happy thanksgiving

now it was time for the main attraction - thanksgiving! i have gotten it down to a system for the most part so it isn't too bad to make. i had made several items in advance but the bulk happens today. madelyn was really looking forward to making the apple pie "all by herself." she did the bulk of it herself, and could have done it all if we had more time. i needed her to hurry so that i could free up the oven again. she is melting the butter and sugar to pour on top of her pie in the picture.

while i put things together, the kids were keeping everyone entertained. mason had begged and begged everyone to play tic-tac-toe with him. nana was finally the one to agree to a game (or ten).

during a lull in the cooking, i went to have some snuggle time with madelyn in her new bed and ended up taking lots of silly pictures.

we don't have quite enough chairs at the table, so the kiddos sat at a kiddie table

diggin' in!

once we were all good and stuffed, we went to the christmas tree festival to walk around and make room for dessert. matt and i had already had a sneak preview at the gala and we were really excited to bring everyone else.

the lebron family foundation tree - sold for $10,000

manning loved this frozen tree

this is the florida christmas tree :)

madelyn's favorite - a frozen display by joanns

mason loved this star wars tree

and just look at that smile! this was maddux' favorite.

madelyn was pretty excited about this "science tree" with periodic symbols as ornaments.

mason liked this tree because it was the same as his baseball team this summer

mason was the only one willing to have a picture with santa and mrs. claus. we were trying to get a picture of the whole family. oh well.

daddy pretending to be maddux - everyone was amused.

what a great thanksgiving! we even had a pretty snow all morning. it wasn't much accumulation, but enough to make everything look white - just what madelyn had hoped would happen! happy thanksgiving! love.