Thanksgiving 2023

The kids rolled out and baked sugar cookies for Thanksgiving.

We finished our thankful pumpkin.

I saw this in the store and given the season, it took me right back to my Grandma D's house on Thanksgiving and the bowl of walnuts she'd have on her table with the nutcracker. I wanted to buy it just for nostalgia purposes.

Cora and Clara made these adorable turkey crafts at the crafternoon at the library. 

On Tuesday we went downtown for the tree lighting at Broadway Square. Abby, Hubert's sister, joined us as well. She just turned 10, so she got along pretty well with Clara.

They had s'mores kits so we had to toast some mallows right away. I love how Clara's marshmallow is completely ablaze and she's still posing for the photo. Hahaha.

We had to visit the reindeer too.

I made them do jazz hands.

And then, of course, we had to hit up Blackbird afterward.

Our Wednesday morning XaBeat class. We were feelin' pretty festive.

The girls had Wednesday off from school, but Brynn lamented that she would have rather been at school than at home working on this to-do list. Thankfully, Hubert and Abby came over and pitched in so we were pretty well finished up on cleaning by early afternoon. 

Then it was on to the fun stuff, like frosting the cookies the kids had made earlier in the week.

Making cream cheese dip with a broken mixer! Yay!

Brynn put together a wonderful spread for our hors d'oeuvres. 

Getting Lloyd ready for the oven.

We snacked, visited and played games while Lloyd was doin' his thing and the ribs were on the grill.

The core four out for a very chilly pre-bird walk!

Hubert, his mom and siblings were able to join us as well. We are so thankful for all who were able to celebrate with us, especially Grandpa and Grandma Oberg.

The other end of the table. This might have been the most people we've ever hosted and I loved it.

Brynn and Hubert's mom, Pricilla. 

It had been a couple of years since we FaceTimed with Rosha and her family on Thanksgiving. We sure miss having them with us on Thanksgiving after they moved to Seattle. Brynn still keeps in contact with Rosha and we did get to chat with her a bit too. Both Fataneh and Rosha looked so beautiful. 

I love this pic of the two of us. Tessa's pies were as tasty as ever!

Thanks to the dishwashers!

Of course we had to play Pictionary. I was cracking up because you all you can see of Daniel, Hubert's brother, in this pic is the turkey. :-)

Thanks to Dana's fashion consultant (plus Elise!), we made another round of purging Dana's wardrobe in preparation for what has become Dana's annual clothing shopping spree on black Friday.

Sadly this hat didn't make the cut, but I thought it was a good look.

Such a good sport.

Success!

We were able to get a couple of hockey sticks at Play-It-Again Sports for Clara and Dana. She's excited to try it out.

On Saturday, Clara and Dad had big plans, according to their to-do list anyway.

They only made it so far before Clara got really tired (I think she's been fighting something off, including a possible ear infection and she didn't sleep well on Friday night) and laid down for a rest.

While Clara was resting, Brynn, Hubert and I went downtown for some small business Saturday shopping and to hit up Christkindlmarkt. 

We got back home, woke Clara up from her four-hour nap (!) and had some fondue and a relaxing evening. Brynn and Hubert were working on a LEGO project. And, yes, Brynn already put her tree up and is almost done Christmas shopping.

I saw this meme on social this past week and it gave me a chuckle, though it's more the aftermath around here in that I tell everyone that I cooked on Thursday and now I'm done for the next week and we need to eat up all these leftovers. 

We are so blessed to have so many loved ones with which to celebrate Thanksgiving. We love hosting each year and are glad for those who were able to be with us.

(Thank you to Tessa for many of these photos and for all those who brought so much delicious food!)