Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to Idaho to visit Scott's parents. It was Brendan's first Thanksgiving being able to enjoy the food. I flew up on Sunday evening with Brendan to spend a few days getting everything ready for Thanksgiving and letting Grandma play with her Grandson. Scott then flew up on Tuesday evening after work to join us. We started Thanksgiving day with monkey bread. Scott and I work together to make it, although I ended up making too large of a loaf, it was so good! It was the prettiest one I have ever made, we were very proud. My Mother-in-Law thought it needed some frosting and whipped some up to spread on top. It was a great breakfast, Brendan's favorite part of the day I'm sure!

My MIL does not like Turkey, (neither does my husband) but she was determined to make a turkey for Thanksgiving. None of us had actually ever made a turkey before, so we bought the smallest one in the store, a little less than 10 pounds. With all of us together, we were able to pull it off.

Okay, so looking back on it, I didn't really help much with the turkey besides picking it out in the store. Great job guys!

Overall, this Thanksgiving dinner seemed to be pretty stress free, we even noticed about 2 hours before dinner, with the turkey in the oven "Shouldn't Thanksgiving dinner be more stressful than this?" But with the whole family working together, it came together fairly smoothly.

The table was set and ready, we had all the "Traditional" dishes: the Turkey of course, green-bean casserole, stuffing, sweet-potatoes with marshmallows on top, mashed potatoes with homemade gravy, olives, pickles, bread rolls with butter, canned cranberry sauce (my favorite) and my mom's recipe of Cranberry Jell-o salad, which I had to chop all cranberries, apples, and celery by hand! It was a very nice dinner surrounded with family.

Scott's sister Brianna & her daughter Elyse

Brendan & Grandma

Brendan liked the Mashed potatoes the best,

but not as well as the Monkey Bread from breakfast!

The weather wasn't as cold as we thought it would be, we still had to bundle Brendan up when he wanted to go outside and play. I thought he looked so cute in his new jacket. His big cousin Elyse helped get him all ready to go outside to watch Daddy & Grandpa play a few games of ping-pong after dinner. After the dinner dishes were cleaned up and our stomachs had settled a bit, we had dessert. As we sat around the table with our pies, we went around the room stating what we were thankful for this year. It was a great time as a family to reflect on the past year and what Gos has given us.

This year Scott & I are thankful to have such great jobs in this economy, many teachers are without work this year, but Scott has found a great school to teach what he loves. I have a great job that I love, and that gives me the opportunity to have vacations and holidays to spend with my family.

We are thankful for our house that God provided at a price we could afford when we thought becoming homeowners was far into the future.

We are thankful that we have found a great church to attend and get involved with. We are excited to see the journey the church is taking and to be a part of God's plan with it.

We are Thankful that we have such a wonderful family. That we are in this together, Scott and myself. We are a team that works together. We have a wonderful and smart boy, and were given the gift of another on the way.

We are tankful that we don't have to face this parenting alone, we have many grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends to help us through it all.

We have a lot that we have been blessed with, and a lot to thank God for.