Happy Turkey Day!

A day for thanks.... and turkey 3 ways!

It was our turn to host this year, and we were excited to have everyone over. It was definitely in Short style to cook food for 18 people when we only had 10.5. Left overs anyone? Regardless, it was good food with great people.

I decided this year I was going to decorate the tables all Thanksgiving-y. I found some nice decor for the adult table and some super fun things for the kids. A coloring tablecloth, hats, stickers...they loved it!

Carson watching all the action

Becky got this tree where you write on the leaves what you're thankful for. All of us wrote our little comments and it turned out pretty cute I thought

Turkey 3 ways = Oven roasted, Fried and Smoked. This was the smoked one getting it's butter bath

It's time! We're ready for the turkey tasting.

Lia with her veggie creation

Ready to carve!

The spread

Dinner was amazing! It's true what they say - cook all day and eat for 20 minutes. But oh goodness.... that 20 minutes was worth the all day cooking extravaganza! They results from the turkey tasting (even though all of them were so good!):

Me:  #3. Smoked #2. Oven roasted and the winner - Fried! 
Stephen:  #3. Oven Roasted #2. Smoked and #1, again, Fried!

Since we were all together (almost - missing Michael), we decided to take the opportunity to grab some family photos. With treats to bribe Miles to sit still and a little hope that Carson would tolerate, we set out for the always difficult group photos. 

Soo... Carson wasn't enthused with this plan. But hey.... everyone is pictured.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE! 

Outtakes

While photographing the "day in the life" post, I took photos over the course of a few days. I didn't want to miss anything, so figured I'd be safe and keep the up the paparazzi lifestyle for a couple more days. I ended up using all of the first days' pictures to keep consistent with clothing, etc., so here are some of the outtakes!

Stephen doing his morning hellos:

Wearing his "I see" = Sunglasses

"Okay Miles, Dada's turn. You push!"

The Devlins came over to watch the Alabama game and to have the kids play. We were lucky that the weather was nice and got to do our first fire of the season! Mike's mom was in town so she watched the girls so Mike and Natalie could come hang out too! It's also camping season, so like before, the Gates were out of town. But we made sure to have a "who has the best fire" debate throughout the evening.

Alabama was losing, so the kids were helping Mike raise his spirits

Tomorrow will be 80, so lets soak in the chilly fire night while we can!

Big boy holding his own bottle!

Miles was working on a drawing and comes running "Mama! A lala!!" Lala=helicopter. Tell me you don't see it! 

Gates are back!! Fishing with Ta Ta and Dada

"A dish!! Haaaand?!"

So I bought diapers from Target online, and they used an insane...INSANE amount of bubble plastic. 

Miles was in heaven

Just a dad and his boys :)