Thanksgiving 2024

We have so much to be thankful for, with this family right here! Although we were still missing a few from our “core” family, this is one very blessed and grateful bunch.

Jeff’s parents went to Georgia today, so we just spent the whole day out in Killearn Lakes at Grammy and Papa’s house, eating delicious food, hanging out and playing, and enjoying time with the family.

The girls actually put themselves in this little alternating pattern, without us even saying a word to them about how to stand, which I thought was pretty cute and smart.

Mom made us a little selection of nibbles to start the morning after all the family pictures, which was absolutely devoured by all those little girls. The rest of us were still able to scrape up a few things 😉

Then after a little bit more prep-work and warming-up and baking and turkey-carving, it was a little past noon and it was finally time to partake of this glorious feast! Also, I just thought mom’s homemade cranberry sauce in this cute little jar was so impressive and also adorable.

Two kinds of turkey (fried & roasted), fresh shucked corn (which Emmie did with Grandmommie earlier this week), sweet potato casserole, butter beans with ham, cornbread dressing, broccoli casserole, homemade angel biscuits (my fave thing in the world), gravy & cranberry sauce. Yum!

We needed lots of outdoor playtime after the delicious lunch, so it was a good thing we had lots of scooters, bicycles, and inch worms to play with 🙂 Bo actually took the four big girls on a bike ride, which went about as you’d expect for the first half… (Papa had to rescue one triplet in the Jeep, and the other two came back crying.) But then Bo & Emmie did another lap all by themselves, and they came back all smiles! Bo said she was a fearless little bike rider. We estimate the two of them rode about three miles together!

The triplets actually all napped after that, but Addison was boycotting nap-time, and Emerson didn’t want to sleep either. But that just meant coffee & dessert time for me, while they still played together.

And then I got to love and snuggle and rock this little squishy boy to sleep for a little cat-nap.

After Meg & Bo’s family headed out late this afternoon, we did force my girlies to have some quiet feet-off-the-floor time on the couch to calm down and rest for a bit. We pulled out all the leftover food from lunch, and had a smaller feast again for dinner, and then watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving after we ate. Then by that point, the girls were so over-tired and delirious, and put on a whole dance/ballet show to Christmas music, being absolutely hilarious and making me cry and howl with laughter (I may have also been feeling a little delirious by that point as well).

We stayed later than we planned, just because they were being so hilarious and having such a great time entertaining all of us. We thought for sure both girls would fall asleep on the drive home, but Emerson was chatting and singing along with me the whole time, although Addison did actually fall asleep for at least part of the drive. When we got home, we did a couple short Bluey episodes all cuddled up with Pennie in our bed, and then got going with the sleep part of bedtime very quickly, since it was late and everyone was exhausted.

Today truly was a great day, and as always we do have so very much to be thankful for. I feel like a do a pretty good job of remaining thankful for all the things in my life on a regular basis, but I having a day like today to really focus on it and bask in it makes it all so much more special!