Thanksgiving 2025

I'm thankful for this girl and she is thankful for homemade pretzels. She went from never having a soft pretzel a few months ago to soft pretzels biggest fan.

 

I'm thankful for our new garage door. It has no dents, no scuffs, isn't bent or cracked, and doesn't sound like a witch got caught in it.

One night I showed the kids the lost art of tracing silhouettes. In the days of yore, these were self portraits and something to do on a dark winter night, I explained. Then the kids filled the outline with all the things they were thankful for.

Erica has outgrown all her dolls and the clothes and accessories and triple bunkbeds that went with them. She thought long and hard about which little girl would appreciate it. She decided to give it all to 5-year-old Maggie who is in our ward and is her friend's little sister. So Ellie came over the day before Thanksgiving and they wrapped it all up and carried it to Ellie's house.

They tried to balance it on a scooter but realized it was faster to just walk the 2.5 blocks to Ellie's house. I hope Maggie loves it.

I'm thankful for this kid. He's the only person I took a picture of on Thanksgiving day.

The other picture is of my food. I could go for another roll about now.

I was a little bummed going into Thanksgiving this year since we were going to be a smaller group and only the sisters that I see all the time and their families were going to make it. (That sounds rude but the best part about holidays is seeing people you haven't seen in awhile and I didn't want to wait 2 more years to spend Thanksgiving with these absent people). Wednesday my oldest sister made my day by telling me she and two of her kids were coming after all! I could have cried with joy. Then on Thanksgiving after dinner my brother and his wife surprised us all by walking in the door! They had just flown back from Arizona and were looking for a warm meal (they had their Thanksgiving dinner with my sister-in-law's mother the day before). It went from being a regular ol' Thanksgiving to one of miracles!

Friday Justin and I went on a shopping spree to Costco. Costco the day after Thanksgiving is like Costco on a Saturday: not especially busy since they don't do black Friday sales. We picked out gifts for all of Justin's office since we are in charge of his work party this year. There's a bit of pressure to pick out stuff that people would actually want but also fun to spend other people's money.

Saturday morning we drove to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree. No snow, no coat, no sledding. It was a strange tree hunt. Half the fun is climbing up the mountainside in knee deep snow and then shaking the snow off trees to see if they are contenders. But not this year. It was strangely cool but not cold.

It still took us a little while to find a good shaped tree that was tall enough. It took Justin less than a minute to cut it down.

Isn't it pretty?

Back at tree camp we had hot chocolate and cold doughnuts.

Erica was running a fever so she isolated in the truck so as to not get her little cousins sick.

She had a great view bb gun shooting.

Most of all I am thankful for this crew, my peeps, my nerds.

I spent almost 2 hours Saturday afternoon stringing the lights. I don't know if I'm just too picky about how they are strung or just not very good at it but it takes me forever. This evening we put ornaments on the tree. My kids are better ornament hangers now that they are older (spread them out, use hooks, don't drop them) but they don't get excited about it and I miss that. Poor Erica was running a fever but still a good sport.

2025 v 2022