Thanksgiving Festivities

THANKSGIVING:

 the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

The thing I look forward to the most is traditions with family.  I love that every year I get together with my female Madsens and spend an entire evening making and baking pies.  I love that my dad's extended family comes over for a huge feast, usually the week before Thanksgiving.  I love that it starts the Christmas season by name drawing.  I love to have laughs at the dinner table and then spend the rest of the night sprawled over the carpet going through Black Friday ads (and then battling the crazies and early a.m. hours for a couple great deals).  

This Thanksgiving was one of the funnest I've had.  It started out with a little pie baking - Asher tagged along and kept me company while I made an Apple Crumble Pie. 

Dallin helped out Grandma by separating pumpkin seeds so my mom could make Pumpkin Pie straight from the pumpkin!!!:

Then we enjoyed the company of all the Madsen's, which is really quite fun and crazy.  I have a blast.  It started off with some paper airplane making with Uncle Paul: 

And Grandma showed these little whipper snappers how to make a real airplane, not one of those fancy schmancy ones from the airplane book :) 

My camera battery unfortunately died and so I don't have any fun pics of the family.

But come Thanksgiving Day, my battery was fully charged and ready for action.  This year was supposed to be our 'Off' year.  However, for several reasons my family ended up being 'on' again, which ended up being great for us since Paul's family had to cancel due to a sick kid.  

So initially my mom and dad were planning on taking Gaven and Amber out shooting...but then Paul and I had no where else to be so we joined in the fun...and then Amanda and Kenny didn't want to be left out so they came along as well!  Almost a full house.

We headed clear the heck out to the boonies to shoot - and the setting was gorgeous and it was a BLAST! (ha ha pun not intended...or maybe it was)

It was a perfect day for Asher to wear his Carhartt gear!  I was so excited to get a picture of him wearing this with my dad since my dad has Carhartt coming out of his ears! Isn't he CUTE??!  (That was a rhetorical question.  The answer is yes, of course). 

We all got a kick out of Gaven's style for the day: 

My high school sweetheart (literally, they were!) parents: 

       

  

Later at dinner - our first Thanksgiving with Asher Pants:

Asher in a Johnny Jump-up for the first time....he'll work at the jumping part :) 

Gaven took over Samantha's back tickling...with a pen.  Morgan was given a 'Tramp Stramp.' 

The boys played in Grandpa's hunting fort: 

And Asher was victim of Dad! 

That was a lot of photos I know...but I was too lazy to collage them. 

Yay!!!  Now to get busy with Christmas!