Giving Thanks

The past three days have been busy, full of quality time with family members. Thursday morning Tom got Tennyson up and fed so I could sleep in before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade came on. I must watch that every year......no exceptions! Mid-morning my youngest sister, Courtney, showed up for breakfast with a surprise in tow, my sister Lynley, and her husband, Dan, had come in late the night before from PA. So Dan (and amazing cook) got busy in the kitchen making omelets for everyone. After breakfast they went to buy stuff to make 3 pies and came back to our house to use our kitchen since my parent's oven was full of baking bird. Dan and Lynley whipped up the best pumpkin pie I'd ever eaten and 2 apple pies. Yum-my!

After Tennyson's nap we all headed over to my parent's house for dinner. With such a large family to feed things usually take a lot longer than anticipated. We were shooting for a 4 o'clock eating time, but didn't sit down to eat until around 5:30. There are 22 in my immediate family (parents, siblings, in-laws, nephews, and niece), but there were only 16 there for Thanksgiving dinner. Of course everything was chaotic, but the food was delicious! We even managed to squeeze in a game of Cranium before heading back home to put Tennyson to bed. Here are some photos from the day.

It took 4 tables to hold all of us

My brother-in-law, Mark, working on the turkey

Keeping the kids busy until the food was ready

One of Dan's awesome apple pies

Dan, tired from all the pie-making

My oldest nephew, Nathan, making a face

Tennyson having his first taste of pumpkin pie. He loved it!

Bethany and Tennyson

It always so good to stop and reflect on everything we have to be thankful for. The ones that top my list: Tom, Tennyson, my family, being able to stay home full-time, and living in a free country. I could go on and on. Along with being thankful comes feeling blessed. And I am SO blessed.