Thankful.

We had the pleasure of hosting Thanksgiving this year, 13 of the Kriege/Jeffers clan came together in our duplex!  We tried out some new recipes this year....some were better then others ;) but oddly enough we had sooo much food that in the middle of the meal we noticed that we didn't have Julie's 3 salads she brought!?!  Here's our sign--so much food you don't know when you are missing some!?!  WOW!

Every Thanksgiving in the afternoon, we bust out National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation--this year marked the 11th year of this ongoing tradition!  I love the laughs and the reciting of everyone's favorite parts :) 


This year Josh drew a  family tree and each of us put our thumb print on it, a neat visual of our family tree--we gave it to Mom as a keepsake of this day!

We then went around the table at lunch time and all said what we were thankful for--it's neat to hear the little ones say what they give thanks for :)

Black Friday is also one of our yearly traditions---we have so many fun memories of this day!  From the time in Grand Forks we thought we were going to get beat up as the crowd behind us was pushing us into the crowd waiting up front....to getting matching socks for our shopping extravaganza!  The hustle and bustle and waiting in suuuuupppper long lines is a fun tradition for us girls!!  It's always fun to get home and see all of the neat steal of deals you got for your family that morning...or night ;)

When we were done shopping Thursday night/Friday morning--Zachary got to go in for some allergy testing!  He has had allergy testing done before back in 2009 and it came up that he was allergic to quite a few foods including peanuts, cashews, eggs, and some fish, we were just curious to see if his allergies had gotten any worse or if any have gone away!

So they poked him 38 times with various allergens--they did cats, trees, molds, trees, grass, and foods.

You can see the ones starting to swell, I think the big ones on this side were the grass and trees mix.

And this was the aftermath--eggs, peanuts, cashews, mold, trees, cat, and grass mix.....the doc laughed and said, well winter is going to be about his best season!  He was such a trooper though and we are just thankful we have an understanding and have it under control!

This year we have so much to be thankful for...family, friends, and our health!  We are so looking forward to this Christmas season as well...this year will be the first year that all of our kids will wake up in their own beds to their own Christmas tree on Christmas morning!!  I've pinned about 20 things on pinterest that I can't wait to do with our little family, more to come on that in a later blog :)  Happy Holidays from our house to yours!!