Thanksgiving

Well, Blogger and I had our first fight. It was bound to happen eventually (I'm a bit technologically challenged), but man was it a doozy. For nearly three weeks now we've been arguing back and forth over this little blog and what blogger would allow me to do with it. We're back on speaking terms now obviously, but at my own expense. You see, apparently if I'd like to continue sharing all of my photos of the fabulously fun madness that is our life, I am going to have to pay $2.50 a month. I know, it's a measly two and a half dollars....but, it's two and a half dollars! Why on earth does Google need my money?? So the stubborn side of me said that I would not be paying the small sum on point of the matter. I held out for almost three weeks, a time period during which I tried to upload photos every which way I could think of, you know, maybe somehow trick blogger into not knowing I was actually adding forbidden photos. It didn't work. Not even a little. In the end, I came to the realization that I was just going to have to pay for a "free" blog. Well done Google, well done. You win.

But enough with all this arguing business, there are better things to talk about!

We have officially made it through our first month (actually, almost two now) of having a new baby, packing a house, moving, and unpacking, Thanksgiving and the influx of family that came with it (ok, that wasn't actually surviving. I thrive on the craziness of family time spent) and now here we are...with an awful lot of catching up to do.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in a previous post, but my mom came to stay with us shortly after Tanner was born and was able to stay through Thanksgiving. I'd like to say that we survived the first month and moving and Thanksgiving because we are just that amazing, but the reality is my mom deserves a lot of the credit. It was heaven having her here! Seriously. I truly believe after this last month that I am a direct descendent of Superwoman herself. My mom came in like a small hurricane, planted me on the couch, and took charge. And I do mean took charge. She took care of sick kiddos (greeeeaaat timing with that bug since we had nothing else going on in our world at that time), entertained them when they got better, took care of me and made sure that my hiney was firmly planted in the closest chair at all times. I learned really quickly that my mom is a post C-section rule follower to an annoying "T". I wasn't allowed to lift, move, work, cook, pick up kids, pack....hey wait, that isn't really sounding all that bad. Hmmmm, Mom, you up for a trip back?? Anyway, the point is, she was amazing and a huge, huge help. Between her and Auntie Jenn I have a rather large debt to pay in terms of returning favors.

A few weeks later, the rest of my family arrived. I always love when my family is in town. It's madness, but the best kind of madness. And this year, though I loved much about the time we had together, easily my favorite part of the entire Thanksgiving weekend was this:

Auntie Kell meeting Tanner for the first time! So sweet and long overdue. She wasn't able to come down when we had him since she is still in school and couldn't take the time off. There was a perk to this though, because since she hadn't had any time with Tanner yet, she automatically had "dibs" on Baby T the entire weekend. Baby hog Christi and Baby Hog Jenn couldn't help but hand him over...

For Thanksgiving day itself, my sisters and I traditionally spend the day with our hubby's family. This year, since my parents and Kell were in town and since Burkie's mom happened to be out of town and Jenn and Burke were on their own, they all joined in on our Thanksgiving with Nathan's family. Doug and Kathleen made an amazing feast and it was fun to be able to spend time with everyone at once (Kim and Dana, you were definitely missed in that crowd!).

Before all of the Thanksgiving festivities begin with my in-laws though, we usually spend the morning together each baking something to bring to our respective Thanksgiving dinners that night. This year, Jenn really wanted to run the Turkey Trot before we started baking (its a little 5K on Thanksgiving morning here in town). My mom, after calculating it all out, decided that it was going to cost way too much for all of us to run it and decided to host a trot of her own. She brought home participant numbers for the boys to make and decorate and Turkey Trot necklaces. So, before anyone touched the kitchen this year, we spent the morning decorating and coloring, and then headed out for what has been declared a new annual tradition: Lala's Turkey Trot.

The Turkey Trot not-so-necklace. It seems that the boys wanted to wear the necklaces in any fashion other than actually wearing them around their necks.

Pre-walk festivities were obviously very exciting for Tan Tan

Participant numbers (the date of Thanksgiving this year)

Where there are stickers, there is fun to be had!

...especially when Poppi is involved!

Who's going to win the run Drewski?

Heading out for Lala's first annual Turkey Trot

It was foggy and cold that morning...the first real morning its felt like fall. Such a welcome change!

All of the 5K participants

Team Sloan

When the Turkey Trot was all said and done it was time to head back home to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, brine our turkey for Thanksgiving round 2 (we celebrate with my family on Friday and prep Thursday morning), and prepare our tasty portion for our hubbys' family Thanksgiving that night.

Learning how to brine a turkey

Love my boys!

The Thanksgiving table at Doug and Kathleen's house

Daddy finally managed to snag Baby T from my baby-hogging-sisters! It was a fight to get just a few minutes with the little guy while they were here!

The Mommas

GGma (Nathan's grandma), Nathan and Great Aunt Karen with Tanner

Sisters!

Me and my favorite mother-in-law! I realized recently I have very few pictures with me actually in them, an unfortunate side effect to always being picture taker. So this year, I made sure to jump in a few!

Thanksgiving was fantastic. It always is. It's one of my favorite holidays for that very reason....good food, great company, and plenty of fun to be found! I'll post Thanksgiving round 2 sometime later this week.....