Turkey Time!

This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our home with members of Jeff's family. What fun we had with Momma T, Jason, Lori, Kayla, Keaton, Kaden, & JoAnna!

They came in on Tuesday evening. We talked, laughed and stayed up late happy to be together. Jeff laid out the rules - ok, only one rule at our house...if you go home hungry it's your fault! Don't worry, we had an overflowing amount of food to be consumed on vacations....which I lovingly name Tolsma Fat Camp. We then pulled out all the bedding and got comfortable in our cozy place!

Wednesday morning we toured the "moneyfactory" Mint in Fort Worth and saw how money was made. We love going there with guests...it's free and fascinating! We then drove by Jeff's office and saw where he spends all his time. We came back home and played in the backyard, played games, watched Star Wars & cooked in preparation for Thanksgiving.
We had to have the Tolsma traditional rolls, jello salad & deviled eggs which were made by these pretty cooks below:

We also had time for some crafts...making our pilgrim/Indian hats! They turned out really cute.


Thanksgiving morning we started early making our feast. Jeff & Jason went to play football and we cooked and cooked! We entertained ourselves as we wrote down what we were thankful for on leaves that we put on the tree poster I painted. Our "Thankful Tree" turned out really cute! This was really fun, and might have to be a tradition I do every year now!

Lori helped me with my first turkey. It turned out yummy!

JoAnna & helpers made Grandma's rolls. Wow, they were amazing. I now know why they are famous in the Tolsma family. :)

We had to have lots of appetizers before the big feast...this is a tradition from my mom! Look at that cute pineapple turkey Kayla made!

I never got a picture of our Thanksgiving food offerings...we made a ton of yummy stuff! Here we are at the table chowing down:

After the meal we went to a park nearby and had fun being outside in the fall weather. We then went to see The Muppets at the movie theater, then came home and played Imagine If which was hilarious.

Friday we started off by going to downtown Dallas to see the JFK memorial area.

Jeff had fun all week with these two cute boys...they were hilarious and we loved talking to them!

We took model shots standing on these columns. Thanks JoAnna for the clever idea!

Then we headed to Fort Worth stockyards and had a blast.

I decided to take pictures using my "sepia" color....oooh, it looks old fashioned, doesn't it? :)

We saw the cattle drive

The boys did a maze

Keaton & Kaden rode on horses...they are cowboys in training!

We went to dinner together. I see the crazy eyes run in Jeff's family.... or maybe Jeff taught Kayla how to do that...

We had so much fun seeing a rodeo that night! It was highly entertaining and gave us some laughs, and gasps. I'll never forget all those kids running after the calf.... :)

Saturday the girls went to go see Breaking Dawn & the boys played football outside. We then had an impromptu birthday party for Lori & Kaden...look at those cute cakes Momma T made! :)

Our present for Kaden..... sorry Jason & Lori! :)

We had so much fun with all these fun people! I am truly grateful for great family & good food this Thanksgiving holiday!