Camping At Thanksgiving 2013

This year was the Smithson's year for Thanksgiving (we only have it every other year).  For our Thanksgiving celebration this year, we went camping in Usery Pass.  Every member of the family was able to make it!  We were also blessed to have Grandma Great and Aunt Carol with us.  It was so nice to have everyone together for once (it has been a few years since the last time we have all been together.)

Here are some before dinner and preparation photos:

 Oliver was definitely in his element camping.  I think he would have "moved in", if that were an option.

 Hannah and Charlie were fast friends (Hannah is almost 17, Charlie is 2)

 There are currently 25 Smithson Grandchildren, with 2 more coming soon (My sister in law, Amber, and I are due a week apart from each other).  Aren't they are beautiful sight!

 Dinner was amazing!  Everyone bought one dish and then made one dish (dutch oven) there.  Man the food was good!  Seriously, really good!  (Have I mentioned the food was good?)

 After dinner, the rest of the time was spent playing!

 The next morning, Brandon made a wonderful breakfast, we played some more, and then we headed home.  The kids were upset that we only camped one night, but that's how long we had the site for.  Personally, I think it was okay. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a blast!  (Thank you, Kathe and Gary, for planning such a fun gathering).  P.S.  The food was really quite good.  Just thought I'd emphasize that.

Low Key Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a low key, at home Thanksgiving... which, ironically, is starting to become a bit of a tradition (we did our own Thanksgiving last year too)! We started the celebration on Wednesday, making "I'm thankful shirts". I gave the girls both the camera and let them walk around the house and take pictures of things they are thankful for. We ended up with hundreds of pictures... so they had to narrow it down to 6 or 7. I'm happy to announce that every member of the family made it onto every one's shirt. This is a good sign that I'm doing something right, right?

Then we printed the pictures onto transfer paper and ironed them white shirts.

The shirts turned out really nice, but I have to admit, I had envisioned the transfer paper being a little easier to work with. I have used transfer paper to make gifts before and it wasn't as obnoxious as this time. Regardless, everyone was cute in their thankful shirts at dinner on Thursday.

In addition to the shirts, we all wore Indian Headdresses with fun names on them.

Dad was "Big Chief", Mom was "Little Mama", Melanie was "Red Feather", Noelle was "Stands with a Fist", and Oliver was "Silly Monkey".

We ate good food, which we made together as a family, and just had a lot of fun.

And our first family picture after bringing Oliver home.

Happy Thanksgiving.