Thanksgiving Hayden-style

Since I'm out of fruitcake jokes, I thought I'd let you see a little bit of our Thanksgiving holiday...

Every trip over an hour with 5 children is exciting, no matter what. We were making our trek to Terre Haute, Indiana to spend Thanksgiving with family. For normal folk its about a 3 1/2 hour trip. For folks like us, it's a 4 1/2 hour trek with 1 potty stop and a Starbucks run.

Combine that with one 12 mile long traffic jam and we've just earned ourselves another hour or more. Looking on the bright side, it gave us more time to sit and think about things to be thankful for, right? umm...sure.
When it gets dark early the amount of games to play as you travel drops off considerably. When you're parked on the interstate the amount of games to play as you travel drops off considerably. --and that, my friends, is why God gave us children! Who else would decide that a good game to play in the car would be Hide and Seek!! Here in these pictures you can see the kids in the car....followed by a picture of them "hiding"....such creative children! Ha! The funny thing, besides the fact that they chose to play hide and seek without actually moving into a hiding place is that they played the game for quite a while!
Finally, we arrived at our destination a mere 6 hours after we departed. Strangely enough, we were just in time for dinner!!

When cousins get together there is always lots of fun and exciting things to do. Such as, figuring out how to arrange sleeping positions for 8 kids on the floor of the office. Who gets to sleep next to who and under what blanket. Why so and so can't sleep near the office chair or the door by the hallway and how come Titus doesn't want to sleep near Caleb's feet.
What holiday weekend would not be complete without watching The Sound of Music with your cousins? After all, how would they think up songs to sing for days afterward if they hadn't done that?

The trio of potato peelers made an everliving mess of peelings everywhere, but does it really matter when you're all so cute?

Enter in the Gansta cousins throwin' signs out to their homey's after they made "homemade" green bean casserole...complete with a secret ingredient!

What holiday weekend is complete without a little bloodshed?
While scouting in the woods for berries to mix into the secret mud of the boom boom club...Ethan managed to slip on the fallen tree he was walking on, landing on his face. (nice move) Thankfully...Nicholas saved Ethan's life and came running for the parents.
IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE??!! Well...actually...there is!
Dr. Aunt Charlotte and her ultimate surgery skills (not to be confused with her bow hunting skills), turned the living room into an inpatient surgery center! It was totally awesome! Ethan received three stitches on his forehead, one very baad lookin' bandage, and a video of the whole thing.

There was a little bit of BLACK FRIDAY shopping, but there was no one rising before dawn to go scalp and killer deals at any store. In fact, I believe I was in my pajamas until well after 10 O'clock that morning.
While we were out shopping at Old Navy, Emily found a friend...or so she thought initially. Since she's only two, I'm not worried that she thought the mannequin was real at first..
Our trip home was uneventful and was quickly followed by everyone donning their pajamas and curling up on the couch to watch a movie together.

Up next, Christmas!! Can't wait!!
We're having company at our house! Hurray!
The rooms are ready.
The house is decorated.
The gifts are bought...well, mostly.