Thaskgiving 2011 (finally!)

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving {last} year! My Aunt and family came down from Portland to spend it with us! Since its our first year in our home, I called hosting Thanksgiving before we even closed! ;)

It started off with the girls (and my WONDERFUL husband) going to Breaking Dawn Part 1 at the Sky Box theaters! On Tuesdays, all tickets are half off and so we got to sit in the really nice seats with the yummy food thats served to you AT your seats! It was so fun.

The day before Thanksgiving, the weather was so warm and nice, we ditched all preparations and went to the park! Tanner loved going to down the slide by himself!

One of Brookie's favorite playmates, Grandpa Brook!

My happy boy! Both my kids, LOVE being outside... cold or shine, rain or snow!

Brooke walked home with Grandpa from the park, since it was so beautiful!

Thanskgiving Day:
This was my 4th time cooking a turkey! But we tried it a new way...

...in a portable turkey roaster! We covered it with some flour and seasonings and raw bacon!

Brooke got a hold of the camera while we were finishing getting ready. I found 52 pictures... YUP! 52!!!

The table!

Yes, these are "paper" plates! We didn't have a working dishwasher for over 3 months and decided we didn't want to do a BUNCH of dishes by hand... so I got creative and pulled some leaves off our tree in October and pressed them. I then put them in between 2 plates, on top of a charger! It turned out so cute!

I made little spice cake turkey cake pops! They turned out ADORABLE! We then took some firewood and Dan sliced it. We used his wood burner to write everyone's name for the place setting! He then drilled a hole in the wood to make it a stand for the cake pop! I LOVED THEM! After Thanksgiving, we then turned them into ornaments!

I also made these little Oreo turkeys for everyone! They were yummy!

The center piece!

The appetizer's! Pumpkin zucchini bread, spice cake pops, cranberry salsa over cream cheese, and chips and guacamole!

My beautiful turkey!!!

Mr. Carver! (*if you don't know Dan was participating in his company's "Movember" or "Mustache November".)

Finally sitting down waiting for the blessing and the carving of the bird!
*SIDE NOTE: I did something different this year. I decided that we were all going to wear our PJ's to dinner. We all had opinions about dressing up real nice *and uncomfortable* for a full huge, 20 minute meal! So PJ's we were all in! It was so fun and nice!

Carving the bird!!!

The kids table!

Tanners meal!

The west side of the table!

The east side of the table!

After dinner... we played a card game to help clean up the kitchen! We played this years ago with my other Aunt's family. I LOVED IT! It's call 99... you have 7 cards in your hand and you lay down card and who ever throws it over 99, goes and does dishes! 7-revered the order and 1- meant minus 1! It got funny. This way there were always 2 people in the kitchen and it was always changing!

After some yummy dessert of Pumpkin Crunch Cake, mini Apple Pies and Chocolate Pie, the girls dashed off to Michaels for the good ol' Black Friday sales! While we were gone, Aaron and Brookie watched a movie on the iPad and she fell asleep! So cute...

This year, I was so tired, that I had no desire to go out shopping all night. There wasn't anything we really wanted or needed THAT bad. However, Dan found a blu-ray surround sound at Sam's and went at 4:30 and got it! I didn't even know he had left, because when I woke up at 6:00 he was already back in bed. I thought he had slept through his alarm! hehe...

Some of my other family (Aaron and my Aunt ShaLee) stayed out all night and hit every imaginable store! They were impressive!

The rest of the weekend was filled with some games and possible sickness that ended up keeping us away from them for a couple days. :( We still had lots of fun though!

How was your Turkey Day?!