Thanksgiving with the Akers Family

Goodness if I don't hurry up and post about our Thanksgiving it might be after Christmas before I get to it. :-) This year Thanksgiving day was celebrated with the Akers family (we celebrated with the Carstens after Thanksgiving - future blog post!) and what started out as a small family affair with just the parents, siblings, significant others, and kids turned into almost the entire extended family as well. We ended up having 17 people in the house which turned our semi-formal event into a totally informal gathering of football watching, appetizer snacking, playing cards, dinner on paper plates sitting on the couch kind of party. It was great!!!

Mom's 8-place setting dining table ended up being so covered by appetizers that we had to use the island and kitchen counters for the 'real' Thanksgiving food. Here everyone is relaxing, talking, and watching football.

 

Dad carving up the turkey while we anxiously await the start of the feast.

Grandma and I playing cribbage. Grandma's a little miffed at me because I made her smile through three pictures before I called my Dad off just to make sure I got a good one of us. :-)

Let the feast begin! Uncle Bobby is teasing Grandma about the three (three!) green beans she had on her plate. She ended up telling us that she doesn't even really like green beans! She just took them to be polite.

Abby wanted nothing to do with the turkey until Nate offered her the ginormous drumstick. (I think it's the drumstick...maybe a leg...or are they the same?) Girl chowed down!

After eating the girls decided to go outside the the FREEZING temperatures and play around for a bit. They were out there for a good half hour before Abby started climbing down the hill (my parent's house sits on the edge of a steep incline) and I called them both back inside. 

Once back inside it was gingerbread house decorating time. Abby actually did much better than I thought she would! I put icing on the house and she happily stuck candies into the icing (making sure to pop one into her mouth on occasion as well). 

Uncle David also helped to entertain the girls by giving them "swings". He grabbed Abby and swung her through his legs...

then into the air before...

  

swinging her back down and through his legs again. Abby was giggling so hard she was practically snorting!

Our family picture. Abby's starting to be ready for naptime so she's unwilling to smile for the camera but I think it's a nice one of the three of us together since we so rarely get a picture like this. Mom makes sure to get pictures of all the family groupings at the holidays to add to her picture ornament tree. It's the one guaranteed family picture we get each year. :-)

Our last planned activity for the girls was decorating cakes for Nate's birthday (which was on November 25th). So far we've had them decorate the same cake and cupcakes but I thought their own cakes would be easier this time around. Bigger than the cupcakes (which were pretty hard for Abby to do without also decorating the table and floor) but also not having to share the same cake where someone smaller keeps trying to decorate on someone bigger's side. :-)

Haylee smiling shyly for the camera while Abby decides that icing isn't just for the cake.

 

Icing is for mainlining, too!

We ended the night singing Happy Birthday to Nate...

and having the girls (with some help from Nate) blow out his candles. 

We ended the evening with my family a little earlier than desired as we needed to drive down to Portland that evening. Nate's friends from California were joining the Carstens family for Thanksgiving by flying in on Friday morning and we wanted to be there to pick them up. Unfortunately heavy fog for the first 45 minutes of our 3.5 hour drive had us turning around and heading back home. So our night actually ended with Jack-in-the-Box at 10pm around the kitchen table. But we successfully made it down to Portland the following day (albeit with driving through more fog slowing our process down enough that we still didn't make it in time to pick up the Gassends from the airport). Happy Thanksgiving Part 1!