Our Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day started nice and early for us, with the girls getting up before 6 a.m. I made Kallie go back to bed, in hopes that she would actually go back to sleep. Boy, was I silly! She waited until the clock said 7, (the earliest we wanted her to get up), and popped into our room within seconds. Ryan got up with the girls and turned on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I didn't sleep for too much longer because watching the Parade is one of my favorite traditions! We ended up watching NBC's rebroadcast of the play that lasted until noon--I love watching all of the performances at the beginning!

Toward the end of the Parade, I started cooking my additions to our family Thanksgiving meal. I made green bean casserole and butternut squash gratin. As a quick side story here, the night before, I took Kallie over to my mom's and we made pies and rolls for the next day. When everything was almost ready to bake, we turned on the oven. A few minutes later, my mom looked over and saw that there were sparks coming out of the element. It started a little flame that slowly spread up the element toward the wall, like a dynamite fuse. We were relieved when it went out after traveling several inches. So, we loaded everything into my mom's car and brought it all to my house. She shaped the rolls and then there was nothing left to do but bake--so she went home and I started putting things in and taking them out of the oven for the next several hours. Back to Thanksgiving Day, after I finished our food preparations, we left about 2:30 for our 3 p.m. dinner at my Aunt Dru's house.

There were a LOT of people at our dinner--3 separate tables' worth! And, Dru had everything set beautifully, of course, complete with little pilgrim hat candy holders! She certainly knows how to create a special celebration. There was a ton of food and, in the end, a ton of leftovers as well. After dinner, we went downstairs and played Guitar Hero for a while. My girls got bored with that real quick, but Grandpa saved the day by giving them rides on the elliptical machine. Their tiny bums fit perfectly into the foot pedals of the machine--so they sat while Grandpa pumped the arm poles. You couldn't have asked for a better kiddie ride! We also watched a video my Gramma Betty brought about one of our ancestors. Apparently, the guy who made the movie about President Hinckley is a cousin of mine. Who knew? (Well, besides Gramma...)

It was a great Thanksgiving Day for us! Tonight, we're heading over to start Christmas celebrations with a dinner of leftovers and Christmas movies at my parents' house. I'm trying to do everything we can to be Christmasy, since we don't get to decorate our house. So, this should be a fun start to our season this year!