Thanksgiving

We had a fabulous thanksgiving weekend.  Just the 6 of us (still surprises me everytime I say that.  Are there really 6 of us now?!?), hanging out all weekend, having a great time just enjoying each other.

We decided to do the turkey trot again.  This year we all ran it - while, I jogged a bit, Olivia ran about a quarter of it, Levi rode in the stroller, and the 3 oldest boys all ran.  I gave the boys a monetary incentive for a fast time, and it seemed to encourage them a bit. Last year they ran it in around 11 minutes, and this year Harrison came in at 8:40ish and Noah about a minute later. Maybe next year we'll go for the 5K!

Kids under 8 were free, so I even registered Levi.  He had a number and everything:

Poor kid had just fallen asleep in the car when we got there.  He was great the whole race, even though he was pretty tired.

We got home and got busy cooking.  I kept it simple. I wanted to focus my energy on family time, and not creating a fancy meal that no one was going to eat.  I made a roast chicken, which the kids helped prepare, and our turkeys were in the form of a veggie tray, and fruit platter, also prepared with the kids helping.

The roast chicken was delicious, finished cooking in an hour and a half, and we still had plenty of  leftovers.  

The next day we spent the morning decorating for Christmas

And then headed off to the Christmas Kickoff in Dayton.  There was a little bit of a snafu with forgetting wallets, so we missed out on eating at our favorite place, the Country Cupboard, but we still managed to have a great time, going on a hay ride, visiting with Santa, watching a free movie, and enjoying the lighted parade.

Then on Sunday we finally built our Gingerbread house.

It's so fun that we are really starting to have some solid yearly traditions, that the kids are remembering and looking forward to.  Dayton, the turkey trot and a gingerbread house are definitely Thanksgiving weekend traditions we plan on continuing.