Thanksgiving 2019

I'll back up about a week and squeeze in a few updates from just prior to Thanksgiving.

Brynn had these TAG reader books when she was about Clara's age. They come with an interactive stylus-type wand that reads the words on the pages and plays games. Clara had the books in her room, but we hadn't hunted down the wand that goes with it. Every time she thought to ask me about it, it was time to be going to bed. So, finally last weekend I asked her if she wanted to look for it. I had a hunch as to where it was, so we found it in the downstairs book tote right away. She was so excited and 'read' her books with it all weekend. She did lament to be before bed one night that she was a bit sad that I was the one who had found it and that we found it too quickly. Hehe. I guess the anticipation of the hunt for it was more alluring to her. The next morning she wanted to know what else we could search for that had gone missing. :-)

Brynn invited her friend to the middle school ministry lock-in at church last Friday night. I dropped them off around 8:00 PM and was set to return around 5:00 AM to help serve breakfast and clean up before parents came to pick up their students starting at 8:00 AM. I wasn't there too long before I spied Brynn and Annabelle. They were still going and made it all night with no sleep, but they were looking pretty bushed. They greeted me by asking if Annabelle could come over to our house after the lock-in...I had to shut that plan down pretty quickly. I don't know how Brynn thought she was going to make it as this was her state on our way home after dropping Annabelle off at her dad's. Ha. She made it into her bed around 9:00 AM and I think woke up around 8:00 PM. I wasn't sure if I should wake her up and she was pretty disappointed to have missed out on doing stuff around the house with us all day on Saturday. I think she ended up going to sleep then at midnight. She said they did have fun, though, enjoying a midnight turkey dinner, playing games, jumping in a giant bouncy house and watching movies.

Clara and her best buddy practicing their numbers at school last week.

I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off again this year. It was glorious, as usual. :-)

Brynn had Wednesday off of school, so the girls were both home with me that day. They helped clean the house before we moved on to more fun things like making Chex Mix and frosting the turkey sugar cookies we had baked on Tuesday.

It was pretty windy on Wednesday and Brynn noticed our neighbors' recycling bin had tipped over, so she decided to go out and pick it up for them. Such a good neighbor! :-)



Oops - I guess I got a little out of order as we had baked the cookies on Tuesday...

Grandpa and Grandma Froemming came on Wednesday and Grandma helped finish frosting cookies.

The girls were busy downstairs after dinner one night and came upstairs after a while with this turkey game Brynn thought of. It was so cute. It was called 'stuff the turkey' and you had to toss the 'stuffing' into the box to earn points. There was a Patty Pilgrim box in inside 'Tom Turkey' and I think one more, but now I can't remember what that one was called.

Clara accidentally pulled its head off. :-/

Appetizer spread...

I did my traditional bird (Chuck) and Dana smoked some ribs (well, not some..a lot!) as he had received a request from Reagan.

Gravy makers!

Thank you, Tessa, for the pics! We love hosting Thanksgiving and were glad for all those who were able to join us.

I think the tryptophan had set in or something.

....or maybe it's just very difficult for him to take a normal picture sometimes.

Mmm...Tessa's pies did not disappoint again this year!

Yay! I was so excited that we were able to play a rousing game of Pictionary this year. It was Ben's first time and he did great.

Today we got our tree up and the girls have been hanging out playing and going for rides behind the four-wheeler as we are in the midst of receiving our forecast 12+ inches of snow. I honestly hardly have any pictures of Clara putting ornaments on. She did help, but with just a few of her own.

Here's a video recap! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!