Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving.  I think it may be my favorite holiday!  I love getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I love baking and cooking the dinner.  I love setting the table.  I love the decorations, I love the warmth of gathering family together to share a meal and think about our blessings.  I just love it!

Today was a wonderful day.  We had a smaller gathering this year, only 18 here for dinner, which is fine.   I don't care if there are four people here, or 40, both Reynald and I love hosting this day.

My favorite part of this day, absolute favorite part, is when we "sing for our supper"!  This is a musical family, and when we all gather in the music room before dinner and sing one of the traditional Thanksgiving hymns, it sends chills up and down my spine.  And then it makes me cry.  Such beautiful music this group makes!  And what wonderful conversations we have!  It's so much fun to catch up with those we don't see all the time, and to reminisce about days gone by.

Here are a few photos of our day.  I didn't capture the full day, as I got involved with visiting, but this gives you a bit of an idea of what a warm and cozy day we had!  And a few photos of the prep leading up to our dinner.

Cranberry sauce.  Reynald's favorite part of Thanksgiving.  He LOVES cranberry sauce!

K, didn't use all four pounds of butter, but I came close!  Thanksgiving is all about butter for me!  Actually almost every meal is all about butter!

Butternut squash roasting in the oven.  Again, a carrier for butter!

So, I peeled three potatoes for dinner!  

The last of the eggs from the old hens.  The chicks will be laying soon, but until then, we have to buy eggs!  Ugh!  I know there is a difference between store bought and farm eggs, but this was a dramatic illustration.   The egg on the right is a farm egg.  Notice the color difference!

Last night was a full moon.  This is what we saw this morning, as we were getting ready for our day.  The moon setting in the west, and the rising sun lending color to the western sky.  Also, notice the black tank in the distance.  We had a 40 mph wind yesterday and the tank rolled from the shop to here!  We're calling it "the traveling tank"!  One of these days we will settle it back in to it's home north of the shop!

So, the one thing I don't really like about Thanksgiving dinner is making the place cards.  Thank heaven for pinterest!  I don't have an original idea in my head, but I can copy!

We were all able to fit in the dining room this year.  

Another look at the table set up.

Three men that have been shopping at Costco for their shirts!

The dessert buffet.  You can't see the pumpkin pie, but it was so good!  I roasted a hubard squash from the garden.  Oh my!

A closer look at the "turkey" fruit tray that Karen brought.

The dinner buffet!

Reynald carving the turkey.  He would have smiled but his mouth was full!

Cousins, Sue and Doug.

Darling Torri, who made her first appearance at our Thanksgiving table, and Jeff with a mouthful of dinner roll!

Nathan......happy to be filling up!

Jeffery, aka Roy (sometimes I forget that his given name is Jeff, not Roy!) and Don and Karen!  

Uncle Doug and my dad talking farming!  

More of the dinner crowd.....

Simple gifts, we all give to one another, just by being together, sharing a meal and conversation.  We are so lucky.......