Thanksgiving post I skipped

My sweet sister Hillary and her boyfriend came to stay with us for Thanksgiving. I just love my sister and did not really want to give her back to Boston. She was so amazingly helpful the first night she was here I put my kids to bed and came downstairs to find the kitchen had been tidied up- I wanted to cry! A single Mom finding her kitchen cleaned up is about as wonderful as it gets! I had to do some running around and she just took the kids to the playground and I couldn't believe how much faster everything gets done without them (sometimes). In general I love being with my kids all the time but the occasional extra set of hands is such a blessing. But, she has a job and a dog (blah blah blah) so I had to let her fly away home on Friday.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner around the corner at our dear friends house. There were 10 kids there (one of them being a little tiny baby) and we didn't see the kids hardly at ALL. They ran around outside in circles and played for 5 1/2 hours straight. Needless to say- they fell right asleep without a peep that night.

We took NO pictures....which we should have. BUT, just because we ate dinner at our friends house doesn't mean I wasn't cooking. I still made 10 lbs of mashed potatoes, 3 lbs of carrots, spinach dip, and Hillary made chocolate pie and Micah made red potato and green bean casserole. Plus, I had 2 kids to still take care of. It was a busy day. I missed Mike and Thanksgiving morning both kids asked if he was coming to Thanksgiving with us. Emma didn't like my answer that he couldn't come home and said "Daddy's can't miss holidays with their families." I guess it's a harsh lesson to learn that they can, and do. I was extra grateful to have a busy Thanksgiving for the kids where they were busy and distracted all day.

These weren't taken on Thanksgiving- but the Saturday after. The kids and I did some shopping and went to a playground. It was a chilly day and there were lots of leaves to crunch on the ground. I'm sure thankful for these little turkeys.