Thanksgiving 2014

For Thanksgiving, this year, we traveled to Raleigh, NC to spend the holiday with my father, stepmom, and sisters. My kids are always so excited to be with their "cousins" Aunts.  LOL! Carlene and I decided to stay away from the traditional Thanksgiving meal.  My dad was disappointed, but Darren and I were NOT.  We chose to eat Italian and I couldn't be happier. I brought some things for the kids to do, while Carlene and I prepared the dinner.  First up, a LARGE Thanksgiving table cloth to color and complete.

They worked diligently on it, but it was definitely oversized, so they never fully completed it! It had word searches, tic-tac-toe boards, and fun Thanksgiving characters to color.

After they got bored with the table cloth, I broke out the Candy Cottages that I purchased at our local Stocked Market.  This is the greatest phenomenon.  Basically, they are plastic gingerbread houses aka REUSABLE!!!!!!! Before leaving for Raleigh, I broke out our 45 pound basket of candy and the kids and I got to work pulling out the candy that was Thanksgiving like: browns, yellows, oranges, whites, etc.... I even threw in some marshmallows and shredded wheat cereal.

I found this ORANGE funfetti frosting.  I bought each of them their own TUB!

Ty wasted NO TIME getting to work.  Oh by the way, I must give credit to Darren and "Poppy" for putting the plastic houses together.

This kept the kids SOOOOOOOO quiet.

I only had four houses, so "Frick and Frack" worked together on the fourth house!!!! They worked so nicely together, ALWAYS!

We should have started this from the moment they woke up.  LOL!  It kept them still for over one hour.

We told the kids there was going to be a contest and whoever won the contest, won a prize.  After the kids were all done, we had the kids hide in a room, the parents "voted".  We scammed the vote!  Each parent chose ONE house, lol, so each kid won! The adults were trying to hold it together because ONE BY ONE, each parent announced their house selection. The houses were numbered. We announced our selection out of order, so the kids had NO idea we were going to allow each house to be the winner.  The kids were totally fooled and couldn't believe they all won!!!!  I took them to FIVE BELOW and let them pick out their very own prize. 

Jax's House

Lilah and Leecie's House

Salene's House

Tyson's House

We also watched the pre-parade show and the parade!  Taylor Swift had a HUGE fan club, minus Darren who fell asleep standing up watching it.  LOL!!!!!!  He wasn't impressed.

OUR MENU:

ALL Homemade 

Lasagna

Chicken Parmesan

Stuffed Mushrooms

Salad

Bread

Banana Pudding

Pumpkin Pie

The table was set prior to our arrival.  Carlene always does a beautiful job "dressing" the table.

As usual, we were STUFFED!!!!!  We all cleaned up and Carlene and I did our traditional Black Friday shopping!!! We shopped from 8:30 am to 1:00 am and came back for a second helping of our Italian Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lovely day filled spending it with some of our many blessings.