Turkey Day Celebration

Thanksgiving was pretty great this year, quite possibly topping last year.  We headed out to the ranch on Wednesday after the kids were home from school.  I had a busy day of baking and packing and was ready for a little "time away from reality".  Elaine asked me to be in charge of dinner Wednesday night so we through together some yummy taco ranch soup!  So delicious!  While the kids played we continued to prepare for the big feast on Thursday.  Vince and Kalee were also close by visiting her family for the holidays and we snuck in a few visits with them too!

Ella and Aslan had a great time playing together!  The girls even convinced David to let them make him "beautiful".  She also adored holding baby Traeger any chance she got!

I stayed up until 2 am making these beautiful rolls!!!  It was totally worth it and I was so relieved the new recipe turned out!

While the ladies were busy in the kitchen in the morning on Thanksgiving day, some of the boys and all the men went out hunting.  They were mighty successful this year!

While the guys were hunting I had a project for the other kids to work on.

Turkey cupcakes!

I gave them the supplies and they had so much fun with very little adult supervision and I think they did a great job!

*all the ladies*

Trissh, Coley, Elaine, Trina, Ali and Grace

Then, it was TIME TO EAT, promptly at 2:00! 

There were 24 friends sitting around the tables together!  As per tradition everyone at the tables had to share something they were grateful for.  There was a lot of laughing, tears and wonderful things everyone was grateful for!

Our menu included TURKEY, homemade gravy, rolls, veggie tray, deviled eggs, 12 layer jello, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, strawberry pretzel salad, cranberry sauce, broccoli salad, stuffing and Jell-O punch. 

After we were stuffed there were a few naps, clean up, games and movies.  Coley taught the kids how to play ultimate Frisbee while Elaine took me, Trissh, Noah, Will and Ella out to "cake the cows" (feed pellets).

 Ella was able to feed a few of the cows by hand and she also had a chance to drive the big MOG.

While I was busy being the gate girl, I captured this beautiful sunset picture.

Then it was pie time.

apple, chocolate cream, pumpkin, coconut creme, pecan and razzleberry!

Just when you'd think the night was over and we were all cozy ready to go to bed after a food and fun filled day......

the ladies (and Mitch and David) were planning our Black Friday Shopping strategy.

We left the house at 9:00 PM with our lists, store ads and excitement!  Our first stop

Wal-Mart 10:30 PM

Target midnight

Herbergers 2 AM

JC Penny's and other mall stores 4 AM

Menards 6 am

back to Herbergers 8:00 AM

breakfast at McDonalds 9:00 AM

back at the ranch by 11:00 AM.

FOURTEEN solid hours of traveling and shopping.

Here is proof of our very successful day!  I finished nearly ALL of my shopping in one day.  YEAH!

and our exhaustion at breakfast!!  It was seriously the most fun shopping experience ever!!!  We had moments of total exhaustion, feet cramps and back aches and other moments of shear silliness and laughter we nearly wet our pants.  One experience....while we were shopping in the mall at Herbergers, Mitch opted to stay in the truck and sleep.  He hates malls.  At one point I realized I forgot my wallet in there so we tried to wake up the sleeping man to unlock the doors.  He WOULD NOT wake up.  We were lightly knocking on the glass, then pounding, then the car next to us tried to help by honking their horn.  Still nothing.  Then Trissh and I started rocking the truck.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  FINALLY, after we were doing the potty dance but refusing to leave until he woke up...he was disoriented and couldn't find the lock button.  He kept rolling down the different windows hitting the wrong button.  After laying over the seats to manually unlock the door we were IN!  :)  We laughed, grabbed my wallet and beelined it to the bathroom before continuing our shopping!  Deal of the day.....finding Matt a $525 Calvin Klein suit for $99.94!!!  Later finding out on our return to buy one for Mitch that it was a mistake and it was really supposed to be $327!  YEAH for me!  No worries, Mitch did find a different one for under $100!

We stayed until Saturday afternoon hanging out and helping put the house back together after all the company they had!  It is a wonderful blessing to be surrounded by amazing friends for the holidays.  Friends that you feel are more like family and fill that void of having your immediate family close by.  I am so thankful for those friends who have been my support and life line out here in Nebraska.  My little family is so precious to me and they make me want to strive to be a better mother and wife every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!