Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a busy fun Thanksgiving weekend this year.  We didn't go to Provo like we usually do but stayed home and cooked our whole dinner ourselves!  It was a lot of work but super yummy!  We had new neighbors move in the week before and they didn't have anywhere to go so we invited them over for dinner.  Wednesday night I made the pies, chocolate and lemon meringue, plus some yummy pecan pie bars and the jello and Thursday morning we got everything else ready.  Don took care of the turkey and the potatoes,  and the spinach artichoke dip.  I made green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, candied yams, a cheese ball and cream cheese and pomegranate jelly spread.  We did not go hungry.  We got Kyle to take a nap around 12:30 so he wouldn't be so crabby at dinner and then we ate dinner at 2:30 with our new neighbors Richard and Gwen Weiler and their friend from the UK, Andy.  Funny story, Andy is vegan and Gwen didn't tell me before because she didn't want to stress me out!  She brought a huge veggie tray in the shape of a turkey and Andy mostly ate that.  We made him a baked potato and gave him a banana.  He did eat some of the gravy and decided that a piece of the pumpkin pie probably would be ok!  It was quite the entertaining evening with Connor's billion question and trying to keep the toddler under control!  The Weilers don't have kids so it was probably quite the experience for them.  After dinner and dessert, Gwen helped me with the mountain of dishes and we sat around and chatted until about 7 when it was time for the traditional Thanksgiving day viewing of  Christmas Vacation.  Since my brother and sisters were all faraway this year we synchronized our DVD players for precisely 7pm PST and enjoyed texting photos and quotes back and forth for 2 hours together.  

Where is the real food?  I don't want just crackers!

The turkey veggie tray.

Caleb spent the afternoon making weapons out of pens and the dart gun.  Cayden make a friend out of a Nerf dart.

Kyle thought he needed a little snack after dinner.

This is how I spent my Black Friday!  The best way to shop EVER!

On Saturday Don and the boys put up all the outside lights and decorations.