This year we got to host Thanksgiving dinner with Emily and her family and Andrew at our new house. I was so excited to have family come for the holidays and as always lament that it can't happen more often. Our company arrived late tuesday night and wednesday morning all of the kids were excited to wake up to their Aunt, Uncles and cousins being here, happy day!
Uncle Andrew let Avy practice her cheer stunts on him. She was pretty nervous about being up that high but we told her she has to learn if she wants to be a cheerleader. She did awesome!
JoAnns always does a 70% off Flannel sale for black Friday and this year they started it early, on Wednesday. Emily and I both had needs for material so we headed over and found some fun things. While shopping around I was thinking about my friend Cristal and what I could get her fro Christmas. We are in the fun habit of exchanging Christmas gifts and I love it! I was getting fabric for me to make myself a new apron, more about that in another post, when I thought I should make Cristal one as well. I was looking over all the fabric when I found some that although not to my taste at all I knew Cristal would love it. She is a huge Zombie and The Walking Dead fan and when I found The Walking Dead fabric I knew I found something great and that she would love. Thursday morning I woke up bright and early, per usual, and after puttering around a bit decided to get some sewing started on her Apron. It did not take me too long and I was able to finish it by the time the rest of my family came to life. It turned out really cute and I am pretty excited for her to open it.
I was the lucky winner to find some Ariel material, so exciting, and I made myself some cute pajamas that morning as well.
Everyone had different assignments regarding Thanksgiving dinner and it was fun to have everyone hustling and bustling around my kitchen. Ryker and Ben were putting together a meat and cheese platter for the hors d'oeuvres portion of the feast.
Emily was putting together a cute salad kabob which was a fun take on the traditional salad.
Andrew agreed to make his amazing apple pie and berry pie and he was the lucky winner to have Avynleas help!
I was busy eating all the food while they all worked. just kidding.
This was when hors d'oeuvres were served, about 11:30, and I was eating for the first time that day. 
I went to find Rylee and to see why she was not downstairs helping us all and I found her on netflix. Not ok kid.
After all the preparing and snacking it was time for our delicious Thanksgiving Feast. After our prayer and before everyone filled their plates we went from youngest to oldest and had everyone say what they were thankful for.
After we ate our meal and rested for a bit Kefford headed out for some Black Friday shopping he needed to do and Andrew, Emily, Kenedy and I went out to do some of our shopping. We went to Target first and I had a gift card I had saved from my birthday that I wanted to use to get some towels for our master bath and also to get some new cute clothes. I was able to take advantage of the awesome deals and get everything I wanted. The clothes were 30% off and when I came out of the dressing room after trying them on the Lady told me I could get another 15% off with the cartwheel app. That was a fun bonus and so cool of her to let me know! After Target we stopped at Micheals so Emily could get some things and then we went to Old Navy and Bath and Body Works. BBW is right next to Old Navy but when we got there a sign on the door said it had moved. We looked it up and saw it was in the same shopping center but down a little bit. After getting some fun things in Old Navy we headed outside to go to BBW. Andrew and I decided to walk while Emily and Kenedy drove. As we turned the corner on our walk we realized it was a bit further then we thought. I was not about to let the drivers beat us so I told Andrew we needed to run! So we did and we beat them and it was so fun! We joked about our run and Heather and Ashleigh had did a turkey trop 10K earlier that day and so we joked about how we just ran our own turkey trot and it was a .5K. Hahaha! We posted it in our family chat that we ran a .5K and Mom and Joshua were the only ones to catch the point. We crack ourselves up! In Bath and Body Works we found some tiny santa hats and had a girl Emily made friends with take our picture. We are too cute!
Our Family had to leave Saturday right after lunch, it was a sad time but we are so glad for the time we did have with them. Before they left I wanted to get a picture of all the cousins and Andrew since he managed to sneak his way into the shot. :)
We also had to do a recreation of a picture from about 10 years ago. Ben does not do a good fake cry and he needs to act on his acting skills a little bit better but overall it turned out pretty cute. After we took the above pictures I said in 10 years those will be our next recreation photos. I can't wait!
I am so grateful that we could have some of our family here in our new home to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. I am grateful to have family that loves me and that I have good relationships with my siblings. I am grateful for all of my blessings and for my Heavenly Father who is aware of me and my family.