Thanksgiving 2014

One of my favorite things about living in the house is the community feel. It's more of a family feel than anything, which is comforting for me (even though I'm only an hour away from my immediate family). We try to have a house dinner once a week, and for awhile last summer we actually managed a streak of almost two months without missing a week. Not everyone was there each week, but whoever was gathered in the backyard with something to grill and stories to share from the week.

This continued through the fall, and we decided it would be a  good idea to celebrate Thankgiving together. That night was one of my favorites so far at the house. We gathered in the Schmeeckle's living room, filling every chair and even some of the floor. Everyone brought a sidedish, and Adam smoked meat for the main course. We had mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. There was even pie! 

Deb and I spent much of the day leading up to dinner in Omaha at Children's, going to appointments with Abbi. On our way back we went on an adventure to find lactose free sour cream and cream cheese, so I could make 'party potatoes', a family recipe that my family eats every Christmas Eve. We ended up finding it at Natural Grocer's in Omaha, and are still bummed that the Lincoln store doesn't carry the good stuff yet. It might be too much information, but neither Deb or I can have dairy products, and we wanted to be able to eat as much as we wanted. Needless to say, the potatoes were a hit, even with the dairy eaters.

During dinner we turned on Elf, so the kids would maybe sit quietly and watch that instead of running around like crazy (it mostly worked). I think we ended up starting that movie at least six or seven times last Christmas season, and I'm still not sure I got to watch it all the way to the end. 

It can get pretty loud and crazy when we're all together at one time. Having the patio and the playground in the backyard has made it a lot more enjoyable (we'll get to the story of that later). But it's always joy-filled and tons of fun. Blessings on your Thanksgiving season, may you spend time with family and friends and be thankful in all things.