Thanksgiving

I hosted Thanksgiving at my house this year. There was 16 people total. I was even able to make some cute place cards.

The plates and flatware were disposable (yeah, they look real!)

My sister Andrea was able to come this year. She and I made a surprise of it for everyone. On Wednesday night I put a video in for the kids and made-up some excuse that I forgot something at the grocery store for Thanksgiving. I went and picked up Andrea from the airport and then came home. She just walked into the girl's room and they screamed and cried and hugged and kissed and cried some more. It was so cute. Kelsey even said "I wondered what was taking you so long, but then I thought you had to wait a long time in line because the grocery store was busy with other people buying things for Thanksgiving" So yeah, my excuse totally worked!!! We haven't seen her since May, so it was really exciting. No one else knew about it and we were able to surprise people on Thanksgiving by having her open the door and greet them.

Aidan and aunt Susan doing the "Name 10 things that start with the letter _" game. Aidan and Kelsey both LOVE trying to come up with new words. It's awesome. (Also got a picture of Steven in the foreground)

Here's a video of Andrea opening the door to unsuspecting visitors :)

The best part was we ordered food from Cracker Barrel. It came hot, just had to serve it. We did a couple extra dishes like our German red cabbage and some steamed green beans. It was so nice not to have all the extra work. In fact we were all doing so well after the clean up that we spent a couple of hours playing some games (Apples to Apples and A to Z ).

In years past, we've just been too worn out, so this year was really easy and fun.

I know I'm thankful for THAT!