Thanksgiving Now and then...

Sometimes, Holidays are tough.  Especially when you are not in your own house.  I've been at my in laws house and I've had lots of time to reflect how different my thanksgiving was to my husbands.  I enjoy myself at both and thankfully, get along with my in laws.   And even though there is nothing like moms cooking, Mike's family Thanksgiving  was great.  I enjoy both.  The traditional thanksgiving I grew up with and the one Mike grew up with.  And I am happy that we get to incorporate these traditions with the boys. 

Growing up meant waking up and watching the parade while mom baked the Turkey.  She also had pecan, pumpkin, and sometimes chocolate pie that she had made days earlier and had in the freezer.   Green bean casserole, roles, her amazing not from a can creamed corn....THE BEST!  The type of potato varied from sweet to mashed depending on the day.  By the time the parade was over the house smelled immaculate.  Mom brought out the fine china (real china, not paper plates!) and silverware.  The table was beautiful.  Turkey - golden and shiny.  potatoes full of butter...every thing had its place.  Being a military family, we often celebrated with just us.  No going over to grandma and grandpas.  A few times we went or they visited us but for the most part it was just us.   We would eat until we were stuffed!  Following our amazing dinner we would veg out and just enjoy each others company.  Then, we would dig in for more!

Now a days, it's a bit different.  I've been married now for 10 years.  My father in law owns some land with a little hunting shack.  Every year they go hunting - which always falls on Thanksgiving.  It's known as "Hunters Widows Week" around this small Wisconsin town.  We have been here a few weeks and I have seen him less times than not.  Its ok though because he gets some amazing bonding time with his father and brother.  The day of Thanksgiving, they don't hunt. My father in law got cable and we were able to watch the thanksgiving parade while drinking mimosas!  YUM!  In non traditional form, the guys cooked the dinner while the ladies watched football!


Even my little man helped grandpa bake pumpkin pie!
 

Little man on the other hand was quite the slacker.  Thumb sucking is hard work!
 

The food amazing but also slightly different from what I'm used to.  Yes, we had Turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberries.  But we also had perrogies, pickled vegetables, cabbage rolls and something called kapusta.  It's filled with more members of the family, cousins, and lots of noise! Typically we will go to my Mother in Laws vegetarian (and AMAZING) thanksgiving as well but she was visiting her mom this year.    The nice thing about being here was watching my boys interact with family.

Family is so important to us and it was great watching everyone interact with the kids.  Even better, it was great watching my two boys play with their cousin. She is a darling little thing and so much fun.  It was great.  The kids ran and ran all day long.  We barely got them to sit still long enough to eat!  I barely caught a picture at the end, guess I should have done that in the beginning. 

I am so thankful we had such a great thanksgiving and the boys had so much fun.  I'm thankful for family that cares about my children and takes teh time to spend time with and play with them.  Not everyone is so fortunate.  I hope you all had as much fun this thanksgiving as I did!

ALSO!  Don't forget to enter for the free tickets to Omaha's Ugly Sweater Run!  Drawing will be done the 30th!