Happy American Thanksgiving!

I love this holiday....the fall colors, the crisp air, the family gatherings, the recognition of blessings, the delicious food, and the anticipation of the Savior's birth. I have many blessings to count. I am most thankful for my family...the little people in my life bring me endless happiness and for extended family who are so loving and supportive. I also am truly blessed for such wonderful friends. There is so much goodness in all of you. Thanks for your influence in my life.

By the way, I had to specify in my title which Thanksgiving we were celebrating since we do celebrate this holiday in Canada as well, it is just done in October. At this time I become reminiscent of the Thanksgivings past and realize how lucky I am to have parents who made it a big deal and who taught us to recognize our blessings. Thanks mom and dad. So now that I live in the States I have grown accustomed to the later time frame as it makes me excited for Christmas. I really should celebrate both Canadian and American Thanksgivings since 4 of us are Canadian and the other 3 are American!

Here is our stash..yum yum..we had a potluck at Shellie's house. I still couldn't get all the food to fit in one shot. I really should have taken a picture of it all on my plate...so colorful. My favorite was the new delicious sweet potato recipe that I tried suggested by Annette...thanks..my family loved it!

Here are those hungry boys!
After our feast Allen decided to recruit as many as he could in his traditional "turkey dip" in the pool. In years past there were never any volunteers but this was his year...success at last! Erin, Nate, and Brenden all jumped in with him...it was freezing! Carter was being teased on Allen's shoulder when Jace decided to hook his grandpa with the bug net which resulted into an accidental fall...ahhh...uncle Brenden to the rescue! Thank goodness he was safe..now we can all laugh about it! Good times, I tell ya!

Later on Lindsey made a craft with the kids. Feather and pilgrim hats. As you can see, Evey was not at all interested in keeping it on. Thanks Lindsey! You are so wonderful with our children...they adore you!

Doesn't Ella make a cute pilgrim-

....and our Emmy with her colorful feathers!

So now...one of the best parts of it all was the shopping the very next day. Lyndsi and I got up at 4 am to go meet the ridiculous crowd at walmart. I just love to see the madness..we were happy with our purchases and were able to find the items that we went for. We enjoyed weaving through traffic, searching the items on our list and girl bonding in the long, long check-out line! We were very entertained. We also went to Target but had no desire to stand in the even longer line and at last we hit Old Navy. By then the crowd had thinned out it seemed. So much fun...can't wait for next year's shopping adventures!