Thanksgiving

We had such a fun Thanksgiving this year. So much so, that at times I think I am going to miss not being able to do Thanksgiving on my own and spend it with friends. I mean, how boring is it to just have Thanksgiving at grandma's house every year? And then all I get asked to do is make the pickle wraps ; ) Of course I don't really mean that. But I do hope that I will be able to blend the two together throughout my life. And maybe mom won't care if I am in charge of Thanksgiving dinner some years; Justin and I are getting pretty good at it. But in all seriousness, we had a really nice weekend.
I secretly love the crazy day of baking leading up to it. And I must add that I have finally perfected Grandma's roll recipe and they turned out superb this year! As did my pies. And my sweet potatoes were pretty tasty too-or at least Matthew thought so.
I love that we get to eat all the leftovers until we are sick of them (code for I ate almost an entire pumpkin pie by myself).
I love that it tends to bring random groups of people together. This year we had our dear friends the Carlson's over and Julie Harrison and her roommate Sarah came for the weekend. Julie just moved to Dallas and didn't have plans and so they drove down. It was so much fun to see Julie again and to really spend a lot of time together to really catch up and remember all the reasons why I love her so much. You know you have a true friend when you can go 2 years without really even talking or writing and then still spend a wonderful weekend together. (Yeah, I'm that kind of friend who is bad at staying in touch).

 This is just a beautiful sunset I snapped a picture of last month.

 Julie's family has a tradition of making these cute little candy turkeys. We made one to put on each plate and they turned out super cute. The boys had a blast making them.

 The spread...at least what wouldn't fit on the table, which was just about everything. I think rolls, turkey and gravy are the only things that made the table cut.

 That weekend I took advantage of lots of helping hands to make my salsa. I learned the best trick ever from my sister that you can freeze whole raw tomatoes until you are ready to cook them. So I had been saving tomatoes from my garden and was so excited to actually get to can something with them. It actually wasn't a hard project and with three hands cutting and peeling it went by fairly quickly. I think I got 16 jars total. Beautiful!

 Sarah was so good with the boys and they loved her. They were quite sad to see Julie and Sarah leave because they always had someone to play a game with them, or read them a book, or be a dragon...We also set up all the Christmas decorations while they were here and the boys were so excited about this elf costume we found in the Christmas box. Sarah was such a sport to wear it for them while she read stories.

 Besties forever! I might add that Julie got me out the door running one morning. Unfortunately my knee did not do well and I didn't make it very far but it was still a perfect pastime moment to run and chat together.

This year definitely gave me many things to give thanks for!