Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! It was so fun to see all of the friends and family that came into town for the holiday.

THURSDAY

Our Thanksgiving started by making sweet potato casserole and rolls. I have to admit, I have never made rolls from scratch before and it wasn't as hard as I thought, thanks to Sonja's great instructions and recipe.

I made so many I ran out of things to cook them in!

On my side of the family, My brother Scott and his wife Shirley were nice enough to host the big dinner. The food was great, my rolls were awesome, if I do say so myself, and it was so fun to let Rylee play with all of her cousins. Thanks guys for a great afternoon!

Then we went to my in-laws for Cole family pictures and another dinner. This was the first time that all of Scott's family had been together since our wedding in 03'. It was definitely time for an updated picture. All in all I think pictures went pretty well, as well as they can with that many kids!

After pictures, Scott and I ran back to our house to get the ham and the sweet potato casserole out of the oven. I had been assigned the sweet potato casserole and Scott's mom had asked us to heat the ham since we have two ovens. We stopped at home in between dinners to put things in the oven, knowing we would be back right after pictures. We thought we were pretty smooth because we set the ham timer for 1 hr and the sweet potatoes on a 20 min timer which would then turn off that oven. We walked in our house just to hear the oven buzzer. Perfect timing, right?! We had been gone exactly an hour and the ham was just getting done! WRONG, for some reason the ham turned off after 20 min and the sweet potatoes had been cooking for an hour. So we had a cold ham and crispy sweet potatoes. Oops!! Luckily the sweet potatoes weren't black yet. Everyone either thought that they were suppose to be crispy, or just wanted to be nice because there weren't any leftovers. As far as the ham went, we just cut it up and heated it in the microwave. I guess I don't really know how to work the oven as well as I thought.

The rest of the day went well. We had another great meal and Rylee had sooo much fun playing with her cousins that she doesn't get to see very often.

Jason, Rylee, Alyssa Jo (Jo Jo)

These three played so well all weekend. They had so much fun doing fashion shows, playing house, tag, building towers, doing tricks on and off of Grandma's bed, etc.

Scott and Tyse taking that great "I am so full!" nap

FRIDAY

We went to the zoo with some friends and family. Rylee was so excited to have Jo Jo and Max there together. The weather was absolutely perfect! It was a great day for the zoo.

Rylee "look at my cool shades" and Tyse "still in my PJs"

Rylee "this is my best cheese face"and Max "I have the cutest girlfriend!"

Rylee "this is soo fun mom!"

I have so much to be thankful for!!!

Thanks to everyone who helped make our Thanksgiving GREAT!!