Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 was supposed to be a little different with the Ellison/Manges/Nassar gang doing it all at Matt & Jenna's house this year because of baby M's arrival date and such. But it ended up being just the same as every other year with all of us going to Nana & Papa's house with the whole big gang of my family. It was a fun day, lots of delicious food that I really shouldn't have eaten but yet I still did. We pretty much just hung out all day with family, eating, cleaning up, enjoying dessert, watching how precious all the kids are, talking about the upcoming new arrival, and watching all the football games.Among all the different football games that were on tv this year our teams definitely did great and WON all the big games! The two biggest games for us are always on Thanksgiving Day, with University of Texas vs. Texas A&M (huge rivalry if you aren't a fan) and with A&M leaving to go to the SEC that was their last big rivalry game for Thanksgiving Day, so it was definitely a game for the history books and boy was it ever! Then we of course had Dallas Cowboys vs. Miami Dolphins which was such a good game! Our family somehow has ended up getting divided through the years with one half of the big hang hating the cowboys and the other half LOVING them. And as for UT & A&M most of the family hates UT except the Ellison/Nassar gang and I'm sure you know who won :) Anyways it was a fun day all in all!

 Here is the kids Thanksgiving table eating and playing- Ben, Elijah, Adley Ann, & Eli

 More kid fun

 Last picture of Thanksgiving kid fun, but notice in every one of these three pictures one of these crazy boys is acting so WILD, oh boys!!

 Here is a picture of our Thanksgiving centerpieces this year, they did a tall clear vase with nuts in the bottom of the vase and tree branches coming out of the top with paper leaves tied to the branches with twine. During the week of Thanksgiving my aunt Bonny mailed out these paper leaves to everyone so we could all write what we are thankful for and then we all brought it with us to Thanksgiving Day and tied it to the tree branches on the centerpiece so we could all read them during the meal. It was really a neat idea, some were very sweet and special while others were pretty funny!

 And here are the black friday shoppers looking through all the different shopping ads that came in the paper that day! They were getting ready for the hardcore Christmas shopping that was about to happen.

 Here is the kids craft table making their traditional Christmas crafts to hang on the Christmas tree, a fun tradition we have always had in our family, I remember doing this as a kid!

 Here are the red and green felt mice that they made with a candy cane...so festive and cute!

Along with all the Thanksgiving celebrations, we also had a few birthdays left to celebrate in November...so here is my cousin Autumn and my mom blowing out their candles on their birthday cake as we all sing to them! It was another fun, Thanksgiving day spent with family being reminded of how much we have to be thankful for!