Thanksgiving-pocalypse

Here's a few pictures before our Johnson Family Thanksgiving... I should give a warning that there are some yucky details involved...this is my journal after all :)

I had to document the fact that Carter feels very possessive of the shoe bin. Luckily this phase only lasted a week or so, but at least once a day Carter would empty out the entire bin, climb in, and just sit. He would yell if you tried to put anything in with him, or take him out, until he was ready. Then he would calmly climb out, put a few shoes back in, and carry about his day.

I still regret not buying this hat. We were just on a family Target trip, and Carter tried this adorable hat on. He totally pulled it off, and was just beyond cute with all the faces he was making. What a funny kid!

I just realized I only have Carter pictures this time. He is the kid that is willing to smile for the camera right now. Right before Thanksgiving I decided to chop all my hair off. I was just sick of the messy bun every day, and knew that short hair forces me to actually do something. It was the wrong choice. The haircut doesn't look bad (three months later I should probably get it trimmed or something, but it still looks OK), but I like long hair. I now begin the process of growing it out again :).

And now we've officially made it to Thanksgiving-pocalypse weekend. We are so lucky that our family gets together so often, and we are able to hang out as siblings and our kids know each other so well. That being said, I think everyone questioned this family reunion a couple times. In the three day weekend we had 18 cases of the stomach flu (out of 20 people), and when there are only two houses to go to, it got a little rough. But we had a blast all gathered together, we played lots of games, ate great food (luckily only two kids were sick before Thanksgiving Dinner), and totally enjoyed the company.

Jenaye was a rockstar that weekend, teaching the kids to crochet and busting out a few beautiful pieces herself. Olivia still cooks with the hot pad that she made all the time :). What a great Aunt!

Here are the men leaving for Turkey Bowl. At this point Carter was sick, so I wasn't at Amber's house yet that morning, but they had a great time, and weren't nearly as muddy as in Oregon. Alex was apparently too cool to pose, but the rest of them had their usual goofiness.

Meanwhile, at our house, Olivia was trying on Daddy's shoes while I was cleaning up sheets and clothes from Carter's night. Once we got ourselves together, and we were pretty sure Carter was done, we loaded up all the food from our house and headed over. We had Jenaye and Emily staying at our house, and I was very glad to have so much help. At this point we thought that the two toddlers who were sick might be a coincidence, and everyone else was feeling fine, so we carried on.

Food prep was a major process. We each came with our own lists, our own responsibilities, and spreadsheets a-plenty. Feeding 20 people for Thanksgiving doesn't have to consist of this much food, but everyone has their own favorites, and we won't turn a dish away. The kids all got in on the roll making, which Emily headed up (of course....I would say it's her specialty, except she has three or four - or more - specialties, so we kept her quite busy). The next picture is Tasha free-handing beautiful leaves to put on the Apple pie. I'm not going to lie, I was skeptical of this time-consuming project that was merely decorative. But I will admit I was wrong. This extra special touch was beautiful, and she did a great job! It just shows the different skills of our many family members I guess :). I will keep the spreadsheet and get everything in the oven on time, and Tash can make the food beautiful and yummy :).

Grandpa and the grandkids made an AWESOME pirate ship fruit bowl. I wish I had a better picture of it, but it was complete with lego crusaders and people careening (wrong word? Maybe) from one layer of the fruit display to the next. All of the kids were in awe that food could be so fun :).

Candy made this gorgeous turkey veggie platter. WAY beyond my artistic ability, and it was full of lots of yummy veggies. We munched on it all through the dinner prep, and really the entire weekend. So cute!

I think this is our victory pose for getting the last thing out of the oven. Emily has a much better victory pose than Mom and I

We officially had a kid table! Carter was the only one sick at this point, so he was missing, but we had a few other red-cheeked, or not-eating kids. We should have been aware at that point that trouble was to come, but we just let the kids eat chocolate turkeys (thanks again Candy!) and focused on enjoying the day.

After dinner we started to get a little sketchy. Kids were acting grumpy, and of the four kids on the couch, ALL were sick within 24 hours.

By that evening we had lots more illness. It was all kids that were sick at this point, but as you can tell, the grownups were pretty worn out from the food prep, so we all just relaxed and hunt out. I don't even think we pulled out games that night, we just chatted.

The next morning was the .25 sale at a local kids thrift store, so all the moms headed out to that and we came back to gingerbread man making! Yes all these kids were either recently puking or soon to be, but we do the party very well, so we couldn't give up on this one!

Friday night I got sick, and Saturday morning was Alex, so the next day when everyone went to see Frozen and talk to Santa at our cool new mall, we sent O and bowed out ourselves. They had a fun time though, and Olivia was over the moon about the new Princess movie. Now that I have seen it, I totally see why.

After that people started heading home. Tasha flew out Thursday night, and Emily, Dad, and Jenaye soon followed. the Bryan family stayed until Monday, and on Tuesday, Mom and I took our kids to Utah for some more adventures! We were mostly feeling better at that point, with some residual grumpiness but not a lot of illness. Overall a successful weekend, but our standards may have lowered at some point :).