Thanksgiving 2012

 We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving up in New Jersey. We were so lucky to have so much family with us. We were up at Jake and Tyra's house with my parents and Josh and Laura. The boys loved having so many cousins to play with. We all felt quite spoiled! Sterling's cousin, Scott Erickson also joined us from Princeton.

We spent the night before Thanksgiving prepping the turkey, stuffing, and pies. Luckily for us we had the pie master, my momma. My whole life growing up I have lots of memories of making pies with my mom for Thanksgiving. It was really fun to make them with her this year.

Our pies. We had sour cream lemon, pecan, pumpkin and cherry. 

 My brother Jake had a sweet hookup and got us tickets to go in and see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. We drove in and then walked to the office. It was a beautiful morning. 

Little Man with grandma and grandpa. Josh, Bryn and Laura.

 Jake, Leah and Isaac.

 When we got there, they had a really nice breakfast for us. We found seats and waited for the parade to start. It was on the third floor on sixth avenue. Perfect seats. It was nice and warm and had lots of space for the kids to run and play.

Momma with Jake, Josh, and Israel. 

Before we knew it, the balloons started coming. They were amazing up close.

Grandpa sat and held Israel for most of the time, while Jake had to be checking sales for most of it. 

 The balloons and floats were all awesome. My favorite was Hello Kitty, although Spiderman and Papa Smurf were pretty cool too. We loved trying to spot all the stars on the floats.

 The kids were pretty entertained with so much to look at, although they had no idea just how awesome these seat were.

Sterling and Leah.

 

There weren't enough tickets for all of us to go to the parade. So Sterling took a small group to go look for fossils that morning. Gouverneur went with him and was a complete angel.  He also took J.J. and Scott. They had pretty good success.

 We made it back in good time to get the rest of food prep going. Tyra stayed back with Abe, Abby and Dellin, and got the turkey going,  

Here's Tyra and Bryn cutting potatoes.

The spread.

The kid's table.

 Isaac and Leah both wanted a drumstick.

 These four had a lot of fun together although I  think more talking than eating was going on here. Bryn was outnumbered with all these rowdy boys. Cute cousins.

We ended the day with Israel's baby blessing. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. 

Thanks Jake and Tyra for setting up such a wonderful day. The food was delicious, the parade was amazing, but the company was the best part of the day. We love you and miss you already. Already looking forward to Thanksgiving 2013.