My Thanksgiving

If you know me, you probably know my crazy family. I have 3 siblings but it feels like 7. And every Thanksgiving, we get together with my mom's brother's family of 6 and blissful chaos ensues for a week straight.

All the cousins in birth order!

This past week has been full of hilarious moments. We somehow ate pizza like, 5 times so we're kinda burnt out on that.

We have a ton of traditions that we adamently fulfill every year. We always see whichever Disney movie comes out on Thanksgiving. (This year it was Moana-omg omg omg)

We also always have a family photo-shoot. My cousin Maegan is super talented with photography (she took my senior pictures last year) and we always have a blast planning props and color-coordinating outfits.

This year, Lindsey joined our "Taller Than Aunt Jill" club!! Her 13th birthday was on Sunday. This picture was basically her initiation into adulthood.

My family

and the boys!

#rebel

On Thanksgiving day, we always start with watching the Macy's Parade. Each of us sign up to cook a certain dish for dinner. Maegan and I organize Christmas wish lists of every family member for our moms to use while they go Black Friday shopping and then we make a graph of which stores they can get the best deals at. My inner-OCD freak is so excited to get started on that after I post this.

The littles always put together a Thanksgiving Musical. Last year, they did "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and this year it's "The Christmas Carol." These kids are great; they write up and memorize a script. The rehearsals also cause a ton of dramatic fights not unlike something you'd see on MTV. It's fine.

We always have a birthday gift exchange so we don't have to mail each other stuff throughout the year. When they come to STL to visit, we always do birthday shopping at Five Below. We draw names to see which cousin we can buy gifts for. This year, Maegan and I bought each other the same rug. We're pretty much *goals*

We also went to Rockin' Jump- the new trampoline park in O'Fallon. It was a TON of fun and we kinda took up half the trampolines. It's fine. Everyone's favorite part of that night was when Garrett (6 years old, pictured above with my brother) climbed the rock wall all by himself without any prompting. The employee was super sweet and let him try a few different times.

After we watched Moana (*swoon*) we went to Union Station for their North Pole event. The whole place was decked out in Christmas lights and decorations; it was ADORABLE.

Callie and her free hot cocoa.

All the pretty lights! (photo creds to Maegan)

I decided to attend "elf school" with the littles.

Now I know how Buddy the Elf felt. I promptly left

to play mini-golf with Maegan and Justin.

Leave it to me to find book furniture!!

We've had such a fun time, and magnificently, we haven't lost any children yet!! Tomorrow we finish out our visit by going to St. Charles Mainstreet. Maegan and I plan to memorize "You're Welcome" from Moana by the end of this week.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

~Beth