Our Thanksgiving celebration...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
The day before had been spent preparing for the day (and the day before that!). Tori made the pumpkin pie (which was delicious!) and Bethi did the filling for the bishop's chocolate pies (which were delicious!) almost all by herself. I made the cinnamon rolls that Daddy was going to take to his store on Black Friday (Andrew helped me with these, and in the process of making them we managed to drop a whole egg in the milk mixture (thankfully it didn't crack!), brake a whisk and drop half of it in the milk mixture (haha...), and Andrew laid on a couple of the rising cinnamon rolls (which he helped me put on the table!), haha... aren't you glad that you didn't have to eat them ;)!), and Mommy made the maple twist, cookies, and cranberry sauce (yum to all but the cranberry sauce... haha. Daddy and sometimes Bethi and Andrew are the only ones who like that stuff! Although Mommy loves the smell- "It's time for *the sniff*" she says while taking it off the stove :)!).

Bethi making the pies...

Emmi playing under the tree. Isn't she a *wonderful* gift :)!!!

On Thanksgiving, the day of Thanksgiving traditions started. First, I made the maple twist icing with Emmi. It was so sweet, she doesn't get to help me cook as often as the others at this point, mainly because she hasn't learned yet how dangerous it is to dance on chairs, :), so she really only helps me with quick projects. She does love to help though, and she was fascinated with the powdered sugar, haha :)!

We ate our breakfast while watching the peanuts' movie "The Mayflower Voyage" and a couple short documentaries of the pilgrims.
We started the big meal almost immediately after breakfast was cleaned up. We tried making the macaroni and cheese in the crock pot this year to free up oven space, which would have worked if we had longer than four hours to cook it. As it was taking so long, though, we had to move it to the oven for about thirty minutes. On Christmas, we'll probably put it in the crock pot at the same time as the turkey goes in the oven, instead of a little after, and it should be fine.
After the macaroni was in the oven, we children held a "corn husking" party. This is probably the favorite thing for the little ones, because they get to help me make a corn husk doll for them after they husk their ear of corn.


Andrew named his "Johnny"... and quickly sent him to time out or something, I'm not sure why...


Tori named her's "Cornelia", haha :)!
Mommy read some Thanksgiving books, both story books and history books, and Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation.
We ate at about five o'clock, and we went around the table, telling what each person was thankful for. Some of the things were Jesus dying for us, our family, God choosing to bless us with another baby, God protecting us when someone tried to break into our house and we were run off the road by a eighteen-wheeler earlier this year, and other things. We truly have a lot to be thankful for this year!!!
After we ate came the big task of cleaning up after the meal, but it actually didn't seem as big a job as it has in years past. After cleaning up, we decorated the Christmas tree while listening to Todd Agnew's Christmas CD, "Do You See What I See" and drinking hot chocolate. Although we do have "just for fun" decorations in other rooms of the house, we try to keep the main room, the living room, decorated in only meaningful decorations. Ribbon on the tree to stand for the gift of Jesus, three nail ornaments to stand for Jesus pierced hands and feet, ornaments with scripture verses that speak of his sacrifice, and so on. It is really neat, but our tree stays well UN-balanced through the season. Every time the current baby gets an ornament... it moves up the tree :). After a while they are all on the top half of the tree, haha! We laugh at it every year, but we would rather have babies to love then to have a"perfect" Christmas tree :)! (It wasn't until about an hour later that we remembered that the star wasn't on the tree yet, haha!)

Emmi thought the nails were necklaces ;)!

Sweet girls :)...

So thankful :)... (she was crying because she had to
wait her turn to put up another ornament, haha!)

Dueling photographers... another yearly tradition!

After the tree was "done" aside for the star, we watched a "Little House" Christmas show while we ate the pie. We then put the star on the tree and did devotions before getting to bed at about twelve, true to our tradition on Thanksgiving ;).

Bethi helped with the star this year.

We had a wonderful day, one to be thankful for :)!!!

The cornucopia I crocheted for Thanksgiving

has been used just as often as a hat ;)!