In years past for Thanksgiving our immediate family does it's own thing....Mom and Dad go to my Dad's brothers house, Ryan and Steph go to her parents house and we drive to Oregon to be with Michael's extended family. This year Steph mentioned getting together for an additional Thanksgiving meal the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I thought that was a great idea. Steph thought it would be best to have it at Mom & Dad's house or our house since we both have bigger houses and the kids have toys at either one. I offered to have it at our house since Mom was doing Christmas and New Years.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving Dad brought up all the tables and chairs and then he brought Michael and the kids home on Black Friday while Mom and I were shopping and he set up the tables so they looked all pretty. It was nice that I didn't have to worry about that portion of planning for the day.
Of course we also included the Kuch Family in our celebrate. They are like family to us and it's always great fun to get to hang out with them.
It was such a fun celebration since we don't normally get to see everyone until Christmas Day!
Just a few weeks before this we met a new couple Brian and Caitlin at church. We invited them over to watch the Seahawks game with us and they stayed and chatted with us for hours. They are just the sweetest! During our conversations I found out that they were going home to see family in California for Christmas, but they were going to be up here for Thanksgiving all by themselves. I extended the invitation to them and they were able to join us. Such fun!
I also invited Michael's Dad and Ruth, but they were in California visiting Ruth's family for Thanksgiving.
Such sweet smiles!!!
Any chance to get together with family & friends to celebrate is a good thing!
Since we were using 3 tables to eat at we decided to have all the food in on the dining room table. Ga-Ga is wrangling the kids so they can get through the line first. The best part about the day was all the food wasn't on me. I did cook the turkey, but Ryan and Steph gave it to me. They get a free turkey every year from Costco since they work there. I also made the mashed potatoes and cinnamon sugar carrots. Everyone else brought the rest. Mom brought green bean casserole and gravy, Steph brought pumpkin pie and cookies, Christina brought sausage stuffing and cranberry sauce and Caitlin brought rolls. It was such a team effort it didn't stress me out at all.
This was only my second time cooking turkey so I did worry about it just a little bit. When I cooked the first turkey I cooked it in the oven in one of those bags, but this time I really wanted to have the oven available for other dishes. Michael brought home one of those Electric Roasters from work for me to use. I read a bunch of different blog posts from people about how to cook a turkey in one. They all said the turkey gets done super fast so check it early. They were absolutely right. The turkey cooked a full hour faster than it was supposed to and it was great. I will say that the skin didn't get as crispy as it would in the oven, but that's alright by me.
The tables were set up in the garage. Since the trailer was parked in there it was a tight squeeze, but Pa managed to get all 3 tables in. The kids were closest to the door back into the house since we knew they'd eat in a flash and want to run off and play.
The table in the middle was us ladies and then the guys. The best part was it was warm because of the vent that our neighbor cut in the furnace. We just unscrewed the cover and let the heat pour in. It was so nice!
The kids just wanted to play, play, play!!! Jack has passed his love of BeyBlades to Caleb so they have the best time playing together.
These girls were SO excited to see each other. The last time they played was the day we went to Wild Waves in August!
Since I did the cooking I said I wasn't doing any dishes and then went and sat down to visit. My sweet husband got right to work and did all the clean up. It was a beautiful sight!
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