"Lets eat the turkey in my big brown shoe"

-"Turkey Song" by Adam Sandler

Thanksgiving this year was delicious... and fun... and crazy. I'll try to condense it but as Jeff can tell ya I like to talk haha.

Last Thanksgiving was hard. We were on an elimination diet but trying to eat at the Leavitt's with everyone else. I knew it would take a lot of energy for me to prepare my family's food before hand, bring it to the party and convince my kids it's just as good as what everyone else is eating, but for some reason I didn't have that energy. Turns out I was pregnant and I didn't know it! Anyways, the children ate all sorts of allergens and I felt bad.

I was determined to do better this year. And I had hope because Amber was going to be there and she's a super great cook and doesn't mind trying new things. She pretty much came up with all the recipes and was able to either make the recipe according to Gray's restrictions or take some out for him before the other stuff was added in. It worked great! The other thing that worked out was we fed Grayson his food FIRST. He was happily munching on his special plate and didn't notice the other food. It was a far cry from the Saturday before when we had dinner at Rod & Cindy's and he cried the whole time!

After dinner we went on a hay ride (down a ditch bank, how's that for small town!) and tried to find the goodie bags that were hidden earlier. It was super fun! The weather was so amazing. We went after sunset so I took jackets for my whole family but we didn't even need them! That's one benefit of living in the desert :)

We stayed in Blythe four days and ate Amaploa twice, haha. My cousins's daughters Marlena, Shiloh, Victoria and Angelique came over and kept up busy playing Sardines, Uno, Hide-and-Go-Seek and the like. Also Meema bought a trampoline on Black Friday and that kept the little kids from getting bored... Grayson only fell of once so that was good!

All the Tippit women together makes for a lot of drama. I swear I try to be patient with my mother it's just really difficult. She hounded me the entire trip to wash the dishes. Even when I was nursing the baby, changing diapers, putting PJs on or putting someone down for bed all I'd hear was, "Why aren't you doing the dishes?" or "Don't you want to do the dishes?". Frustrating.

The Sunday we left Amber wanted Thrifty ice cream so the boys went to get some. They ended up getting eight flavors! It was like a Thrifty ice shop or something. We thought about charging 15 cents a scoop to be just like old times ;)

On the hay ride:

What, you didn't have foot races on a ditch bank this Thanksgiving!?
You're missing out.