Thanksgiving 2015

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family and good food!  We sure did!  I have to admit that I was really dreading the holiday since we lost Dad just two months ago, but we made it through and managed to have a good time, even with moments of sadness.

Not long before Dad's death, they had some trees cut from the front yard.  I just noticed on Thanksgiving that the tree cutter carved Dad's initials in one of the tree stumps.  I don't know how I had missed this before now, but I loved finding it on Thanksgiving Day.

On Wednesday night, my mom's oven went out and we about panicked!  I was already cooking the turkey and several desserts and Mom was to cook the dressing.  Her dressing is the best and is really my favorite part of the meal...other than desserts of course!  So, it fell on ME to make the famous dressing.  I was SO  nervous to do it, especially following Mom's instructions..."don't let it be too soupy or too dry".  Evidently it's a fine line to get it just right!  And...I did it!  And it was great!

My niece made her first desserts for our dinner!  I usually make most, if not all of the desserts, so she was so excited to try to show me up!  She told her mom the night before, "Aunt  Cheryl is going to be jealous because she does all the desserts and crafty things."  That made me laugh!  Anyway, her leaf-shaped cookies and little acorns were very good and I was so impressed and maybe a little bit jealous!
After lunch, we all went outside for picture taking.

My brothers and their families all were here.  One of my sister-in-law's dad came too.  We missed having Ashley though.   Since she works in retail, she had a late work day on Wednesday and an EXTRA early morning on Friday so there was just not enough time to make such a trip.  The cousins saved a spot for her in the group picture!

We all had such a good time together and our rain let up most of the day which  we were SO thankful for.

You can't have Thanksgiving  without have a little football...on tv and also in the front yard.

I'm so thankful that we have a close family that really enjoys being together.  We always have lots of laughs.

Also, Allan and I celebrated our 33rd Anniversary on Friday!  33 years!  I'm so thankful for this man and all he does for me and our family!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's a mad dash to the Christmas season!