Three-Day Thanksgiving

I suppose you could say it all started on Wednesday evening, making it four days, but then the title wouldn't alliterate.

I'm still trying to decide if it was all worth it: cramming ourselves and 11 other family members into an already-packed photography studio; waiting nearly an hour for our turn; going through about 50 poses in different groupings; cramming crackers and candy into the mouths of the 7 children ages 6 and under to keep them happy; throwing balls and waving feathers in their faces and pretty much acting like total idiots to get them to smile; going through the agonizing process of choosing among over 200 pictures to find one where everyone is at least looking at the camera and not screaming. The end result, for us, was a pretty decent extended family picture, and a shot of our immediate family to hang on the wall. And, thanks to my sister purchasing a bunch of photos for their Christmas cards, we got a couple of freebies of the kiddos thrown in. Was it worth it? Yes. Do I want to repeat the 3-hour process anytime soon? Not on your life.

On Thanksgiving Day, my parents, my 2 sisters and their families, plus my BIL's brother, made the trek to our house for a day which I can only call a smashing success. About 5 minutes after their arrival, a huge, gorgeous, homemade blueberry pie Dad had baked just hours earlier came crashing down from the top of the fridge and ended up all over the kitchen. Danny and I shooed the kiddos out of there and got the mess cleaned up pretty quickly; if there wouldn't have been glass shards sticking up through the pie, I believe I would have shoved a handful of it into my mouth. It looked and smelled that good. Fortunately, I had been coerced into making another dessert; the traditional pumpkin torte that has accompanied every Thanksgiving dinner on my mom's side since . . . the invention of pumpkin torte, I guess. So don't feel too sorry for us; we still had dessert!

We moved on to our Thanksgiving feast (which did NOT include tofurkey): 9 adults and 3 one-year-olds sat at the large table in the dining room, while the 4 bigger kids sat at a small folding table in the kitchen. Unfortunately, a few minutes after they sat down, we discovered that one of the legs wasn't quite locked in, as it collapsed and all their plates, fully loaded, slid off the table one by one. At that point, I was thankful indeed for linoleum floors.

But the messes weren't quite over. Later during that same meal, someone managed to flip a veggie tray (with large container of dip) upside-down onto the other dishes on the table. That one didn't seem quite as bad as the others - there are worse things, after all, than eating deviled eggs with veggie dip smashed into them. After that, I think everyone was a little afraid to move for a while. But we eventually headed down to the basement (more room there!) to open gifts, since my sister Sarah and her family will be in California for Christmas. It was sort of a fun/ messy/ Christmas/ Thanksgiving day all wrapped up together.

Friday, we went for our traditional Thanksgiving weekend tree-hunt. We drove to Sickles Christmas Tree Farm and found our tree in record time. It was a good morning - we only lost Malachi twice. We had decided to put the tree "up" a little this year because of his age and affinity for grabbing anything in his reach, so we ended up cutting down a 5-footer. We brought it home and spent a lovely afternoon decorating it with Rachel and Zekers. I LOVE that they are old enough to help with Christmas decorating; I have such great memories of helping decorate the tree as a kid.

We went to Pizza Hut for dinner, since Danny was suffering from some major depression due to the disappointment of not going to Red and Ruth's pizza on our way home from the tree farm. (It was not even 11:00 and no one was hungry - except him.) Then we came back and watched Elf - another important family tradition.

Saturday, we slept in (maybe the best part of the whole weekend), and then drove to Danny's family Thanksgiving with his parents, and his sister and her family. We also got to spend some time with his grandmother who now lives in AZ. We ate the traditional Wright family manacotti, which, over the years, has come to be called "mama-cotti", and I even brought my first-ever attempt at red-beet eggs. Mmmmm.

We both realized, too, that it is a lot easier to talk - or take part in any activity, for that matter - when your kids are with their older cousins (8 & 12)! They went out in the garage and then moved to the back room, and we barely saw or heard from them the whole time, with the exception of Malachi, of course. Quinn and Ian do such a great job of playing with their younger cousins and the kiddos just think they are the best thing ever. I wouldn't trade all of our 7 busy little munchkins for the world - they are adorable and sweet and I love them all so much. But that's not to say I won't also enjoy things when they are all a little older, too! And I'm looking forward to the day when Rachel and Zekers are old enough to take the littler ones and entertain them, the way their older cousins help to entertain them now.

And this morning, we are celebrating the aftermath of the Thanksgiving festivities by washing loads of sheets, pillowcases and PJ's. About 11:00 last night, Kari Bou's stomach decided it had had enough, and she was up throughout the night, poor thing. We've really got to work on her rushing-to-the-toilet skills.

Well, anyway, as I sit here instead of sitting in church, I keep returning to the thought that I am grateful, once again. Grateful for the chance to be together with not just one family, but two! Grateful for my family, and that I finally have 2 brothers, and for the happy noise that comes from a houseful of children. Grateful that God saw fit to merge Danny and I together, and that his family has taken me in as one of their own. We are truly blessed.