Thanksgiving Thus Far

We have stretched out our Thanksgiving celebrations over a full week this year. We started on Saturday when we drove to Louisiana to spend the week with Andrea and her family. That night we went to their church Thanksgiving party where they do turkey bowling. That's where you take a frozen turkey and throw it across the room and try and knock down the soda bottle pins. Such fun! Andrea was our fearless score keeper:

Ella had so much fun doing it. Though she wasn't very good at hitting the pins, she sure threw with style:

Everyone had their turns, including me!

Anton sat out the bowling:

Thanks to the fact that when we were loading up the car that morning he threw out his back. He could barely walk for a few days. Poor guy. Lydia, Andrea's newest, watched all the fun from her carseat:

What a doll!

On Monday we took the kids to an alligator park. Ella got to hold a baby alligator:

I'm surprised she did. Alex wasn't so sure about it and was only brave enough to touch it's tail:

I loved this sign they had hanging up in the alligator house:

They also had a really cool playground there where we all got in on the fun, Andrea I think most of all.

She was riding all the toys with the kids. I even took a turn myself:


Andrea was also a swinging fool.

What a goof. She sure knows how to have fun!

Look at her fly!

Speaking of having fun, I think Alex wins the award for having the least amount of fun. While trying to get on a swing Alex neglected to make note of the large mud puddle below it.

He fell in and got completely soaked and muddy. Poor kid. He spent the rest of the time running around without pants, but he managed to get some swing time anyways:

So dirty!

When we got home from the park we began our baking spree. Since we are having to do a big extended family Thanksgiving on Thursday we decided to have our own version on Tuesday, so we had to do all the prep work on Monday. I whipped up an apple pie:

A pumpkin pie:

Some raspberry filling for the cake I'm making for Thursday:

And some leaves for the cake top:

I felt like I spent the rest of the day on my feet in the kitchen. My feet were killing me!

To finish off the day we let the kids play in the big bathtub:

Can you believe that I got 3 kids all looking at the camera and smiling all at the same time?

Anyways, the festivities continued on Tuesday and into Wednesday, but those photos and stories will come in the next installment. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!