Happy Thanksgiving!

Although we missed all of our family and friends who weren't with us, we had a truly wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We weren't stressed out, we had great food, and we had wonderful guests.

Plus, the girls are much better at helping than they ever have been. They helped bake a cake, make the placecards, and clean the house. And here they are helping Christina make the crescent rolls:

These are Christina's specialty - here they are with their egg wash, ready to go into the oven:

Caryn came over to cook - this is the sixth year running that she and her husband and Steve and Christina have co-hosted Thanksgiving, and we love this tradition.

We cleared all the furniture out of our upstairs living room, and moved it to the garage, which Steve heated and strung up with pretty lights. That left the living room open for big tables:

And a little table, for the little people:

Here's our bird - it was truly wonderful. It was from a local farm (Prairie Heritage Farm) and it was a heritage turkey. If you've never considered getting one of these, we strongly encourage you to. These birds live really lovely turkey lives (ours wandered around a farm eating swiss chard and tomatoes, soaking up the sun - we have the pictures to prove it!) and they have a relatively long life, and are the only naturally-procreating turkeys. So, you know, they get some fun in their lives, too. And man, when their lives are done they are tasty, TASTY birds!

Christina dressed and cooked the turkey, and made the maple rosemary gravy. Steve carved the turkey admirably.

We got everything cooked and dished up, and sat down to eat. Here are the adorable little ones:

And the not-quite-as-adorable-but-very-nice big ones:

Silly Clara:

Sweetie Leni:

The girls were really keyed up, and so after everyone left we danced around and re-arranged the house. Then we got silly again - here are Leni and G-Daddy playing:

And a blurry but very happy Clara and Nana Rose:

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving - we are so thankful for you all!