The White House: Thanksgiving, Forts, and Wishbones

Well Thanksgiving turned out with a nice full house, lots and lots of delicious food, games, and some seriously delicious pie. Thanksgiving seemed to sneak up on us this year. I realized about a week before it came that it was going to come with or without our knowledge. We invited a couple to come over but assumed everyone else had already made their plans. Lucky for us - there were a few others who it seemed to sneak up on too so we snagged them to come join us!

We did it fairly simple style - but I was quite proud of my Happy Thanksgiving sign...that I mooched and printed off, but I think I did a pretty good cutting out job and stringing my sign together. My dollar store leaves were a lovely touch too in my opinion. ;)

Our very own Canadian! ;) Well - pretty much American, but she had to be teased nonetheless since Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October. :) P.S. Her daughter Paige is ADORABLE.

I won't lie - I love having Thanksgiving at my place because that means some serious leftovers. We did the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and everyone else brought their delicious sides that filled us all up completely. We had the Jepsons, Moores, Jaggis (who I borrowed a few pictures from since I only took like 4!), and half the Steenblik clan over. I was wondering if people were going to go crazy in our little place, but we borrowed a table from the church and everything seemed to work out great. The kids ran rampant up and downstairs happily and seemed to get along for the most part - always a plus. The funny part was that the kids were all boys running around too! Ross joined the ranks after a little while of observing - mostly just running after the rest of the clan with whatever they were doing. He did really well.
This was the first year I did a turkey by myself - I was a little paranoid of it being defrosted and cooked in time, but it worked like a charm thanks to oven bags - hallelujah! I made a couple of apple pies and pumpkin pies the night before so that wasn't a worry, so it was really just stuffing and mashed potatoes I had to worry about.
After we ate and loosened our belts a little (I was fairly satisfied with how I controlled myself) we played a few games - a fun version of charades and another fun game called "Hey Hey" that involves rolling dice and writing numbers to 100 before everyone else. It got a bit intense, but our Candadian/American Kendra took the victory. :) Afterwards we had some AMAZING pie made by the Moores that topped us all off. We were enjoying ourselves, but kids' patience was starting to wear a little thin so we packed up and all went our ways to deal with our turkey comas and kids. :)
When we looked to see what we had to deal with for aftermath - it was practically nothing! My friend Rebecca pretty much washed all my pots and pans - I had to literally put in a few dishes in the dishwasher and we were done. If clean up is like this after Thanksgiving - I will GLADLY host it every year!

Ross wouldn't smile for the camera so we stuffed that cute little mouth full of ice cream. ;) That'll get a smile!

So we think Ross is already getting girl crazy. I was holding Paige and Ross was getting jealous so I was trying to keep him happy by leaning Paige into his face and telling him to give her a kiss. (Which of course consists of him putting his face on you just with an open mouth.) He laughed when I did it, and then got a very serious look on his face and said "Again!" So we did it again...and then he demanded "Again!"....he really liked kissing Paige! Her dad started to have words with Steve about his son getting his hands off his daughter. ;) Little bum... :) I guess the dating talks will have to begin early!

We even had an indian visit. ;) Julie and Carson enjoying some delicious pie.

Games - Nate was pretty good at charades - but the girls still won - woot woot!

We put famous/common names in for people to act out...I think the Hulk was in there about 5 times - and Mr. Bean was a bit hard. ;)

The Moores brought an apple berry pie, pumpkin pie, and a chocolate pudding pie - yum! The Jepsons brought an amazing pumpkin roll too which I had never tried. I definitely ate way too much pie, but very much enjoyed it. :)

Tim the expert pie maker. Pie is a serious business as you can see!

Maybe going for seconds?

Jack enjoying a roll...the rolls were to die for and you can never have too many rolls at Thanksgiving. :)

Yummy pie!

Anyway - we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and were so glad to share the holiday with friends. So much to be thankful for!

So Steve introduced Ross to forts last Sunday...Ross was enthralled.

And so was Steve. :)

Steve wanted to sleep in the fort, and Ross had other plans. Though Ross learned how to imitate snoring which is hilarious and adorable.

In the end Ross really liked tearing down the forts. Surprised? The whole reason Ross EVER likes to build things or put them back in a bag or bucket is to be able to destroy it after. ALWAYS the best part.

Saturday morning - keeping warm with the now cold mornings.

LOVE these faces!

Sometimes Ross has issues eating in his highchair and I just don't have the energy to fight it...Also - I'm 33 weeks along...and VERY pregnant. Now we're getting to the stage where EVERYTHING else looks pregnant too - blah!