Thanksgiving is a great time of year. It's a good excuse to get together with family, eat lots of food and reflect on the beauties of life.
This year Madeline and I made some pies and buns to take to our various dinners. Her favourite part was helping me "clean up" after rolling out the pie crusts.
Here's the product.
And the aftermath.
Lucky for us we had two Thanksgivings. The first was with the Laytons.
Travis made that cheesecake on the BBQ.
Everything was magnificently delicious as usual!
We snuck in some chilly family pictures before it got too dark. It was good to have everyone there!
On Thanksgiving Monday we headed over to Pattersons for our traditional get-together.
Noah is such a cute little man. One minute he can look just like Stephanie and then the next minute, Greg.
Madeline enjoyed some time in Uncle Robbie's studio (a.k.a. his room) and you could hear her singing and drumming throughout the whole house.
Noah and Claire got better acquainted by beating each other up.
Maddie, Noah and I played a trio on the piano.
Madeline was feeling a bit under the weather for the long weekend, but still managed to get lots of good hugs in.
Now, before you think we're insane, holding a stick with Melanie's head on it, hear me out (or maybe it's our facial expressions that have you thinking that...). Have you ever heard of Flat Stanley? It's a character in a children's book who gets flattened (I know, it's horrific, but cute) and can then travel around the world by mailing himself to his friends. A long time ago, one of our cousins mailed a "flat" version of herself to another cousin who lives far away. Since then it's become a silly way for us to include family members in activities when they're not able to be there.
So here are all the siblings - including Flat Melanie who happens to be in Scotland. You probably can't see it in the small photo, but we're copying her strange facial expression. Don't worry, there was a Flat Adam too, since he's in South America. Our stalwart missionaries.
It was a great Thanksgiving long weekend, despite the fact that Ryan had to work on the Monday. We had a lovely time with family and friends and loved the great weather. But...
...it takes a long time to recover from a party weekend like that.
