Thanksgiving

Ella loved making 'hand turkeys' in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and then she started making "tiny turkeys" - for some reason I found the concept of the tiny turkey so adorable and endearing, here is a picture she made, one of her specialties :)

And a few other Thanksgiving projects we did -

A funny story - One morning Ella wanted to draw a picture of Thanksgiving and I decided it was a good time to tell her about the story of the first Thanksgiving. So I tell her this long story about the Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, the Indians helping them getting settled, bringing them food, sharing, being grateful for our blessings, etc. Between my story and all the questions she asked, this lasted about 10 minutes and I really felt like she was "getting it." So at the end of our talk I said "Okay, so if you want to draw a picture like the first Thanksgiving, what will you draw?" Her answer: "Pies!" ...We had NOT discussed pies in our talk :)

I went to her school for her Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday, and they sang a cute little song about being thankful, here's a little video clip -

With her best buddy from school

Mom and Glenn came for Thanksgiving, and arrived on Tuesday afternoon. We were all excited for their visit and had a really great long Thanksgiving weekend.

Touching a frog that stopped by the pool on Wednesday

Ella loves helping in the kitchen, so was very happy to be a part of cooking Thanksgiving dinner

Making cranberries with Grammy

The part she was most looking forward to, putting marshmallows on the sweet potatoes

Cooking went really well, luckily I've always had Mom there when we host Thanksgiving, so I have lots of lots of help, especially for the jobs I can't quite get into (like cleaning and emptying the turkey!). 

We made turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberries, and crescent rolls. I let Ella shape the crescents and they came out in all different shapes, very unique to say the least!

And I decided she was old enough to handle eating on our china, and she was very excited for her sparkling apple-grape juice, right out of a wine glass

With Grammy before dinner

Using our dining room for the first time, ready for Thanksgiving dinner!

Later that night, Steve put the fire pit together and we roasted marshmallows for s'mores

Mom, Glenn and I went to paint pottery on Saturday, and Ella picked out a Christmas tree to paint

Glenn showing Ella his masterpiece

At the playground in our neighborhood

Riding her scooter home...until she got tired and couldn't ride it anymore (but somehow had the energy to run all the way home instead)

On Sunday Mom took Ella to get a haircut

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend, and although I try to be continually grateful for all that we have, there is really no better time to stop and really think about how much we have to be thankful for.