Thanksgiving and Birthday celebrations 2016

We had a really great thanksgiving this year, and I haven't posted about it yet. I want to do that before we get too far away. This Thanksgiving was really simple, but it was also special. It was my birthday, and that was fun, but it was just a nice day overall.

We had an impromptu crafting session the night before making cork turkey place holders for the table. I just pulled it all out and the boys came to help me. They each picked a member of the family that was coming to make.

I love that all my boys came to be a part of this, and helped. I love happy unplanned moments like this. 

They turned out pretty cute!

We did a turkey this year. We don't always do a turkey because well, it's just not everybodys favorite meat, but Michele rubbed it and smoked it in the traeger, and it was delicious. He started the night before by rubbing it with seasonings.

 The day before Aric got excited and decided to get all our Thanksgiving decorations out. I hadn't put all of them out because well, I just didn't feel like it. It made me happy to see him excited about it, and it turned out great. He made those toilet paper pilgrims and indians a few years back.

Finally the big day! The turkey looked great, and delicious!

It was very moist and juicy. I will gladly have turkey again cooked this way!

 The table was beautiful this year. It was all white, and so fancy. April loves doing this part, she was mostly in charge of setting the table.

She dug out our nice white plates that we've had since we were married, and looked up how to fold napkin swans. It was so festive. I thought that was such a fun touch. I love how creative she is!

 It was time to eat, so we all gathered around. Trying to figure out where we all would squeeze in was interesting. We had 9 people at our table, and when it is in this configuration we can fit 10, but our dining room is still tiny. We had to get creative with where to put the food for dishing up.

I think this is the most traditional Thanksgiving dinner we've had at our house for a long time. It all was so yummy. We had stove top stuffing (with sausage), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus with bacon bits, turkey, creamed onions, and cranberry coleslaw. 

To help keep the kids busy I found this neat puzzle idea at Almost Unschoolers blog. I can't find the exact post so I didn't link up to that, but I will try to describe what it is. It's this kind of puzzle where you have to draw part of the picture in each square using the grid lines as a guide.

Well, I cut all those squares up, so that the kids could take one and grab a construction paper square and do their best to draw the lines. Oh, and labeled the back of each square so we knew how to put it back together. The boys had to write the number/letter combo on the back of each one they did. They surprisingly enjoyed doing this, but I had to do it myself to get their interest going.

 Then we put it together! It didn't come together very well, but we had fun trying. I think I will make the construction paper squares a little smaller next time.

 Since my birthday was the same day I will just make this a super long post and share that too. Our Thanksgiving dessert consisted of pumpkin cheesecake, sugar cookies, and birthday cake. We had more pies that we could have taken out, but decided this was enough for our small gathering.

Then we opened presents! April gave me this mug that says "You're the Lorelai to my Rory". We are currently in season 2 of Gilmore Girls.

All my loot, minus a kid thing that I got to share with the boys.

That is some amazing writing! I don't think I have ever written that nicely on a cake. My Mother-in-law made this beauty.

That evening April really wanted to go shopping, and there were a few things that we thought it'd be worth braving the crowds for. I also thought it'd be nice to have some Mom/daughter shopping for my birthday with no other kids. It was nice! Even if it was crazy, and rainy. We ended up having quite the adventure on the way when one of my wipers jumped out of place. We tried fixing it, but it didn't want to go back into place. So, we rode home with one windshield wiper in the pouring rain. So thankful the other wiper worked. When we got home hubby was able to fix it in 5 minutes. Of course.

That concludes our fun Thanksgiving day. But, before I go, here is a picture of Alex using the gift that I mentioned wasn't pictured above. It is a kid friendly potters wheel, and there was also a spin art table in it too. It was a bonus gift, so that the boys could be excited about sharing something with me. I thought it was fun too.