Giving Thanks

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING to those U.S. Followers!

I had a super busy day of cooking and sharing with family.... Managed to snap these in between though!

Sweater, Belt, pantyhose - Forever21

Skirt - Mango (about 15 years old from Turkey)

Shoes - Newport News

Earrings - Asos

First here are photos form YESTERDAY's activities:

 My friend had come over for a playdate and we took the kids on a 'nature hike' to collect sticks and leaves and pine cones for thanksgiving table decorations...

 Of course in my neighborhood every single house pristine yards that were cleaned up for the holidays with not a stick or leaf on the ground. Finally we found one yard that was not 'cleaned' and did their cleaning for them!

Then at home had the kids paint and glitter some of the pine cones...

I had seen this in someone's blog from pintrest and adopted my own version of adding almonds on top of the corn. Our dried leaves were not the best but they worked somehow...

Knowing how much cooking I would do on Thursday I set the table on Wednesday....

And this was my friend's idea: you cut up leaves from construction paper and have the kids and your guests write what they are thankful for and tie them to this vase of branches...

And this was another art project we did. Traced and cut the kids hands on scrapbook pages of their choice and glued them. These are the hand prints of our 4 kids to remember the day! :)

TODAY:

My mom and the lady staying at her house came over at 10 AM and we cooked non stop until about 2:30 PM! Had a whole mishap with the oven over smoking when we put the turkey in and had to stop and my mom had to clean out the oven but somehow we were still on our target time of 4:30 to eat!

Tried all these new gourmet recipes where everything was made from scratch. Such as the fried shallot rings to top the green bean casserole.

The Cooking Team after we showered and dressed!

Guests writing what they are thankful for on our little branch tree:

So pretty at the end. After dinner we read all these. Translating between Turkish and English...
The funnies one was my daughters where she said she was thankful for 'playing dress up with my friends at pre-school'. :)

Here are some of the dishes....

Here is my silly husband with the turkey:

With my Dad...

After dinner the kids put on my son's kindergarten costumes to put a little skit. They actually didn't say much but they were so cute and fun to watch...

 Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours....

And now I am off to the midnight black friday sales....