Thanksgiving & Family Update

Guys, I have been waiting for SO LONG to be able to write this post. I'm so excited to finally share my secret, and start writing about everything on a much more consistent basis.

I should begin by saying that this year I decided to take on the task of hosting Thanksgiving at my house! We wanted this Thanksgiving to be combined with my family and Alex's family! I am so grateful that we both adore our in laws, so the idea of having everyone under one roof was anything but scary. Our families get along wonderfully, and i just knew that the day would be filled with so much laughter and love. I'm so super lucky to have an amazing mother and mother in law who insisted on helping every step of the way, so I honestly didn't have anything to stress over.

My saint of a mother took over pretty much everything and made sure that every aspect of Thanksgiving was taken care of. Weeks ahead of time she was out shopping, up late crafting, and menu planning. She bought so many things and made sure that I didn't have a huge financial burden by hosting.

The day before Thanksgiving, my family came over around 5:30 and started helping me clean up and set up and decorate and everything else. My mom also lit our entire Christmas Tree and helped decorate it so that it would look spectacular for the following day. They decided to all spend the night so that we could be up and at 'em bright and early. It also meant less driving and more quality time, so i say that is a win-win ;)

We turned on the Christmas tunes, ordered a few pizzas and had a blast just spending time together. Alex was my hero and ran to WinCo at 9:00pm that night and faced the mobs for me and picked up a few items that I had forgotten. Bless Him!

The next morning the boys woke up and went to our wards Turkey Bowl. Ian even came out to join because of how awesome it was going to be. They were gone for a few hours and when they came home they were exhausted, which means that it was obviously a successful Turkey Bowl.

While they were gone, Mom, Grandma and I were able to stuff and prep the turkey, get casseroles put together, set the tables, make stuffing and gravy and basically everything else necessary. My mom also decided that she was going to make a tasty breakfast! She make homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls and eggs with turkey sausage!!! I'm telling you, my mother went above and beyond for me! I definitely appreciated all the helping hands that morning. It made everything go so quickly. There was always someone washing or wiping something down so my kitchen never even got that messy!

Around 11:30 the McHardy clan started showing up, and we watched the football game (which we aren't going to talk about, because my Packers got smashed...) and snacked on some pre-thanksgiving food snacks. Then my Father in Law made mashed potatoes and we were pretty much ready to go at that point!

I think we ended up eating around 3:15, which was the goal! Hooray! There is a tradition in the McHardy House on Thanksgiving where the Head of every household present says a Thanksgiving prayer specifically for their family. It is a tradition that I always loved in previous years when attending Thanksgiving at my in-laws, so I am glad that Alex decided to continue it at our dinner. My Father in Law began and said a lovely prayer, mentioning his wife, and his children, but somehow he skipped a few kids. After my dad's prayer regarding our family, my Father in Law recognized his mistake... halfway. He started to say thanks for Alex and all of his hard work. Then he was finished again and passed it on to Ian. But we were all laughing pretty hard because he had still forgotten Max! My Father in Law joked that if you aren't sitting at the table, you will get forgotten. Then quickly said thanks for Max. Once all of the McHardy siblings had been prayed for Alex said a beautiful prayer about our little family that made me cry. I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband and his loving words.

After prayers were said we broke out the food! Everything was delicious! We joked about how upsetting it is that the food takes hours, if not days to prepare and then people are done eating it within a matter of minutes! But at least that usually means that everything available was just really delicious!

The nice thing about having so many people over for dinner is that the kitchen gets cleaned up amazingly fast! After clean up we relaxed and visited, and also broke out a fun little Christmas puzzle to work on.

Pie was consumed a few hours later. My incredible Mother in Law made all the pies and every single one was beautiful and delicious! Our dear friends Mark and Hope also came and joined us for this part of the evening and I am so glad they were able to stop by!

It was a great Thanksgiving and I couldn't have asked for a better family to spend it with. But I'd have to say my favorite part of Thanksgiving was the Facebook announcement I was finally able to share!

 I knew from the second we found out that we were expecting, and that I would only be 14 weeks on Thanksgiving that this is how I wanted to announce it! I am so happy to be blessed with this little family! We definitely have SO much to be thankful for this year.