Not Your Typical Thanksgiving

 This Thanksgiving was one of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever, I think. Like I mentioned in my last post, we drove to Phoenix, Arizona to spend it with Aaron's sister Stacey and her family. We brought Kelly and Ryan and Ryan's girlfriend Melissa with us. Debbie, Aaron's mom, was already there. Aaron's sister Lisa and her husband Jared and their four kids drove in from Washington, and Chuck, Aaron's dad, flew in Thanksgiving morning. Everyone on Aaron's side was there except Sydni and Jake and their two boys. Lots of us stayed at Stacey and Rob's and some also stayed next door at the neighbor's house (he was gone).

Thanksgiving morning all the guys went out back to help Rob spread gravel to make a cool pieced granite section in their backyard. They all looked to cute with their safety glasses and hammers. :) Lincoln thought he was so helpful to dig in the dirt along side the older guys. I had to keep reminding him not to put the dirt clods on the newly spread gravel.


Ivan and Jeremiah had fun crawling around on the floor together. They got along really well. I think Ivan weighs about the same as Jeremiah does. They are only about 5 months apart. It was really cute to watch them play together. Lincoln had a fun time hanging out with all the older cousins too. He loved following them around and trying to do what they were doing. Maybe it's because I live in an apartment, but in Stacey's house, even with all the people constantly running around, I never felt like we were crowded in. It must be so nice to have a house. :)

At one point in the morning, Ryan told the kids that he would let them throw him in the next door neighbor's pool, if they could get him to it. I'm sure he figured that this was impossible and that he was pretty safe; however, he did not count on the kids enlisting Melissa for help. With her help, they dragged him to the front door of Stacey's house, lifted him into a wheelbarrow, wheeled him over to the neighbor's house, got him out of the wheelbarrow, and threw him in the pool. It was all pretty entertaining to watch. I think most of the kids got thrown in afterwards, but somehow Melissa managed to stay dry.

During the time everyone was watching Ryan get thrown into the pool, Lincoln was supposed to be taking a nap in Stacey's room (Stacey and Rob let our family sleep in their masterbedroom while we were there. It felt like staying in a castle.) instead he was doing this:

Getting into Stacey's nail polish and spreading it EVERYWHERE. All over him, all over his clothes, all over Stacey's carpet. Nail polish. Grrrrr.....I could have killed him. I put him in the bath tub and did my best to scrub it all off, while Aaron and Lisa and Jared tried to get all the nail polish out of the carpet. If I could only pick one thing for the nail polish to come out of right away it would have been the carpet. Thankfully my wish came true, somehow they managed to get all the bright red nail polish out of the light tannish carpet. Lincoln wasn't so lucky. We tried our best, but it gets to a point where leaving it on his face is less cruel than trying to scrub it off his face. So much for getting a picture of the family to send out with the Christmas cards.

It was my job to make the rolls for dinner this year. Last time it was our turn to be with Aaron's family for Thanksgiving two years ago, I also got assigned the rolls, and I burned them. I'm surprised they let me try again. But I'm glad they did, because I think I redeemed myself. :) They turned out really well, if I do say so myself. Dinner was fantastic. All the food was just as good as you anticipate it to be. And we stuffed ourselves. Then we had about 8 different kinds of pie to choose from for dessert. They were all so good. My contribution was a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pecan pie. I'd never made it before, but the picture on bakerella.com (can you tell this is my new favorite web site?) looked too good to pass up, and it was. I'll try to post the recipe later. Everyone made fun of me because I had made the pie in Provo before we left, and it had to travel all the way to Arizona with us in the cooler. I'd say it was worth it though.

At some point during the day, someone asked Melissa if her family had any Thanksgiving traditions. She said that she and her siblings like to get out the leaf blower and blow it in each others faces while snapping pictures. I guess we must all really like Melissa, and wanted to make her feel at home, because you'll never guess what we did. Yup. Rob got out the leaf blower and we ALL took turns posing in front of it, even Chuck and Debbie. Ya. I felt that it was only appropriate of me to post the pictures of Aaron and I. Everyone else can decide for themselves. It was pretty funny. What would be even funnier was if Melissa was making it up the whole time that it was her families tradition, just to see what we would do. Haha.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was great to have so much family around. And I'm glad that we got to do some really memorable things together. Well, except for scrubbing nail polish out of the carpet, but what ya gonna do?

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!