Blasts from Thanksgiving Pasts

I have spent every Thanksgiving meal with my parents since I was born. I have also spent almost all of them with the Smidts and Aunt Elinor. Last year I added the Knutsons/Sutters to my Thanksgiving gathering list. However, this year I will be making a Thanksgiving first; I am traveling to the "Rez
to spend the holiday with my wonderful Godcousin Jacque. Our cousin Laura is making the trek with me. I'm SO excited to see where Jacque lives and teaches! I can only imagine the shenanigans the three of us will get into out there.

I was looking through some past Thanksgiving pictures on my computer tonight, and I thought I'd share a few. My cousins and I LOVE to have photo shoots; so even though to many of you, these pictures will just look like silly times, these are Thanksgiving to me.

This was SO much fun. This was Thanksgiving 2009. We raked HUGE piles of leaves around Marybeth and Norby's house and had a blast jumping in them. I think we were out there for hours.

They retaliated against me since I got Connor and Megan to bury Laura and Michelle.

I can't remember the year of this one. It was probably 2007 or 08. I showed up to Marybeth and Norby's with the same jeans as Michelle! Grandma thought we should take a behind picture.

Amy, Rob, Mark and Christa had to work the day after Thanksgiving one year, so Michelle and I babysat the kiddos. We took over 50 pictures just playing around on Connor's bed. Here's one of them. Don't the kiddos look SO young? 

Here's another shot. It's hard to believe that this is little Kaylee who was one of our bridesmaids!

I got in on some of the pictures as well.

This is Thanksgiving 2009 again. This is the kid table. Somehow Will got moved up in the world, but I stayed back. It's ok, we have more fun at the kid table. We took solo pictures of everyone and their favorite Thanksgiving food. I share two of those a little down the blog post...

I'm so glad we took this picture. This ended up being the last Thanksgiving that we had our wonderful Grandma Jeannette with us. Two months later she passed away. She loved getting in on our famous cousin photos. 

Connor loves JELLO jigglers. That's actually an understatement. He will only eat JELLO and buns on Thanksgiving. Every year after we pray, we say what we're thankful for. Every year Connor does not disappoint us. He's thankful for BUNS! 

We tried starting a new family tradition. Friendship bracelet making. I wore mine for almost a year afterwards. 

My favorite food is BUNS! I'm a bread girl...

It was so much fun to look back at previous Thanksgivings. I can't wait to see what Thanksgiving will bring this year! It'll be great to see my oldest and best friend!