Thankful.

I hope all you Americans out there had a wonderful Thanksgiving and all my British (and any random readers from the rest of the world who might be passing by) had a generally wonderful November 24th!

This was my first Thanksgiving in America since 1999, my husband's first American Thanksgiving since he was 4 and Jessica's first EVER. We had a lot of catching up to do!!

However, my plans for a giant family gathering in Florida went awry when the doctor decided that my mother needed to have her sinus cavity scraped (yeah shudder - it's okay, I do every time someone says it) and her septum undeviated while he was at it. Thus, instead of trekking down to Florida for the holiday, Mom would have to stay tucked up in her bed in Virginia recooperating. We could still have made the trip down to Florida but then I heard Grandma was headed up to Virginia to help out post-op. Granted we could have gone down and visited my brother, but it seemed like a rather long drive when half the family was going to be up north. (Plans are in motion to figure out a time to visit with the brother or drag him kicking and screaming up here to visit ;) Another 'we could have' involved going to the family in VA, but Mom and Dad's temporary place isn't exactly spacious or toddler friendly so we opted to stay put with promises that Grandma would stop off to visit during her trip and that Mom and Dad would high-tail it to ours as soon as they got off for Christmas break.

Enter Friendsgiving 2011! We had a little bit of experience with the concept since, last year we used Thanksgiving as an excuse to get our friends together before we left Scotland.

You might not believe it but hosting Thanksgiving with 4 toddlers was much easier than hosting with one 9 month old (granted said baby was teething, going through separation anxiety hard, and woke up with a cold the next morning) plus the 3 extra toddlers came with 3 extra awesome mothers, and as everyone knows - watching kids, cooking and cleaning is always smoother with more moms. In such a situation you can't have too many moms. :)

Is it just me or do the Collins (at the bottom) look like they pose for family photos professionally?!

We deep fried a turkey - awesome.

We ate a ton of yummy food - awesome.

We played board games / video games - still awesome.

We did a turkey craft with the kiddos that was less messy than expected and turned out.... awesome! (pictures to come)

and on that note...

Just a handful of things I'm thankful for

• My amazing husband, who's a wonderful father and the best friend I could ever want.
• My beautiful, sweet daughter who (you'll never believe me) is asleep IN a pack n' play. That has NEVER before happened. EVER.  
• My parents. I love being able to see them on a regular basis! For the last decade I saw my parents maybe once every other year and since we moved back to America I've seen them at least once every month! They drove four hours fighting holiday traffic just so Mark and I could spend the entire day together for our anniversary.
• My new friends. I've never been quick to make new friends but having a little one has thrown me out into the world of people and I've met some great Moms in the process. 
• Mark's job. He enjoys what he does AND he still has time for his family. 
• That our house has SOLD!!!!!!!