A Thanksgiving to Remember

Well, as I said before, we hosted our first Thanksgiving ever. I was a little worried, didn't know what to expect, didn't know how to make a turkey or dressing but, it went amazing! Our first turkey was a success and so delicious. I'm serious. Everyone said so...and I even tried it myself. And, it wasn't just a little turkey...we decided to go big or go home and made a 24 pound turkey!!! That's right! It was the biggest one I could find at the grocery store. And thank goodness we did because we ended up having 24 guests at our house ranging from 6 months-well...I won't give that age away :)

Craig carving the turkey.

It was a great time to see aunts, uncles, and cousins that I don't get to see everyday. We are lucky to see eachother once a year. My dad comes from a family with 9 children, so it is hard to get a big group of us all together now that we're spread out across the country. Well, world once I think about it. I had one cousin travel from Colorado and another who surprised all of us, including her parents and siblings, and came from Israel!!! So amazing to see them again!

We had a great time with many laughs, sharing stories-some new some old, great food and great company. I will never forget this Thanksgiving and am so thankful to have such an amazing family who support me and love me for who I am. Thank you to all of you who came and made this day possible!
When I was putting Hunter down to bed Thanksgiving night, I asked him if he had fun. He told me he did. I asked him what he thought of my cousins (it has been about 3 years since he has seen most of them). He told me, "Mom, they're really nice, but they're really wild!" Haha! I think he said it perfectly! But that is a good thing. When we are together, we know how to have fun and the room is always filled with laughter. And saying good-bye is always hard. We never know when we'll all be together again. It seems as if all of our lives are so busy now. But we fully take advantage of the MN good-bye, and nobody walks out of the house without 3 hugs from everyone. It has taken Craig awhile to get used to this...well, he might not be yet, but he's learning. At least he knows to expect it now. Oh! And we always try to take a cousin picture. But good luck trying to get all of us looking decent in a picture. We're too busy laughing and talking. Oh well, we have fun doing it! And this is proof:

Considering how many of us there were, this is pretty good!

"Serious" picture.

"Crazy" picture. I think this one sums us up pretty well.