Our happy Thanksgiving

It is our family's tradition to spend Thanksgiving in Miami with Scott's family. We were very thankful that Amelia and John's cousins, George (8 years old) and Abby (almost 11 years old), were also in Miami for the holiday so that the four Wilson grandkids could spend time together again this year. Most of my Thanksgiving pictures feature all four kids or some combination thereof because they were always together during our time in Florida.

The day before Thanksgiving all four kids enjoyed spending time outside riding scooters and skateboards. Below are George and John enjoying being together.
The kids thought it was especially fun to push each other down the slope of the driveway on the extended skateboard. This skateboard is longer than a normal-sized board, which allows for balancing the body in all sorts of combinations. They tried the skateboard all different ways - sitting on their bottoms, lying on their tummies, with hands to balance, without hands for balance...you name it. Below John is pushing George down the driveway. The kids had a blast, but we are probably pretty lucky that no one fell off and got scraped because it would have been bad.Below is the more serious pose of all four kids after playing outside. I tried to snap as many photos of the foursome during the holiday as I could.

And with lots of laughter from the same position.

The children and I enjoyed spending time making a food-related craft on Thanksgiving day before our big feast. Below John is stealing some candy corn from the supply bowl while Abby dutifully prepares a candy turkey.

A sampling of the finished product! I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it was cute as can be. I definitely don't have creative inclinations naturally, but I thought I might be able to supervise the kids in using icing to adhere different candies and cookies together to make these cute table decorations.Amelia and Abby seemed to enjoy making turkeys with me, and all four kids definitely enjoyed eating them! I was happy with the way they turned out.

Later in the day Amelia and Abby spent some time on the back porch supervising the men while they fried turkeys and smoked a pork shoulder.Scott and his youngest brother Chris are chopping the smoked pork below. One of the Wilson's four dogs is waiting in the wings for any scaps that could potentially fall.

One of the two fried turkeys...one was injected with Cajun spices and the other was naturally fried. Both were delicious.

Mrs. Wilson prepared a fabulous holiday meal as always. The side dishes to the aforementioned meats were amazing: cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, green beans, collard greens, and Hazel's copycat Red Lobster cheese buscuits (new this year, and completely delicious!). The desserts were equally lovely: Key Lime Pie and Sour Cream Poundcake with fresh berries and whipped cream. I fell into a food coma later that evening for sure, thankful for the lovely day and evening with friends and family.

One last shot of the kids from Thanksgiving. Hope you all enjoyed your holiday as much as we did!