Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. This year we celebrated by keeping it simple and at home.

(Thanks for the butter beers, Dad!)

We spent Wednesday and Thursday all pitching in for the meal. It was a good experience teaching the kids how to cook, because they actually ate what they had made 🤣

But it was also a good way to keep hands busy as we mourned our dear Chloe, who had passed away that morning.

Here are the kids’ feast contributions (with adult help).

Arrow mixed & layered a Raspberry Lemon Pretzel Salad. SO good. We are going to try a cranberry flavor next time.

Archer on cranberry sauce. The children were delighted to watch the berries “pop” as they cooked.

Sander, naturally, was put on potato duty because he is a maniac with the vegetable peeler.

We also had FIVE PIES for all 5 of us. And yet, it wasn’t enough.

This Thanksgiving was extra special because we got to celebrate this good man:

The fact the kids had near unlimited screen time was also pretty memorable.

Overall, it was a really lovely holiday. We are grateful to have good food with each other, celebrate a birthday, and grateful for all the memories with our family dog.

Now it’s onto Christmas prep, finals week, and getting the dang yard cleaned up before the snow hits.