunt Rory. It rained most of the day, too, so the flag football game I had wanted us to start doing didn't work out nor did sitting around the fire outside. After dinner, we got the dishwasher started and leftovers put away (I got Delaney in the action of helping clear now that she's 10--seemed like once I got her started in helping, she didn't want to stop which was awesome) and then did our annual picture. 

My goal at this point is to see how many years in a row we can do it, always in a new location. I borrowed a tripod from a friend so that I could set the camera up to do the automatic setting with Rory just standing behind the camera to try to get littles to look at her. This way, there would be no human error and I could test the lighting ahead of time. I think it's one of the best yet! I had the auto setting take three in a row and I only had to set it to go off twice, so 6 pictures total and everyone did a great job looking AND smiling! HURRAY! Next year I'd like to try to get the picture done before the meal. 

We watched the Packers, played a rules-light version of CatchPhrase which was hilarious, and then the grandkids opened their jammies from Nonnie and Gramps. They're always excited to open a gift and I love that she gives jammies since we can always use new ones. I think they used to be Christmas themed, but now they're just jammies of things they like which is fun too. I think she got some good pictures of them that night (they change into them basically right away), but I haven't gotten those from her yet.

Our Thankfulness things strung out looked great!

I wanted to get a picture of my three turkeys on Thanksgiving, but they were not much into posing and these are the best I got! Adding a third kid sure makes having a minute to take a picture hard. That's probably the thing I've noticed the most in the last few months... There are so many times that I want to take a picture to capture the memory, but it's just not feasible given the number of hands I have. Oh well, maybe next year I'll have more chances to take more pictures.

As always, the table was quite full!

The kids all sat in the kitchen... All 6!

Thanksgiving 2015

Here is the list of things we had in our Thankfulness Things list. You can probably tell which are from the boys and which are from Seth and I. We mostly try to have the boys say things, but some days we're playing catch up and there's more than one to do, Seth and I take a turn. The boys seem to equally enjoy saying their things and hearing us say our things. I love that we're building a thankful heart in them!
1. letters--A, B, C, etc
2. having friends over
3. the Ironman toy
4. playing the piano
5. healthy baby Carson
6. family Pine Cove vacation
7. visiting friends' houses
8. beautiful weather in October and November
9. Daddy has a good job to support family.
10. fruit--apples, bananas, etc.
11. Austin is thankful he turned 5
12. Nico's has a playground
13. our house
14. boys who like to play
15. the Miata
16. new church home--Grace Bible Church
17. Powerhouse camps
18. playing football
19. Georgia Mae
20. Daddy's plants (garden)
21. big yard and near park
22. bees for making honey
23. Nonnie & Gramps
24. The United States of America
25. God and His Son, Jesus