Of my almost 28 years, only a three of my Thanksgivings have not been spent with my family; one being last year and two as a teenager. My family is one of those that does the same thing each year and eat the same traditional food…down to the pies and the fruit, marshmallow, and whip cream salad. And I love it.
This year, of course, was not spent with my family and while the thought made me a little lonely, we were blessed to spend it with friends. We had turkey but it wasn’t exactly traditional according to my family traditions. Mostly, I think that was a good thing because I think here we just need to start new traditions if we are to feel at home.

So our friends spent the day, with the men working on building the island for our kitchen, mamas making food amidst some play and art breaks with children.

Thanksgiving art

Little Friends

Hunting acorns

Decorating our thanksgiving table; a row of plywood set on saw horses, but out on our veranda with a beautiful view so redneck with a touch of class:)

Our finished table

Writing on our thankful leaves

Hungry girls eating up baked squash, sauteed cabbage (recipe coming), rice stuffing, homemade applesauce and cranberry sauce...with their favorite part; the turkey!

Beautiful food and beautiful friend!

Pretending to work.

Thanksgiving Apples for our neighbors horses.

Mini pumpkins filled with pumpkin spice custard.

The thankful tree

How the boys spent their day.

I had intended to write more but even though it is Wednesday, I am still too tired. I will note though that it was a wonderful weekend and while all of these pictures look quite tranquil we weren’t without our moments of chaos. Like when in the final prep moments of supper, one child had a melt down over not going with Daddy to the hardware store and while dealing with that, another child climbed up and dropped a plate off the table. Only to start playing with the broken shards. And yes, they both belonged to me. Still the picture are fairly accurate, those slightly crazy moments are much surpassed by the beautiful!