Thanksgiving

We had 25 people over for Thanksgiving this year! Fourteen adults and eleven kids! I was a little worried we wouldn't have enough seats for everyone, but with some creative table arranging, and the fact that three are babies and three are three-year-olds, we squeezed everyone in! I didn't have enough white table cloths or gold place-mats, and we had to go all the way around the table and through the living room if we wanted to go upstairs, but other than that, it worked great! 

There was kind of a "Fourth of July meets Thanksgiving" theme going on, but no one complained.

When Mariann was here visiting, she made these "Wise Family Miniatures" so we could still feel like they were joining us for Thanksgiving. It wasn't quite the same...

Jane and Ashley preparing the salad.

Some of the boys!

Here's the three-year-olds' table (Jane, Gwen and Lafe).  We tried to get Landon to join them, but he's not quite three yet...  

From the end of the table, left side to right side:

Ashley, Brandon, Ben, Jonah, Tiffny, Matt, Nate, Kylie, Vikki, Alicia (That's baby Ethan in the background in the high chair! Somehow babies Caleb and Nolan didn't get into any of the table pictures.)

Me, Brad, Corey, Jeff w/Landon on his lap, Jillian,

Dad, Hyrum, Kathy 

And mom!  She took the first two pictures, so I wanted to make sure I got one with her in it!

Jillian made ALL the pies this year!  She's our Pie Princess!  They were delicious.  Apple, Banana Cream (ended up more like Banana Soup, probably because I helped on that one...), Chocolate, and Pumpkin.

Brad cooked two turkeys this year, I did the mashed potatoes (yes, enough for an army!), gravy, and stuffing, and everyone else brought appetizers and/or side dishes...feta & spinach triangles, jalapeno poppers, feta walnut spread with apples and crostini, and bacon wrapped water-chestnuts for the appetizers and brussel sprouts, carrots, roasted yams, green beans, green salad, cranberry salad, and rolls for side dishes!  Wow, what a feast! And then the amazing pies for dessert!  

After dinner, we played the Game of Things and laughed off all the calories we ate!  (I wish!)  But we did laugh a lot.  And we learned all about Hyrum's kissing adventures in Kindergaren and 1st grade, which made us laugh even more! One of his great lines: "Then we kissed right here (pointing to his lips) and she liked it!" 

And probably the best part of the whole night, Dad did all he dishes!  Seriously, though, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I'm so thankful to have so much family close by, good friends to share with, and it makes me happy to be able to host it at our house.