Thanksgiving, part 3 of 700

It's now December, and I still have four drafts for blog posts about Thanksgiving. Yikes, I'm a bit behind. Hopefully I can get these cranked out in the next few days, so I can talk about how completely unprepared I am for Christmas season.

Thanksgiving is slowly but surely becoming my favorite holiday. The extended family, the shopping, the cool-but-not-too-cold weather, the kitchen full of people and various pies. I love it all. This year was no exception. We spent lots of time with my family, and the kids got lots of good cousin time in.

The boys spent some time on the back deck, poppin' wheelies on the big wheels

and shooting BB guns at the homemade target my dad had constructed.

Board games were played (note to self: Emerson is not the best 'Risk' player).

The men in my family cook just as much, if not more, than the women, and I spent my fair share of time sitting at the bar and watching the guys cook.

Unfortunately, I am not so skilled in the art of the "candid shot", and the boys insisted on cheesy poses.

I'm pretty sure most of the adults lived for the precious quiet of nap time every day for a couple of hours in the afternoon. One afternoon the kids were a bit too quiet, and we went upstairs to find that Emerson and Zane had found my mom's stash of Easter eggs.

Yes, my mom has 400 easter eggs in November. Just in case. There's a pretty good chance she hid them in the store behind a stack of crock pots until they were on clearance after Easter.

My dad took the boys out to the train track to leave pennies for the trains to run over, then went out the next day to retrieve their flattened coins.

I'm such an un-fun mom to have never done this with them before. And Dane's shoes had gotten wet in a kite-retrieval excursion, so he had taken them off. I promise I didn't send my children out barefoot and freezing to go play on the train tracks.

Baby Nora helped the guys in the garage (please don't ask me what they were building. I have no idea).

On Friday we enjoyed a much needed night off. My dad had several complimentary nights at a nearby hotel that would expire in a few months, so Brandon and I, and John and Brandy, and Andy and Lindy ditched the 7 grandchildren with my parents and headed out for a blissful night in a lovely hotel suite.

Look how empty it is! No Easter eggs on the floor or half filled sippy cups under the bed!

And it's quiet! No tattling, screaming, or crying to be heard.

And a balcony. With perfect weather. And nothing (except a steak dinner at the hotel restaurant) on the agenda.

Did someone say "steak dinner"? We met up with our fellow kidness-for-the-night kin for a delicious dinner in the completely empty fancy restaurant downstairs.

We had two waiters, it was so empty. And the dinner was comped along with the room! Free steak? Yes please!

Thanks, Momo and Pappy for a much needed night of peace and quiet, in the middle of a busy, fun Thanksgiving weekend!