thanksgiving in grand rapids

this year, jenn and don volunteered to have thanksgiving at their house and i'm sure mom was more than happy to oblige! unfortunately jess and justin spent thanksgiving in florida but as far as i know they are back home now (thanks for calling, jess!)
mom and dad went out to grand rapids on wednesday to help jenn out while we all headed over on thursday morning after a stop at the cracker barrel for breakfast.
the boys loved having such a big open house to be able to run around in and talan loved having all sorts of new toys to make a mess with. at one point jenn said her living room had never been that messy.....just call talan's decorating service to experience it yourself!
dave was more than happy to hang out downstairs and watch the big screen while the kids went back and forth from upstairs to downstairs.
jenn and mom were working hard in the kitchen and we had a great thanksgiving dinner. on the drive home dave and i discussed that the twice baked potatoes were our favorite part.
we had been talking to hayden about all the different foods that we were going to eat for weeks and had been telling him he would have to try some of them. he ended up eating his turkey fairly quickly and then, with a bit of resistance, tried the cranberry...which he said he liked but didn't want any more of. next up was to try the squash. again, another small fight but he eventually did it and then proceeded to gag himself. i honestly thought something was coming up. after the squash he tried the stuffing which i think surprised him that he actually liked. in order to get another pumpkin muffin he was told he had to take one more bite of something on his plate. he chose the stuffing. he wanted a few more pumpkin muffins which meant he took 2 more bites of stuffing. pretty impressive. he did it all for the pumpkin muffins and root beer we bribed him with. eh, whatever works.
after dinner dave ended up back downstairs, the babies played, hayden played a pinball game on the tv in which he got the high score of over 700,000 points, and we all checked out ads and mapped where we were going to go the next day....ok, so that was pretty much just me.
we ended up heading home around 8pm and talan fell asleep almost immediately while hayden stayed up playing his video game.
we had a great time and a great meal. thanks again, jenn, don and rainah for having us all over!

doin' work in the kitchen:


talan taking a short rest with daddy:

every thanksgiving mom gets an ornament for everyone. and this year the tradition continued. talan was too busy playing and didn't want to open his present:
but hayden couldn't wait to open his:
hayden's soccer ornament:

dad's tool bench ornament:
rainah looking for more:
mom's jim shore ornament:
what the guys did:


talan finally got around to opening his ornament and he LOVED it...a drum set. what else?!:

now what do we do?!:
the transfer:

the twice baked potatoes....mmmmm:
even though it isn't his house, dad still had to do the carving:

rainah's hands and feet turkey place settings:
waiting to eat!:
not looking forward to eating!:
for all the vegetarians in the house:

the baby moochers:


talan pulled out his laptop so he could "do work" like jenn: