Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was enjoyable, but I am happy to be back at home!

The day started out rough.  This week is usually a pretty bad one for me.  My past with this time of year has not been a good one so I expected this year to be the same.  You add lack of sleep and family tension to the equation and POOF you've ruined the day for yourself.

Around 2pm the day picked up and turned into a lovely Thanksgiving.  We started behaving like a family that enjoyed each other's company and the house smelled delicious!  We played a lot of card games and also The Pyramid Game. We watched our traditional movie "The Thanksgiving Promise" and  although everyone grumbles before it starts (and sarcastically recites all the lines from the movie to each other) no one will leave the room once it's on... I think they all secretly love the tradition. 

HQ trying to squeeze out of the living room of my parents' house.

Izzy wanted to organize all the plastic forks and spoons.

Some of our yummy food.
Dinner was absolutely delicious and my Mom made sure we went home with plenty of leftovers!

Dinner was awesome like usual.  My mom and little sister did almost all the work this year.  My mom has never loved to cook, but isn't too bad at it.  I suppose raising nine kids who have very different tastes in foods is bound to make cooking much more of a "chore" than it needs to be (I like to cook and find it calming). We ordered our pies from Sweet Lavendar Bake Shoppe .  They were AMAZING!  We ordered a traditional Apple Pie and their new Mixed Berry Cherry Pie.

Drinking like a grown up! 

Uncle Max, the girls, and Santa. 

Yes, my mother has had her tree up for a week now...
This is HQ's imitation of a Christmas present. 

At the end of the night HQ was ready to go home and sleep while Izzy still wanted to stay and play games.  The cranky baby won that argument easy.  I look forward to staying at home most of the day tomorrow.  I wish I could say all day, but we've got to drop Izzy off at SD's around dinner time.